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Guess a lot of topics like this is posted on the board but I hope someone got the time to help me out a bit.

I'm buying a new soundcard but I can't decide what to choose. I' have been looking at "ESI WaveTerminal 192M" and "ST Audio Media 7.1". I would like to have an breakoutbox and a lot of in/out. I wanna be able to connect my mixer to it and have my synths etc connected to it whitout switching around all the time. Do you got any suggestions? my computer is:

Intel P4, 2000mhz
Asus P4PE motherboard
Saphire Radeon 9000 Atlantis Pro
512 mb Ram
2X 60gig hardrive

the mainsoftware I use is: Cubase, Rason, Logic, FruityLoops, Rebirth, ReCycle, CoolEdit, Samplitude, Audiograbber, Wavelab.

my hardware for now is: MS2000r, Electribe ES-1 and EM-1 and Midi-keyboard MK-249 and some old analog vintage synths.

buying the most expencive card is nothing for me, I'm thinking not more than 4.000 Swedish crowns (400$) but at the same time I don't want to buy something that I will have to replace in one year just because the card is to weak. As many functions as possible and with a low latency :-)

At the samt time I'm looking for a good MIDI-interface, might sound like overkill but from 4in/4out up to 8in/8out is what I want...it's better to get the interface to which I can just add my new hardware in the future instead of getting a new one, any suggestions here? I'm thinking of a price around 200-300$.

regards // Chris, hope someone can help me out whit some info here.

C Ya, :p: from Sweden

Comments

Opus2000 Sun, 05/11/2003 - 08:44

Can't say that I know either of those or who actally uses them as well. I'm sure the A/D or D/A converters are not so good and will not capture what you want that well especially on the summing side of it. As you add more inputs the converter circuitry will start to degrade very quickly. That's why most smaller input and output based cards are better sounding. The less summing it has to do the better!

Basically it comes down to this. You buy cheap, you get cheap qualtiy! That say enough? Spend the extra cash and get yourself a good sounding card.

Opus

lambchop Tue, 05/13/2003 - 12:41

Opus, I've just recently discovered the ST Audio C Port DSP2000 and was also considering purchasing it. These are some quotations I found from another site which I'm posting just for information sake. Do you know any of these authors and should we question their abilities? I trust your wisdom on this one -

The well known Electronic Musician magazine has published the first ST Audio DSP2000 C-Port review in a US print magazine (june 2002): "The C-Port is certainly one of the best digital-audio interface values today." / "Sound quality is superb: quiet, with clear highs and quick transients (...) " / "I wouldn't be surprised to see this product quickly become one of the most popular audio systems in the Windows music world." - you can read the complete article here. The unit received 4.5 out of 5 points in the final result.

The german c't magazine writes about our DSP2000 C-Port system in their issue 11/2002: "With a Signal-to-Noise-Ratio of -110dB and a dynamic range of -99.6dB, the combination of the DSP24 and the ADC&DAC2000 is the leader in these areas."

In early 2001, Shannon O'neil reviewed the ST Audio DSP2000 C-Port in the australian Next Music magazine: "The C-Port is by far the best value for money sound card I've yet seen. " / "I'm so impressed with C-Port that I'm planning to buy one." - you can check the text here. The unit was rated with 95% (Overall Rating).

In july 2001, the british Sound On Sound magazine (John Walden) reviewed the ST Audio DSP2000 C-Port: "There is no doubt that Hoontech's Soundtrack Audio DSP 24 and ADC/DAC2000 system provides a very flexible range of I/O configurations. The drivers appear to be very suitable for use with software synths and samplers."

The international online magazine pcrecording.com has tested the ST Audio DSP2000 C-Port: "Hoontech has put together a winning combination with the AudioDSP24 and the ADC/DAC 2000" - you can read the complete article here. Please note that a new revised manual is available in the meantime (check the PDF-file on the download page) - also the knobs used for tightening the D-SUB cable connectors have been improved.

The DSP2000 C-Port was rated as best card in the test (soundcards over 300 DM) in issue 10 / 2001 of germany largest and most popular computer two-weekly magazine ComputerBILD. The huge number of special features of the products outweighted all other cards in the test.

The german magazine KEYBOARDS has tested the DSP2000 C-Port in their issue 07/2000 with very good results: "Hoontech's SoundTrack Audio DSP 2000 is a very uncomplicated card with simple routing and stable software

The Dutch magazine Interface did test the DSP2000 C-Port system in their issue 46 (oct / nov 2000). Especially the soundquality but also the very stable drivers and the microphone preamps have been rated as big plus by the editor.+

The german magazine PC Direkt rated the DSP2000 C-Port system as very good (issue 04/2000) - giving it it the highest score of all recording cards in the test! They especially liked the high flexibility of the system.

lambchop Wed, 05/14/2003 - 07:07

Just an update - I've found that the quotations I copied from an auction site actually came from the manufacturers site with links to some of the articles. If anyone is interested the site is http://www.hoontech.com/

The manufacturer is a Korean company. I read the full Electronic Musician article and it seems that Opus' comments were right on the money. It says, "The outputs of the ADC&DAC2000 are referenced to -10 dBu rather than the +4 dBu professional standard, which means the unit will be headroom-shy in a professional-equipment environment. That and the unbalanced outputs are doubtless the results of efforts to keep the price of the system low."

In re-reading the post I noticed that kriswilliam was referring to the ST Audio Media 7.1, a 2 input, 8 output unit. The articles I reffered to are written about the C-Port DSP2000 which is a larger 8 input, 8 output unit. I would suspect that the AD/DA info. would apply to both.

I'm steering clear of this one and will probably end up buying a Delta 1010, unless there's something I should know about this, too.

anonymous Wed, 05/21/2003 - 00:13

i have two suggestions for two price ranges. For lower price range (under $500) try the Gina24. I use this at home and it works great. two 1/4" analog ins, eight 1/4" analog outs, spdif, 24/96, low noise and good sounding. For the higher price range (over $500) try the MOTU 2408 mkIII. I use this at work and i'm very pleased with it. 24/96k, 3 adat i/o; 8 analog 1/4" i/o; 3 tdif ports; smpte, video, and word clock sync; great sound; all in one unit!

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