Hi Konrad:
Thanks for the information and clarification.
So your preferred system is an internal AES/EBU card and do all the ADC and DAC through external
units not integrated with the computer, so the computer is more a "record and playback head" than a
full-fledged "tape machine"? I've thought about going this way with my next DAW, not using the
computer for any analog interface, either way, but using it as a storage, processing and editing
system all in the digital world.
What is it about Firewire cables and connectors that you find to be "dodgy"? I thought Firewire was
the more reliable interface for constant-stream data like digital audio and video, that USB was
designed more for bursts of data like moving files between hard drives or emptying photos off a
camera or sending a document to a printer.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Konrad Strauss" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 09, 2011 9:30 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] digital input sound card recommendation
> +1 on the Lynx cards. We have six AES16 that have been in service for four
> years now. As with all computer systems they require tweaking from time to
> time as the OS is updated, but I've found maintenance to be pretty
> straight-forward.
>
> To answer a couple of Tom's points below, jitter is not a issue in
> digital-to-digital data flow. This is called interface jitter, and as long
> as the samples arrive at their destination intact no harm is done. (The he
> other kind of jitter is called sampling jitter, it happens during ADC and
> can cause major problems) So Firewire and USB interfaces are not
> necessarily bad, it really depends on the implementation. Personally, I
> dislike the cables and connectors, especially Firewire. The whole system
> seems dodgy to me. You can also run into problems if you want to use
> Firewire/USB DAC and ADC units from different manufacturers, often this is
> impossible because of incompatible drivers. I much prefer to stick with
> AES.
>
> The interaction between audio and video subsystems is probably caused by
> an IRQ conflics. My memory is a little hazy since I haven't had to deal
> with this for a few years, but occasionally PCI slots will share the same
> IRQ address so if the audio and video card are in slots that share,
> glitches can be put into the audio stream when minimizing windows or a
> monitor going to sleep. Usually the recommendation is that if this happens
> try swapping PCI slots. I think that in Windows 7 you can manually assign
> IRQ addresses but like I said I haven't had to deal with this for a while
> so I may be misremembering.
>
> --
> Konrad Strauss
> Director of Recording Arts, Professor of Music
> Indiana University Jacobs School of Music
> http://mypage.iu.edu/~kstrauss
> http://www.music.indiana.edu/departments/academic/recording-arts/
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 8/9/11 1:46 PM, "Tom Fine" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Hi David:
>
> That's a real bummer. Those are my front-line ADC's too.
>
> There has been much progress in recent years with external ADC's. However,
> I keep reading articles
> and papers about the USB connection not being ideal due to jitter and
> latency issues. And yet,
> firewire keeps getting de-emphasized by hardware manufacturers. I'm also
> not sure what role video
> circuitry plays in a modern Windows system. Even thru XP, there was some
> interaction between digital
> audio and the video subsystem, I'm not expert enough to discuss details
> but there are articles and
> white papers out there.
>
> If you're doing your analog-to-digital conversion externally and then
> "recording" an AES/EBU stream,
> it seems like you could use a very simple interface, but again I'm not
> sure how much clocking and
> latency matter in that setup.
>
> I've had some CardDeluxe cards since 1999 and they still work fine. Why
> not just recycle them as you
> upgrade computers, or are you building out more workstations and now need
> a new way to skin the cat?
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Seubert" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, August 09, 2011 1:38 PM
> Subject: [ARSCLIST] digital input sound card recommendation
>
>
>> This discussion has come up repeatedly over the years but I just learned
>>that the Digital Audio
>> Labs CardDelux has been discontinued. I'm not sure why they have been
>>discontinued, but we got a
>> call from the manufacturer who said that they are "obsolete." We have
>>long used their cards (we
>> are a PC shop) and I need to spec out another PC-based audio
>>workstation. I use the CardDelux for
>> the AES/EBU digital inputs.
>>
>> What are people using for digital input from an external ADC these days?
>>Is there an equivalent
>> sound card to the DAL card with AES/EBU digital inputs? I know some ADCs
>>offer firewire/USB
>> outputs, but I haven't really explored that.
>>
>> Please send any suggestions to me on or off list.
>>
>> David Seubert
>> UCSB
>>
>
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