Buying a new sound card: WILL I REALLY HEAR A MAJOR difference?

[Qwerty]

Right now I have a Creative SB Live, I think it's a pretty cheap one. I was planning on buying the E-MU Proteus X Desktop Sound Module or the Proteus X MO'PHAT X BUNDLE. I'm using Reason 3.0, my question is: when i get this new sound card will i hear a real BIG difference in the sounding of Reason's sounds?

Also, i you think that these choice of soundcards are not good, feel free to give me your own advice. Thx

 

[Fade]

Large Pro has always been one of my favs, especially since I first heard "Looking at the Front Door". Instant classic.

 

[DJ Excellence]

indeed ! "Breaking Atoms" is flawless

 

[dacalion]

LP is a legend!

 

[dfine]

it's a boy(slick rick)remix is one my favorites

 

[Greg Savage]

nah we just Spend Big bucks on cards because we like the looks

 

[Frictionbeats]

....

nah we just Spend Big bucks on cards because we like the looks

CO-SIGN


-Frictionbeats

 

[classic]

LOL umm yea, ur only gonna sound as good as ur soundcard.

Would u have an expensive car with a busted engine???

 

[Qwerty]

Allllright, you sarcastic remark answered my first question, but now answer my second one please : are they good buy? which is better the MO'PHAT bundle are the Desktop Module??

Or should I go for another card?

 

[Studiophile1234]

Buy the one you can afford. The mose expensive soundcard in the world is not gonna make your tracks sound better. It will just make it sound clear. If anything invest in some Monitors, and a decent pair of headphones. The best way to go in my opinion is to get a Pre-amp and run your sounds through so it wont sound so digital. Just my opinion.

 

[afriquedeluxe]

audiophile 2496 is pretty good for the price.

 

[Qwerty]

Buy the one you can afford. The mose expensive soundcard in the world is not gonna make your tracks sound better. It will just make it sound clear. If anything invest in some Monitors, and a decent pair of headphones. The best way to go in my opinion is to get a Pre-amp and run your sounds through so it wont sound so digital. Just my opinion.

That's true, but I see the Proteus a lot in producer's equipment in Scratch, that's why I wanted that one. But what's a Pre-amp?

audiophile 2496 is pretty good for the price.

What's the audiophile? is it from e-mu too?

 

[classic]

That's true, but I see the Proteus a lot in producer's equipment in Scratch, that's why I wanted that one. But what's a Pre-amp?
?

DOnt do that, dont go by what other people have, demo and research and see what works for you.

m-audio is a good brand and people will be coppin them alot more since they work with protools now. I think that would be ur best bet

class...

 

[Sin:Aesthetic]

That's true, but I see the Proteus a lot in producer's equipment in Scratch, that's why I wanted that one. But what's a Pre-amp?



What's the audiophile? is it from e-mu too?

the audiophile 2496 is an m-audio product and it is excellent quality for an internal soundcard.....may be better to get an external m-audio soundcard though....no radioactivity from the computer to mess with external soundcards, either that or get the audiophile and get it protected/insulated from internal radiowaves

 

[50 cal]

if i was you i'd get one of m-audio proucts, so you can use pro tools, any of the m-audio cards will work with it except for the usb ones.

 

[Sin:Aesthetic]

if i was you i'd get one of m-audio proucts, so you can use pro tools, any of the m-audio cards will work with it except for the usb ones.

actually i believe they just made it possible for all m-audio products to be compatible, even usb ones, dont quote me on that, but i believe they are all good now

plus the other thing about m-audio is that they have exceptional quality control...basically all of their products are quality

 

[50 cal]

actually i believe they just made it possible for all m-audio products to be compatible, even usb ones, dont quote me on that, but i believe they are all good now

plus the other thing about m-audio is that they have exceptional quality control...basically all of their products are quality

nah.. they just added all pci cards and the firewire audiophile and fire wire solo. heres the link http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=media.new&ID=e3be84fb2e1fbea640c174061287ce0b

 

[Sin:Aesthetic]

nah.. they just added all pci cards and the firewire audiophile and fire wire solo. heres the link http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=media.new&ID=e3be84fb2e1fbea640c174061287ce0b

cool, thanks for straightening that out for me man

 

[Qwerty]

Thanks everyone for the help.

DOnt do that, dont go by what other people have, demo and research and see what works for you.

m-audio is a good brand and people will be coppin them alot more since they work with protools now. I think that would be ur best bet

class...

Well this thread here is my research! lol. There are demos for soundcards??

I went on m-audio.com, and the audiophile card you guys talked is :24-bit/96kHz digital audio card. At first i said to my self: ohh..it aint 192kHz, but then I remembered that the human ear can only go up to 44kHz, then why are they making 192kHz?? For bats??? lol

 

[50 cal]

Thanks everyone for the help.



Well this thread here is my research! lol. There are demos for soundcards??

I think he means buy one and if you dont like it return it and try another

 

[Ash Holmz]

Thanks everyone for the help.



Well this thread here is my research! lol. There are demos for soundcards??

I went on m-audio.com, and the audiophile card you guys talked is :24-bit/96kHz digital audio card. At first i said to my self: ohh..it aint 192kHz, but then I remembered that the human ear can only go up to 44kHz, then why are they making 192kHz?? For bats??? lol

test have shown that experinced engineers can tell the diffrene between 44khz and 96khz but no test definitively prove that there is real diffrence between 96 and 192khz so i say it really dont matter as long as you can get up to 96 ur straight for the most part.. but mainly you want a card woth a decent a/d converter.. thats where you will really hear the diffrence and why some cards cost wayy more than other depite having the same general specs

 

[2_nice]

i go with 88.2 it is good. On cheaper cards it is better to use higher sampling rate as there lpf are not of as high a quality as other cards. Although a card might be recording at 44.1 there is distortion present at half 44.1 (22.05) and at this frequency there is distortion (check the nyquist theory) so a low pass filter at that frequency will actually effect some audible frequency (then there are theories saying that higher inaudible harmonics effect the perception of audible harmonics and this is quite true with quality monitoring equipment if what your listening to was also recording well)

i myself wouldn't get a e-mu card becuase of the latency thing there drivers are dogshit get echo or m-audio or rme or one of the other good options out there

myself i have an echo mona but use a focusrite isa 428 as my front end with the optional a/d card. This is a pretty world class fdront end and considerably better than using my mona's a/d and preamps (the mona's pre's are by the was better than the vlz xdr preamps on my mackie sr24.4)

 

[Equality 7-2521]

As Sin:Aesthetic said, getting an external soundcard is the best idea. the inside of a computer is HIGHLY prone to interference (magnetic fields and whatnot) so its best to have your A/D conversion take place externally.

i also agree with 2_nice about sample rates. If you are planning to burn your shit to cd, dont sample at 96KHz....when you convert back down to 44.1, you will get audible artifacts. If you are going to sample at a higher sample rate, always make sure it is a multiple of that which you intend to convert back down to. i.e. if your end product will be 44.1 so you can burn to cd, you should sample at 88.2 like 2_nice suggested. this was the conversion will be smoother as the number crunching isnt so fucked up.

thirdly (and also related to what 2_nice said), dont worry too much about how high sample rate the card can handle. up to 96 is plenty. be more concerned with the oversampling capabilities of the card. try to get the highest possible. the oversmapling capabilities of a card will make a much bigger difference that simply setting your sample rate higher. and remember, doubling the sample rate doubles your HDD consumption.

 

[Sin:Aesthetic]

Thanks everyone for the help.



Well this thread here is my research! lol. There are demos for soundcards??

I went on m-audio.com, and the audiophile card you guys talked is :24-bit/96kHz digital audio card. At first i said to my self: ohh..it aint 192kHz, but then I remembered that the human ear can only go up to 44kHz, then why are they making 192kHz?? For bats??? lol

dont worry about the 96khz thing it is only what it is capable of...you will always be wanting to sample at 44.1 or 88.2....there is little purpose to sampling at other rates...because as taj said you get audible artifacts because of the bad math.....the human ear can pick up the diff between 44.1 and 88.2 but cds only take 44.1 so it will mean dithering your track down at the end to get it at 44.1 for cd......the important part is the part that says 24....this means 24 bit and this is what you want to be sampling at, atleast....it is oversampling, because cd's only accept 16 bit, so again it will mean dithering the track at the final mixdown stage...but it will still make an audible difference....sample at 24 bit always, and just dither it to 16 bit as the last mixdown thing you do, it will sound better than having it at 16 bit from the beginning