Best Sub $300 PCIe or 1394a ASIO Interface to buy? Large Samples

C

crewxp

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 27, 2009
Messages
393
Hey guys.

Can someone recommend me either a PCIe or 1394a ASIO-Capable Card? I have the Toneport UX2 right now and there is about a fourth of a second latency that has just gotten me tired of it, even at it's fastest settings. It also freezes a lot, making me restart my pc just to use it again.

A lot of the reviews I found for ASIO cards are from 2006-2007, so I was wondering if anyone had any updated cards that had ASIO and were PCIe or 1394a. My max to spend would be about 300, but preferably around 200.

I'm using it for Cubase 64-bit and have LARGE vst samples (Orchestra stuff). I usually use about 8GB-10GB of ram when I'm composing things.

I have been looking at the EMU 1212m (Link Here) and RME HDSPe PCIe Generic (Link Here), but the 1212m card is OLD and the RME is the most basic of all the RME cards and has only one input on the back. Has there been any progress in the last few years on sound interfaces?

I just purchased a Creative X-Fi Titanium HD Sound Card to try it out (Advertised as 1ms latency), it has ASIO Capabilities, but it pops when I play anything below 6ms, and frankly... Creative aren't the best of help on their forums or support. I thought I could upgrade my PC's sound and recording capabilities in one go, but it isn't as good as I hoped. The quality DOES sound better 'strangely...' compared to My UX2, but the card doesn't have surround sound (like my previous x-fi did), so I felt like I wasted my money. I'm thinking about returning it. It had optical in, so I had wanted to input my xbox's audio to my pc so I wouldn't have to switch between xbox, pc, and recording audio. But sadly, the bugs in their drivers do not allow me to use my optical in.
 
huh... all i can say is my native instruments komplete audio 6 is pretty darn quick. supposed to be one of the fastest usb interfaces around. definitely gets the job for me and I'm pretty picky with latency, particularly when programing drums with pads.

I've used it with omnisphere which has pretty big samples and i didn't notice any increases in latency vs. the virtual instruments bundled with ableton.

o crap just realized you're looking for a firewire interface nvm... lol

in any case i still think the ka6 is worth a shot. only downsides to it are that the headphone out doesn't have a whole lot of oomph. I listen loud tho so for most people it should be more than enough.

theres no optical in, but if you're willing to settle with the xbox 360's converters you can just plug your 360 into the 1/4" ins on the back and set it to direct monitoring

also there is a spdif in so you could theoretically get a toslink to spidf converter. not sure how it handles having both USB in and coax in at the same time though
 
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If your firewire chipset is made by Texas Instruments, I'd suggest something from TC Electronic. Konnekt 6 and Impact Twin (better pre-amps than the Konnekt 6, more I/O, more expensive - out of your stated price range unless you can find one used) have the same respectable converters, clean pre-amps and have multiple modes for ASIO latency (Normal, Safe1, Safe2, etc.) The drivers come with a DPC checker tool, to see what latency you should be running at under given system loads. On the Normal setting, average latency for 24/192 is <35ms on most mid-range PC without clicks or drop-outs. Unfortunately the Konnekt 6 doesn't have any form of SPDIF I/O.

If you don't have a TI firewire chipset, avoid all 1394a sound cards. On the USB side of things, E-MU 0404 USB is going to be a better bet than an E-MU 1212m (though E-MU 1616m will be great if you can put up with the drivers, and later on if you needed more channels you could toss a Behringer ADA8000 into the mix on the cheap.) Focusrite Saffire 6 is going to be relatively low latency, but the pres are not that fantastic (they will however get the job done.) Mackie Onyx BlackJack has some respectable pre-amps and decent latency - definitely a surprise coming from Mackie. Edirol UA-101 is also alright - 3.3ms latency at 24/44 if memory serves, and passable/average pre-amps (think Lexicon Omega or M-Audio FastTrack "quality".)
 
awesome! Glad to hear people have some experience on this forum about this.

Maybe firewire isn't my best option then. I have read also what you said. TI's Firewire are the best. I did a little research and mine is a VIA VT6308P. It's onboard, so right now I'm debating between a PCIe card and USB? Wondering how that will work out. PCIe has a direct connection with the motherboard, USB has limitations, hmm.

anywho, I looked into the E-MU, and apparently there's a 0406 coming out soon, so hmm again.

the EMU 0404 USB vs the most basic RME PCIe card? Would you say they're comparable? I would prefer something that is semi-new and has good drivers and those two I think meet the pick. I have someone that is selling their RME for $250

Do I not use the full capabilities of asio cards? What else is there to help with? lol
 
crewxp said:
the EMU 0404 USB vs the most basic RME PCIe card? Would you say they're comparable? I would prefer something that is semi-new and has good drivers and those two I think meet the pick. I have someone that is selling their RME for $250

Do I not use the full capabilities of asio cards? What else is there to help with? lol
Click to expand...

Unfortunately I have very little experience with RME other than the Fireface 800. I don't think there is going to be a major difference between most well put together solutions sub $500. They're all going to have better DAC/offset frequency response than your speakers or amplifier. The major difference as you said, is going to be drivers. RME definitely has good ASIO drivers. Look at the expansion ports you need first, narrow down the list and then head down to Guitar Center or similar and play the buy/return game until you find a solution that works in your allocated budget. $250 sounds good for the RME but the product you linked is going to have to attach to a Multiface or a Digiface.

For Cubase, stick to ASIO. While you could get away with WASAPI or even DirectSound, audio programs have been developed on ASIO standards for years. Interaction with ASIO is always going to be the more mature and stable route. You may want to even consider running two sound cards, since 'surround' is going to be something you won't be getting in the prosumer line-up. Either SPDIF or line-out from a consumer card like the X-Fi or even your onboard audio, to line-in or SPDIF hot to the prosumer card. Then you can tick it on or off in the driver mixer when you need to game, watch movies with surround or what have you, then still have the clean low latency ASIO support for Cubase/getting work done.
 
Farkle said:
If your firewire chipset is made by Texas Instruments, I'd suggest something from TC Electronic. Konnekt 6 and Impact Twin (better pre-amps than the Konnekt 6, more I/O, more expensive - out of your stated price range unless you can find one used) have the same respectable converters, clean pre-amps and have multiple modes for ASIO latency (Normal, Safe1, Safe2, etc.) The drivers come with a DPC checker tool, to see what latency you should be running at under given system loads. On the Normal setting, average latency for 24/192 is <35ms on most mid-range PC without clicks or drop-outs. Unfortunately the Konnekt 6 doesn't have any form of SPDIF I/O.

If you don't have a TI firewire chipset, avoid all 1394a sound cards. On the USB side of things, E-MU 0404 USB is going to be a better bet than an E-MU 1212m (though E-MU 1616m will be great if you can put up with the drivers, and later on if you needed more channels you could toss a Behringer ADA8000 into the mix on the cheap.) Focusrite Saffire 6 is going to be relatively low latency, but the pres are not that fantastic (they will however get the job done.) Mackie Onyx BlackJack has some respectable pre-amps and decent latency - definitely a surprise coming from Mackie. Edirol UA-101 is also alright - 3.3ms latency at 24/44 if memory serves, and passable/average pre-amps (think Lexicon Omega or M-Audio FastTrack "quality".)
Click to expand...

the desktop konnekt 6? funny you mention that, because that's the guy I was planning on swapping out my native instruments interface with for the extra headphone power before i saw on sound on sound's review that it had 11.25ms latency vs the komplete audio 6's 2ms....
 
A13X said:
the desktop konnekt 6? funny you mention that, because that's the guy I was planning on swapping out my native instruments interface with for the extra headphone power before i saw on sound on sound's review that it had 11.25ms latency vs the komplete audio 6's 2ms....
Click to expand...

TC Konnekt 6 driver version 3.5.3.8786, Windows 7 x64, Intel Core2Duo E6600 processor for reference:

24/192, 256 samples: 1.3ms
24/192, 512 samples: 2.7ms
24/192, 1024 samples: 5.3ms
24/192, 2048 samples: 10.7ms
24/192, 4096 samples: 21.3ms
24/192, 8192 samples: 42.7ms

That's in Safe Mode 2, Normal mode puts it a little lower but causes drop-outs on my workstation when I'm working with a large sample set. I don't experience such drop-outs in Normal mode on a 13" 2009 MacBook Pro with the same settings (Bootcamp), so it may very well be the CPU in my workstation. Headphone amp isn't that stellar, about on par with a Presonus HP-4 but without as much gain; clean but not "wow". Mic+inst monitoring is zero latency, and it even has a nice built in reverb. Moot for this thread though, since he has a VIA firewire chipset!
 
The single connector on the RME HDSPe, is used to plug into an external interface, for instance the Multiface II. I currently use an HDSP(pci version of HDSPe)+Multiface II for ASIO software development. I previously used the PCI version of the EMU 1212.

Sound quality wise they're roughly equivalent. RME has about the best software and drivers in the industry. Though I never had any significant software problems with the EMU.

The main advantage of the RME is more I/Os(though an E-MU 1616m would be about the same) + an awesome digital matrix mixer, Totalmix. I almost never use the slider view though, I find the matrix view to be much more intuitive. Click to toggle between mute and 0db, or ctrl-click plus move mouse up and down to set the level at that point. Hold shift while ctrl-clicking for more precision.

I've been looking at other interfaces recently, and one which keeps catching my eye is the firewire based Saffire Pro 40. It won't have quite the low latency and efficiency of a pci(e) RME, but it seems to have a great rep in the music forums, and the price is right. You can probably pick one up new for sub $400 from a few vendors on ebay, vs ~$850 for a HDSPe+Multiface II.
 
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