Emu 1212M initial impressions

[BO(V)BZ]

Hello all,

I just got my Emu 1212M installed, and I thought I'd share my experiences with it so far.

What is it? The Emu 1212M, made my Emu, a subsidiary of Creative, is a professional-level card designed for recording and mixing music.
Why buy it? It sports some very impressive DACs, along with piles of inputs and outputs. This means I can hook it up to about anything, and the quality should be great!

Description:

The 1212M consists of 2 separate cards: One with the actual DSP and digital in/out [coax in/out, optical in/out, a firewire connector, and an RJ45 connection for hooking up an external breakout box full of more in/outs] , and a daughter card with analog in/out [ Balanced line in, balanced line out, and midi in/out] .

The two cards are hooked together by what looks pretty much like a short little floppy cable. Right now, I'm just using the balanced audio out.

After picking up the necessary converters to run this card to an unbalanced amp - http://www.radioshack.com/product.a..._name=CTLG_007_002_001_001&product_id=274-884 x 2 - I plugged this straight into my headphone amp, a Gilmore V2 [ http://www.headamp.com/v2.shtml ] , which in turn drives Sennheiser HD650's.

Software:

Being a professional card, the drivers for this card are fairly complex. Though I don't have any web hosting to post some images, I'll just say it took a couple minutes to figure out how to even get sound out of it =] One other thing to note is that this card will only output one sample rate at a time. If you create a session at 192Khz, you'll only get sound for anything sampled at 192Khz. If you have any games that output sound at lower sample rates, you're basically screwed - the lowest this thing supports is 44.1Khz.

Complex drivers and hassle aside, is this thing worth it?

I'd have to say yes! I used to have a Game Theater XP, while certainly not cutting edge these days, certainly wasn't a bad card either. The Emu 1212M completely destroys it for sound quality. My Hd650's have never sounded this good. I listen to alot of industrial and death metal, and it really brings out the detail in the sound.

Is this card for you?

Well, it costs 200$, it's a pain to get working, evidently won't cooperate AT ALL with any Audigy cards [so you can't run dual soundcards for gaming purposes] , and the drivers have a really steep learning curve, and no printed manual. On the other hand, you get pretty much the best sound quality of any card costing less than half a grand, and it rivals many good standalone CD players, or so I'm told.

If you want more info on this card, you'll find piles over at www.head-fi.org , in the 'computers as a source' forum, and at Emu's website:
http://www.emu.com/products/product.asp?maincategory=754&category=754&product=2209

 

[Mister X]

One other thing to note is that this card will only output one sample rate at a time. If you create a session at 192Khz, you'll only get sound for anything sampled at 192Khz. If you have any games that output sound at lower sample rates, you're basically screwed - the lowest this thing supports is 44.1Khz.

The card supports 44.1 and 48khz sample rates at the same time without changing the sessions.... it is kinda stewpid how they have that part of the patch mix DSP setup but it works very well with multiple sample rates from different pro audio apps.
For instance I had wavelab playing back a 48K file and Neundo running a 5 track mix at 92k with almost zero latency and only 4% cpu usage.
That is almost unheard of......

Complex drivers and hassle aside, is this thing worth it?

No.
For most consumers it is far from a viable option.
Even many Idiotphilles will have no use for a card that cannot support more then one sample rate at a time with consumer level software.
Besides that the whole idea of upsampling mp3s (and other media) to 192K gives you no appreciable increase in audio quality.

Well, it costs 200$, it's a pain to get working, .

Setup time for me was all of 4 minutes.
Was it a pain to get working?
Yes, the Audigy2 ZS I have in my sytem made it that way.
The driver install was a nightmare.... the two cards share common files so that was to be expected.

evidently won't cooperate AT ALL with any Audigy cards [so you can't run dual soundcards for gaming purposes] .

It took some doing but both cards are now coexisting peacefully in the same machine.
The key was removing the ZS drivers totaly and reinstalling them without the EAX 4 updates. Once that was done I installed the EMU card and everything was good.

and the drivers have a really steep learning curve,

Not the drivers... the Patch mix DSP is what has the steep learning curve.
I played with it for the better part of a day before I found the settings that work best for me.
The system crashed and I lost all of that work..

If you install just the drivers there is no learning curve at all.... but like all of Creative's other products you lose many of the features the card offers.

On the other hand, you get pretty much the best sound quality of any card costing less than half a grand, and it rivals many good standalone CD players, or so I'm told.

Funny cause my NAD 541i sounds much better then the EMU card does.
My other NAD... (542) stomps it into the dirt. But they both have very solid power supplies and pretty nice analog stages so that is to be expected.
The EMU card has it's share of problems. The digital output constantly clips....even when the card is at 80% volume I get clipping in my DAC.
The top end is recessed and pretty laid back. I found myself reaching for the EQ within minutes of installing the card. The card is also pretty flat in the dynamics area as well. I also found the detail washed out to some existent.
The second day I had it I said the heck with this and swapped all of the opamps on the analog card.
BINGO.
The card literally came to life. The dynamics improved dramatically ... the highs also balanced out and the detail just knocks me over now.
All in all it is a very good card, but for the average Joe.... forget about it.

 

[Mister X]

BTW... the patch mix DSP in all of it's dual sample rate supporting glory.

Can you say resampling?
Figures Creative would manage to KEEP one their biggest assets for use.....
Even on this "pro" card.

 

[BO(V)BZ]

X:

I wasn't implying that this is a consumer based option, though I didn't make that very clear. Everybody but the hardcore geeks simply expect to pop the card in, install drivers, and have sound come out. In this case, you have to buy adapters, figure out what the hell Patchmix DSP does, and then produce sound. However, if you are willing to go through the trouble, it certainly pays off =]

Re: the cd players: Just reporting what I've heard. Can't say I have any real experience, I don't have any sort of decent CD player yet.

About the opamps: Any chance you could break that down into laymans terms, and make a simple guide? If there is a decent benefit, without too much chance of ruining my new cards, I'd like to hear about it =] I don't have a huge amount of soldering talent, just a little experience from assembling some relays and a LM337 fan controller, nothing with any sort of detail. What do these opamps cost, and where do you get them?

I wish I understood exactly what that screenshot of Patchmix means =] However, I've only had the card for about 10 hours, and I've been drunk for about 6 of those, so I'm sure I'll figure some of those out =]