External Firewire Sound Cards

veritas7

Gawd
Joined
Nov 7, 2007
Messages
736
I was wondering what external sound cards does anyone recommend here?

I'm interested primarily of an external sound card because

1) I'm looking for something to keep for at least five years+
2) No EM interference like internal sound cards
3) Possibly dribbling in sound production in the future
4) Portability (can use then with my laptop and my desktop, relates also to 3 and also just being able to take with me)

All of these reasons make up a good excuse to splurge on a really nice model. As well as firewire, because USB latency is a no no if I do decide to try my hand at trying some sound production with midi/analog inputs.

I'm researching at the moment audio solutions to expand my current experience. Right now I've been using the same old crappy Altec Lansing speakers for three years, and an Audigy 2 sound card I've had for four. Since then I've learned much more about DACs (first hand as a Cpr E student) and audio since coming to [H] and headfi (experiencing the greatness that are higher end stereo systems and headphones, and learning much more about stuff like LAME/FLAC etc).

Any links to what I might be looking for or threads pertinent to this matter are extremely helpful as well as first hand experience.
 
Well, as with just about anything audio, need to know a general budget. You can get some external ones pretty cheap, say $200 maybe less if you just want something simple with 2 ins, 2 outs. You can also easily break the $2000 mark if you want something really sophisticated, with high end electronics.

So you need to define a general budget range, and then you can start looking at specific models.

As an example of the range at the low end there's something like an M-Audio Firewire Solo. Little 2-channel job that'll run you about $200. You can find USB ones for even less.

As an example of a more high end unit there's the MOTU 896HD. This is an 8-channel 192kHz unit that is really powerful that'll run you about a grand.

So figure out a budget range, and features you'd be interested in, and then you can narrow down what would be good.
 
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