need a good PCI card

[planetearth]

I must be missing something here, because all i can find is more and more USB interfaces and barely any pci/pcie products.

Is there a reason not many people are purchasing sound cards and everyone getting external interfaces? Perhaps the USB interface is just as good? all though all the information ive found has suggested otherwise. Since in my musical set up, i am going to be running instruments through the daw and processing them in real time with vsts, i cant have any issues with latency or buffering problems.

In addition to being more convenient/easier to install, USB-based audio interfaces are more common because, in addition to traditional, Windows-based desktop computers, they also work with laptops, and iMacs, Mac Pros and MacBooks.

It is not because they're "faster" or "better" (though some may be "better" than some PCI/PCIe-based counterparts, depending upon the drivers).

Steve

[planetearth]

Yes, ESI is the way to go than, also I could see RME 9632 for around 200 bucks used from time to time, it's enough for your needs I guess. Also you could probably find ESI one second hand bellow 100 mark, maybe older 44e one too or even Julia XTe if it fits your bill, it seems it's better performer than MAYA based on that comparison chart.

Before buying a second-hand audio interface, you would do well to make sure the manufacturer still makes drivers for it. An interface that was discontinued years ago may not have 64-bit drivers for Windows 7 or Windows 10. Without the drivers, the audio interface won't work.

Steve

[Zexila]

Yes, ESI is the way to go than, also I could see RME 9632 for around 200 bucks used from time to time, it's enough for your needs I guess. Also you could probably find ESI one second hand bellow 100 mark, maybe older 44e one too or even Julia XTe if it fits your bill, it seems it's better performer than MAYA based on that comparison chart.

Before buying a second-hand audio interface, you would do well to make sure the manufacturer still makes drivers for it. An interface that was discontinued years ago may not have 64-bit drivers for Windows 7 or Windows 10. Without the drivers, the audio interface won't work.

Steve

That's great advice, especially if one is on current OS, there's huge need for continuous development.

Having said that, seems all of the mentioned ESI products are supported on current OS's from both platforms, some of the drivers are probably just updated when there's actual need, I can see for one device there are 2015 updates for Windows and than 2017 for OS X, some older got Windows 2017 updates and so on, it seems they aren't abandoning legacy products. But still RME is safest bet in that regard too.

[jdnz]

Having said that, seems all of the mentioned ESI products are supported on current OS's from both platforms, some of the drivers are probably just updated when there's actual need, I can see for one device there are 2015 updates for Windows and than 2017 for OS X, some older got Windows 2017 updates and so on, it seems they aren't abandoning legacy products. But still RME is safest bet in that regard too.

I had an old Maya44 (PCI) - was never really trully happy with it's performance (neither it's latency or driver stability were up to expectations, and driver updates even back in 2013 were intermittent at best)

My advice would be better to spend more on a RME and be done - especially since the OP seemed to want a lot of channels of in/out which the maya line just don't do.

[Zexila]

I had an old Maya44 (PCI) - was never really trully happy with it's performance (neither it's latency or driver stability were up to expectations, and driver updates even back in 2013 were intermittent at best)

My advice would be better to spend more on a RME and be done - especially since the OP seemed to want a lot of channels of in/out which the maya line just don't do.

RME is safest thing, but we have user here that have great experience with 44e and we have benchmarks that prove that Julia got some solid low latency performance and not so bad 44e one.

[thereynolds]

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