MARIAN Seraph 8 , Experiences?

[Beatmachinery]

Has anyone tested MARIAN PCIe cards??? Any info about performance and Latency?

Im very interested in these cards cause they offer me an 8 analog output solution.

The little info I've found says that they are really good.

Any experiences?

[wickfut]

I have a Seraph AD2, what exactly do you want to know?

I only use mine at 24bit 44.1. I generally set the latency to about 3ms in Cubase 9 pro to be safe with some of the more heavy plugs.

The software mixer/router confuses the shit out of me so I don't use it.

Marian claim its ASIO is multi-client but I can't run Cubase ASIO and any other audio together, even say Resonic using ASIO.

I compared the DA converters in the AD2 to my Mytek 192 DSD and Dangerous Source. I can't hear a difference in semi treated room on PSI A25m mastering monitors. Sold the Mytek. (the AD2 DA is a higher spec 32bit converter vs 24bit converter over the Seraph 8, not sure if it'll be audible though)

Windows 10 64. Never had any software issues, driver issues or major dropouts which wasn't my fault.

As you may tell, I really like this soundcard. So much that I'm expanding to another couple of Seraph 8+XLR after xmas.

Anything else?

[Beatmachinery]

I have a Seraph AD2, what exactly do you want to know?

I only use mine at 24bit 44.1. I generally set the latency to about 3ms in Cubase 9 pro to be safe with some of the more heavy plugs.

The software mixer/router confuses the shit out of me so I don't use it.

Marian claim its ASIO is multi-client but I can't run Cubase ASIO and any other audio together, even say Resonic using ASIO.

I compared the DA converters in the AD2 to my Mytek 192 DSD and Dangerous Source. I can't hear a difference in semi treated room on PSI A25m mastering monitors. Sold the Mytek. (the AD2 DA is a higher spec 32bit converter vs 24bit converter over the Seraph 8, not sure if it'll be audible though)

Windows 10 64. Never had any software issues, driver issues or major dropouts which wasn't my fault.

As you may tell, I really like this soundcard. So much that I'm expanding to another couple of Seraph 8+XLR after xmas.

Anything else?

I want to know about latency round trips with 64 and 32 buffer sizes? do you have any data?

[wickfut]

nope, sorry.

@44.1khz 24 bit

I just put my buffer size to 32 in cubase and got noise/clicks when playing Halion 6.

I got 0.748ms on both input and output latency. Turning off multi-processor support did reduce the clicks.

Set the buffer to 64 and it doubled to 1.5ms in /out

setting the sample rate to 96khz and the buffer to 64 gives me 0.677ms with clicks.

I know there's software latency checker but my soundcard is in a rackmounted PC which is screwed inside a desk and I'd have to rip a lot of stuff out to get to it to wire the loop for the latency tests.

As I've previously stated, I set the buffer to 128 so to get 3ms and to be safe that I get no clicks. Works fine with Virus Ti control also.

[Beatmachinery]

Very interesting... That latency roundtrip is almost the same as an RME PCIe card. Which CPU are you using? Intel?

[wickfut]

i7 6700k,

[Liero]

I'm also interested in the Seraph line, but there are almost no reviews on the internet. Marian should definitely release some VST benchmarks vs RME products because they are direct competitors but Marian offers a less expensive product.

How is the virtual mixer software with Seraph? As good as TotalMix?

[wickfut]

I'm also interested in the Seraph line, but there are almost no reviews on the internet. Marian should definitely release some VST benchmarks vs RME products because they are direct competitors but Marian offers a less expensive product.

here's my latency test that I ran for gearslutz. So yeah, it's on par with Lynx and RME PCIe cards.

How is the virtual mixer software with Seraph? As good as TotalMix?

Never used TotalMix.

I can tell you that I'm confused as hell with the Beast DSP mixer and so I stay clear of it if I can.

I have 2x AD2 cards which run fine , windows 10 sees 4x analogue ins/outs and 2 stereo AES ins/outs , along with another 56 virtual inputs and outs.

I thought that adding a 3rd card , a Seraph A3 it would allow me to have 24 ADAT channels added to my already 8 , and in some ways it does. But I have to set the A3 as the master card and route the 2 AD2 cards into the DSP mixers special TDM channels at a maximum of 8 at a time.

What I wasn't expecting is that it loads the A3 drivers as a seperate ASIO device to the AD2 cards and you have to route inputs and outputs via 3 different mixer screens per PCIe card - as you can imagine this got confusing very fast when I was trying to route effects loops and monitoring loops and then be able to monitor / record them in cubase, so I removed the A3 completely and returned back to 2 cards.

Another weird one is that as the mixer is basically 3 different windows, to enable the EQ on a channel you have to go to the 2nd window - the one without the actual EQ settings on to enable it, then return to the large mixer window to alter the settings.



Anyway, the analogue AD DA on the AD2 is up there with the best I've heard and I've owned Mytek, Dangerous, Benchmark, Lavry etc. Ultra low latency and everything works great with 2 of the same cards. Can't fault it really.

[tomjackson]

I just bought one and I'm sending it back. My 15 year old guitarport for 10$ on craigslist is working better for me. I use it for amp sims, but I like to play along with music and use other apps, but once I run the Amp sim this card shuts everything else down. Customer support vaguely suggested that I could play other files, but then they say I can't. I've wasted hours on this thing