KVR Audio

Reqs · Post by **Reqs** » Wed May 19, 2004 3:25 pm

I'm amazed that with laptops getting as strong and powerful as they are and being more and more suited to audio work that there are not more PCMCIA sound card offerings out there. I'm talking about cards that don't require an I/O box. To my knowledge only Echo (Indigo I/O) and Digigram (VX Pocket) are the only ones out there (and I've heard the Digigram has high latency).

I'm aware of the outboard offerings, but these add weight and girth to my travel pack. And most of the external IOs use USB which I don't see as a robust solution (although I do see where M-Audio is now making a firewire Audiophile).

Anybody know of any other Cardbus/PCMCIA compact solutions? I can't believe M-Audio hasn't done this yet. Why? Is the market just not there?

feldon27 · Post by **feldon27** » Wed May 19, 2004 8:23 pm

It seems like USB is to be avoided, which leaves us with Firewire.

Even the cheapest reputable Firewire box seems to cost the same as a Echo Indigo I/O + a M-Audio Audiophile 2496 PCI. So what is the point really? You spend $300 either way.

I am waiting for a good Firewire box with four genuine simultaneous inputs for $300, then I will buy. Until then, I am seriously thinking the Echo Indigo I/O, which has gotten top ratings that I don't really need to look at any other options.

Reqs · Post by **Reqs** » Wed May 19, 2004 8:27 pm

I've been reassessing my needs and now I'm starting to wonder if I should save money and just go with the bottom line Indigo (without the input) since what I am really after is low latency (ASIO or WDM) for doing softsynths (w/my Oxygen 8) and mixing on the road. I don't know how much audio recording I will really be doing with the laptop.

Still, cheapest I've seen the Indigo for is $100 and I'm not sure it's a legit price. Most places it's $120-$130.

SFX · Post by **SFX** » Wed May 19, 2004 9:41 pm

Check out M-Audio's Firewire Audiophile: 4 in/6 out,
$250 or less

feldon27 · Post by **feldon27** » Wed May 19, 2004 9:46 pm

Ah. Someone who's read the specs without actually looking the back of the device.

2 of the 4 inputs are DIGITAL. Completely useless!

$250 for stereo recording. I'll pass until someone has a genuine 4-in device for <$300.

derek · Post by **derek** » Wed May 19, 2004 9:48 pm

if its really only about the latency and the quality of the converters doesnt matter too much, you could also use the internal soundcard with the asio4all driver.

Lava · Post by **Lava** » Wed May 19, 2004 9:49 pm

I've noticed that newer laptops don't have any of the old crap on the back (i.e. parallel/serial ports, ar port, etc...), which is a good thing. Now, with all that room around the edge freed up, you'd think they could fit just *one* PCI slot in there! I am just dying to have 8 analog i/o on the side of my laptop, all done with 1/8" jacks.

feldon27 · Post by **feldon27** » Wed May 19, 2004 10:14 pm

Modern laptops have miniPCI slots. Should be interesting where things go in the next few years.

Reqs · Post by **Reqs** » Thu May 20, 2004 2:12 am

derek wrote:if its really only about the latency and the quality of the converters doesnt matter too much, you could also use the internal soundcard with the asio4all driver.

Yes, this is true. I haven't been able to get Asio4All drivers to work well with my Dell SigmaTel onboard card (crackles and stuff). However, I have been able to get ~5ms latency with the Asio2KS drivers, but I think the dev has abandoned this. It's just kind of kludgy to me. I'm also locked into a 48Khz sample rate (wonder if this is the fault of the Sigmatel or Asio2KS? Hmm I'll have to check on that...) and would like some flexibility with this. I'd like to take the load off the CPU and hopefully get even lower latency. Still thinking hard about the Indigo and getting prices...

Anybody using the Indigo here? What kind of latency are you getting (I'm a Sonar guy).

derek · Post by **derek** » Thu May 20, 2004 2:46 am

reqs, did you use the latest version (1.8 i believe)?

also, did you try with and without DMA mode.

i.e. on my old inspiron 8000 laptop, it took me a while to find good settings - the curse of having so many parameters

OTOH without these parameters i wouldnt have been able to turn the ESS maestro card it uses into a low latency asio card.

i didnt get as low latencies with asio 2ks - it was still ok, somewhere around 10-12 ms, but as you already noticed, it seems like development of that thing has stopped, and the only known version is a buggy, beeping demoversion that makes the computer do weird things...

tomg · Post by **tomg** » Thu May 20, 2004 3:13 am

If you've got the bucks ($400) look at the the rme hammerfall.

http://www.rme-audio.com/english/hdsp/c ... #TECHNICAL

I bought my USB Yamaha UW500 almost 2 years ago for about $300 because Yamaha licensed the Propagamma drivers, it has reasonably good stereo pre's, midi I/O and a TG link. I only have good things to say about it. It's been great. Not to mention it works on almost anything with usb port not just the lap.

http://www.yamaha-europe.com/yamaha_eur ... index.html

http://usb-audio.com/

Reqs · Post by **Reqs** » Thu May 20, 2004 5:30 pm

derek wrote:reqs, did you use the latest version (1.8 i believe)?

also, did you try with and without DMA mode.

I thought I had tried it with the new version, but I went ahead and tried again just now and am getting very low latencies, like around 2.5ms! WooHoo! I'm at work, so I can't run it through its paces, but it looks promising so far. Don't know what was wrong before.

Another benefit is that Asio4All allows me to resample to 41Khz, instead of being locked in at 48K. Does anybody know if this affects sound quality significantly?

Reqs · Post by **Reqs** » Thu May 20, 2004 5:33 pm

tomg wrote:If you've got the bucks ($400) look at the the rme hammerfall.

http://www.rme-audio.com/english/hdsp/c ... #TECHNICAL

http://usb-audio.com/

Yea, I did look at the RME but it also requires an outboard box and I'm trying to avoid that. It also looks like RME stuff is hard to get in the States.

That usb-audio site is interesting. Thanks for the link.

koorby · Post by **koorby** » Mon May 24, 2004 6:59 am

Get the Echo Indigo IO. $179, and you are future proofed for when you want to record on the latop. And with the ASIO4ALL driver against the Indigo, you'll get 1.5ms latency, which beats any firewire solution. Plus the Indigo has gotten rave reviews about its clean sound and quality.

Miles1981 · Post by **Miles1981** » Mon May 24, 2004 7:52 am

Well, USB is asynchrnous, that's the reason it has higher latencies...
But more and more sound card are USB, and few are and will be FW...

If you buy an USB card, try an USB2 card, it's as fast as FW - faster than 400, slower than 800 -. But more info I don't have, I'm looking for reviews myself

Laptop Sounds Cards, or lack thereof...