KVR Audio

Magpel · Post by **Magpel** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 4:19 am

With zzounds selling M-Audio Audiophiles for 99.95 USD, and in anticipation of the sonic synth group buy, I bought and installed an audiophile in my softsynth machine this week. It replaced an Audigy.

I can hear the difference for sure, but just as clear to me is a slight increase in latency--just enough to make things feel a bit sludgy and disconnected.

I'm on Win 98se. Is ASIO performance better under XP with the Audiophile? Anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks

Jeremy_NSL · Post by **Jeremy_NSL** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 4:23 am

have you tried lowering your latency in the audiophile control panel? Mine is set to 8.3ms at 44khz. Its pretty ok for me there - I can go lower but it seems to hit my cpu harder in large projects.

Har · Post by **Har** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 4:23 am

I've been running my Audiophile 2496 on Win2000 for some time and have the latency down to 2.9ms myself.

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 8:12 am

If your latency is worse than on your Audigy, something is amiss. I have a fairly modest setup and I'm sitting at 5ms.

Greg

verstaerker · Post by **verstaerker** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 8:37 am

how do you get 2,9 ms ? i have 6 ms @ 44,1 kHz with my Delta and AMD64 3200

Magpel · Post by **Magpel** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 11:26 am

Thanks for the replies. I should have made it clear that I'm talking about a very slight, nearly imperciptible increase in latency, latency that makes itself known only as a slight feeling of resistance. Difficulty more than any noticeable delay.

With the Audigy, I was usually able to run it at 5ms latency, sometimes even 4. The Audiophile approaches the ASIO control panel differently, of course. You set the buffer size and sample rate in the mixer app, and a little window pops up telling you what latncy you should be getting with these settings. That's the way it work with the latest Win 98se drivers, at least.

I've decided to go to XP, not just for this reason but so that I can run SampleTank 2 as well (and maybe Korg Legacy). If latency still doesn't quite meet my standards, well, I'm glad I got the card for only 100 bucks (and I've still got the Audigy

)

Did I mention that the Audiophile sounds terrific? Like taking the proverbial cotton out of the ears? my main DAW soundcard is the Delta 1010.

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 5:08 pm

Ah, cool. Why did you need the Audiophile if you already had the 1010 if you don't mind my asking?

I wonder what the actual difference in latency is between the new card and your Audigy. Myself, I don't even notice the difference between 5 and 8 ms, so if it's less than that, you're a man with better ears than I.

Greg

TheWall · Post by **TheWall** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 5:47 pm

Magpel wrote:I've decided to go to XP, not just for this reason but so that I can run SampleTank 2 as well (and maybe Korg Legacy). If latency still doesn't quite meet my standards, well, I'm glad I got the card for only 100 bucks (and I've still got the Audigy )

So you are using Win98. Audiophile's driver for win98 is very poorly written.
Chances are it'll be much better when you go XP.

Magpel · Post by **Magpel** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 10:27 pm

LunchMoney, I thinkI can feel the difference between 5ms and 8ms, but who knows?

The Delta 1010 is in my recording/sequencing DAW, a PIII 600 running Cakewalk PA 9

The new card is for my dedicated softsynth machine.

The Wall, that's good news about XP. I sort of expected so. M-Audio's 98se drivers have not been updated for a long time, and I vaguely recall hearing that their early attempts at ASIO wer enot up to snuff. Now I just jave to get things backed and ready for the clean sweep.

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 10:41 pm

Magpel wrote:LunchMoney, I thinkI can feel the difference between 5ms and 8ms, but who knows?

Many people can! It's probably not your imagination; and even if it IS, if that mental block interferes with your sense of comfort, then it STILL has to be fixed.

Greg

Magpel · Post by **Magpel** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 4:04 pm

Update:

I upgraded to WinXP. Latency performance is now excellent with audiophile. If I'm only running one or two synths, I can set the buffer to 64 for lowest latency woithout pops and clicks. 128 and 256 feel solid too.

Thanks! XP made all the difference.

Latency and Audiophile