[linux-audio-user] UA-25 and other USB audio options

Hi everyone,

my first post here, after a long while lurking and reading
archives - so first: thanks for all the help I've already got
from this list (quite a lot!)

I want to do some audio stuff on my new laptop - it's
an AMD-64 box with a via k8t890 / vt8237 chipset.. I'm
able to get jackd at -p 64 on an unpatched 2.6.14-rc5
kernel, but I'd like a better quality soundcard. It has
ExpressCard slot, but no PCMCIA, so that is out, and the
firewire support looks too experimental for me just now,
leaving me with USB as the only option, it seems.

Ideally, I'd like to work in 64-bit mode, but I can boot into
a 32-bit installation if unavoidable (32-bit is gentoo,
64-bit is slamd64 right now).

After looking at the market, the edirol / roland UA-25
looks like a good basic unit for my needs (occasional
mic recording, guitar input, midi) and my budget
(not entirely fixed, but the ~ 150 GBP is, er, "convenient"
just now..:)

However I've seen some problems mentioned on this
list with that card, and I'm unsure about the via usb
controller on my m/b:

00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1
Controller (rev 81) (prog-if 00 [UHCI]) [four of these, though only 3
physical ports..]
00:10.4 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 86)
(prog-if 20 [EHCI])

I've seen some worrying things written about the VT82xxxxx
and audio.

I've also looked into the UR-80, similarly priced Tascam and
M-audio models, the UA-101 (more expensive, but I could just
about buy that if it turned out to be a good idea), the BCA-2000
(what a shame!) and the Mindprint Trio USB (which has no
midi, but looks like an interesting bit of kit - again, I could just
about stretch to it - it claims to work with standard USB drivers
on windows, but haven't seen any mention of it on linux-related
sites..)

I'd welcome any advice related to the above, in particular
reports of working UA-25's on VT82xxxxx (rev 81! ;-)
controllers, or strong recommendations pro or anti the
other hardware I've mentioned, or indeed ones I haven't
thought of..

Thanks for any contributions received!

Cheers,

- Pete.
Received on Sun Nov 13 20:15:08 2005