Re: [LAU] "aged" Terratec DMX 6fire

On Wed, 14 Jan 2015, Raffaele Morelli wrote:

> in a recent thread (*) I've finally discovered that my beloved Terratec DMX 6Fire is an old school audio
> interface so I wonder if switching to a more recent one would result in performance gain
> or not in the same situation.

I would suggest that if your current card has a bit depth/sample rate that
works for you and is a PCI card.... it probably performs better than a new
USB Audio IF. Really the only reason to change your audio card is if you
need more i/o or bit depth. There is really very little new in audio IF
besides the port type (the method of connecting to the computer) and so
long as you have a computer with the port you need, just about anything is
better than USB. I say USB because that is what all the "cheap"
(affordable) audio interfaces are these days. The firewire boxes are
mostly based on old chipsets, so new gets you new caps/diodes/etc. but not
anything new.

So, if your box is showing it's age because the caps are baked or
whatever, then it may be time to buy or repair. Although it is more
costly, I prefer separate mic preamps with line inputs. It means I can
match pre to mic. I think that the mic pre that comes with most audio
boxes is better than it once was, but a cheap pre is a cheap pre and for
$500 with 8 pre and ADC/DAC they are cheap.

On the other hand, if you want to upgrade, don't ask us :) I think best
system use is still PCI or PCIe, firewire is still next with USB last
place. (Intel HDA does not get honourable mention... they are ok for
playback, but not recording)

Aside from bitdepth, my old 16 bit ensoniq seems to have fewer problems
than the USB boxes I have tried. My semipro interface is ice1712 based.
When I bought a new mother board, I got one with 3 PCI slots so I could
keep using it and have a choice of IRQs.

--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net
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