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Andrew
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#16

Post by Andrew »

James wrote:I was considering the M audio, however having looked up the ESI Juli@ you suggest it does look to be the better option, and cheaper as well!
Will have to do a deeper comparison of the specs.....
Are you going to use the audiotester software?

Best Regards,

James.
The crux of the issue, for me, is that I'd like balanced in/out and a PCIe card. After all, PCIe is the current/future PC bus, but I can't find a card that does both.

ASUS have a very nice spec'd PCIe card and it has what looks like shielding over the audio stages (can't prove its does any good until I try it) but its single ended only.

I thought about a external USB card, but can't find anyone who gives a positive report on them. One thread I found goes so far as giving one of the EMU external cards quite a roasting and, yet, external cards, should in theory, be the way to go.

Its a conundrum....

Andrew
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James
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#17

Post by James »

Hi Andrew,

PCIe would be nice, I was looking at this earlier and you are right, there does not seem to one that does both. I too think balanced is the only way to go. Personally I am not too worried about having the latest bus, plain old PCI would suit me as I have plenty of old machines I could dedicate to the cause.
I used to have a m audio audiophile USB which was nice but i sold it due to lack of use, wish i had held on to it now.
The only issue I remember with external USB cards is I don't think USB2 has the capacity to do run full 24bit 192Khz in and out at the same time.

Looking at the Juli card is looks better made than the m audio, with better quality caps etc.

Pete seems to be getting a measurement noise floor of -95db with no special precautions and while that's not exactly state of the art it is pretty good considering the noisy environment the internal card is in, so hopefully an internal card is not too much of a compromise.

Best Regards

James.
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Andrew
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#18

Post by Andrew »

Hi James,

I've ordered my ESI card, so the die is cast, I shall let you know how I get on.

I was fortunate enough to have had chance to play with an Audio Precision that is spec'd at -112db, one of these costs upwards of $12,000 and is, as far as I know, considered state of the art. I don't know about you, but I reckon a decent sound card and Pete's box, even at -95db is a bargain by comparison. Kevin at K&K seemed to get even better with some tweeking. :)

A friend of mine, a ex metrologist by profession, described -112db as looking at a 'fart in thunder'...

Cheers,

Andrew
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Andrew
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#19

Post by Andrew »

ESI Juli@ card arrived just in time for the big day, first step was to have a listen to this new fangled computer audio thingy, the jury was out at first, too quiet, no way was this line level, good separation of sounds and good front to back stage so that there was some positives.

Given I was running on Linux, I used alsamixer to turn up the volume, much better. I need to A to B it with the SB3 for a real comparison tho' at full bore there seems to be some sharpening of the sound, it could be the card or my little amp running out of puff or both.

Time to build some test leads and download some software so I can begin playing with Pete Millet's box.

Andrew
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Toppsy
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#20

Post by Toppsy »

Time to build some test leads and download some software so I can begin playing with Pete Millet's box
You naughty boy :shock: :wink:
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Mike H
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#21

Post by Mike H »

Eewww.....



 
 
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Andrew
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#22

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Where's Dave when you need 'im :roll:
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Dave the bass
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#23

Post by Dave the bass »

Image

Sorry I was late :lol:

DTB
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Andrew
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#24

Post by Andrew »

Some success, it took a bit of effort to get Vista, AudioTester and the Juli@'s drivers to play at 192kH and 24 bit but once done I got some very encouraging results on the loop back test.

The loop back test is basically the sound card output through the sound card interface and back into sound card input. This gives an idea of what artifacts the sound card interface is adding.

Red line is the soundcard's noise floor, blue line is the loopback test results. That's running at 0.0008% THD I can live with that, I think :)

You can see some 50Hz artifacts the interface is adding, time to get the box shielded, the numbers may improve further.

Andrew
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#25

Post by IslandPink »

I like that -130dB noise floor ....

Talking of hum/noise - noticed today the horn will happily sing to itself ( sort of a nasty sawtooth waveform actually ) without any power ... if the autoformers are connected . So... looks like the autoformers will need a shielded box !! ( or maybe it's just the wires ... will have to double-check ) .
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Nick
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#26

Post by Nick »

Very nice, you should be able to find all sorts of things to disturb you in that noise floor :-)
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Mike H
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#27

Post by Mike H »

Andrew wrote:Some success, it took a bit of effort to get Vista, AudioTester and the Juli@'s drivers to play at 192kH and 24 bit
What did that involve?



 
 
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Andrew
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#28

Post by Andrew »

AudioTester said that it had put the card into 192/24 mode but it hadn't, the card's software reported 44.1/16, some sort of incompatibility.

I then tried the ASIO drivers and they were dead dead flaky, talk about crash and burn took the whole sound sub-system down.

In the end, I went direct to the drivers on the Windows control panel and set it all to 192/24 and behold it worked.

Not really good enough in my book....but there you go.

Andrew
Last edited by Andrew on Sat Jan 01, 2011 10:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Mike H
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#29

Post by Mike H »

Didn't know it had 'em! :shock:



 
 
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Andrew
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#30

Post by Andrew »

IslandPink wrote:I like that -130dB noise floor ....
Nick wrote:Very nice, you should be able to find all sorts of things to disturb you in that noise floor :-)
I haven't calibrated full scale yet so I wonder if the FFT maths might be playing tricks, when I do get some more play time I will post another shot.

Andrew
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