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Topic: e-mu 0202 vs. 0404 usb (Read 8393 times) previous topic - next topic
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e-mu 0202 vs. 0404 usb

Reply #1 –
I love my 0404. IIRC it has a slightly better ADC/DAC than the 0202, but neither will mean squat for vinyl ripping. Onboard sound at 44.1kHz is probably higher fidelity than vinyl.

e-mu 0202 vs. 0404 usb

Reply #2 –
I actually sold my 0404 USB, in exchange for a Yamaha GO46, which has now bit the dust, along with those of like half a dozen other people on Gearslutz (apparantly all of them had bad caps, most of mine are bulging badly).

It was a terminally stupid idea in hindsight - the 0404 USB had, plainly, the better engineered audio system overall, and vastly better I/O, and I really should have just broke down and built my own outboard preamp anyway. But at the time it seemed like a decent decision for a number of reasons.
  • The first (and probably the most important to the OP) is that while the 0404 USB has significantly better noise specs at 0db gain, at the upper gain reaches of 50-60db, its noise performance is noticably inferior to the GO46. (Which had numerous noise issues of its own.) However, unless you're running flat balanced with no outboard preamp, you are probably not going to care about this.
  • This is not as big of a deal with modern CPUs, but with my desktop P4 (still my primary machine!), the 0404 USB's performance was worse than bad. It was transgressively bad. As in, any time I either recorded or played back audio on the thing, 30% of my CPU was stuck in the kernel. The GO46 never did this, and knowing the internal distinctions between 1394 and USB, I still have to say that all other things being equal 1394 is still the better audio interface. (That said, the GO46 did not play well with wifi-induced jitter spikes at all, while the 0404 USB was not fazed in the least by them.)
  • E-Mu (being largely equivalent to Creative Labs) has long had a bad rep for bad drivers. But the GO46 was discontinued before I bought mine, so that excuse doesn't hold that much water for me.  The 0404 USB's drivers were fairly heavyweight, but honestly I don't recall them actively misbehaving all that often. Whereas having to reboot my computer to let the GO46 reappear on the bus was a fairly regular occurrence for me.

    IIRC, the Focusrite Saffire series is the closest product set in terms of quality and price to the 0202/0404 USBs. I haven't tried them.

e-mu 0202 vs. 0404 usb

Reply #3 –
thanks for the replies, guys!

i'll look into the GO46 in this case as well. I've never heard of Focusrite Saffire, i'll see what they're up to.

100% confident my current CPU will be able to handle something like the 0404, and i'm working on getting a new laptop soon at any rate, so that should be okay.

per some discussions on the steve hoffman forums i think i'm leaning more towards the 0202 right now (also especially now since i didn't realize the DAC didn't matter in regards to ripping [as that will be it's primary function]), but will certainly look into these other options.

though the drivers concern me. i have vista, never had a problem with anything (only person in the world?), so hopefully this one will be okay. new computer will by default have windows 7 on it. i know someone who is getting a 0404 because their current card is not compatible with 7, so that's a good sign that it should be working with that, at least.

e-mu 0202 vs. 0404 usb

Reply #4 –
Quote from: shakehurst on
i have vista, never had a problem with anything (only person in the world?)
Haha, you're among friends here. A lot of us here didn't drink the anti-Vista koolaid the media was handing out.

I'm on 7 now, but the only Vista crashes I ever had were due to my 780G chipset being new (and possibly slightly glitchy). At some point, an ATI driver update fixed that and I never had another crash.

To make the 0404 (and presumably the 0202) work on 7, I simply had to install the Vista drivers. Occasionally I have to turn the power off then on again or the audio reproduction freezes on my 0404, but that's once a day or less. Creative is sure not rushing any win7 drivers out for it... This is my only complaint.

e-mu 0202 vs. 0404 usb

Reply #5 –
Both interfaces (0202 & 0404) are very decent. They offer much for their price. I own the 0202 - it is essentially a low-noise, no-nonsense interface. The built-in headphone amp is quite good (if you don´t use a Sennheiser HD-600 or any other comparable high impedance headphone), the inputs are very good though my ASUS is even less noisy. Well, we are talking about a -100 dB and more noise floor. The 0404 has better converters (if that´s audible is another question) and more in- and outputs. Furthermore it needs to be powered by an external power supply - the 0202 is bus powered.

However, if you plan on using foobar2000 with the ASIO driver for both interfaces, you´ll have to configure the ASIO component for foobar anew everytime the PC restarts. Both interfaces use the less common asynchronous USB protocol to achieve less jitter - if I remember correctly. Either the driver is crap or the ASIO component for foobar simply can´t handle it. The driver also puts considerable stress on the processor ressources, with regularly processor cycle spikes occuring every 5 seconds or so. It´s the aforementionend USB protocol... I´ve also read some comments that Intel USB chips can´t handle that card very well - but I´ve never encountered something like this on my Intel based motherboard.

Apart from that its driver works flawless for me, even on Windows 7 64. As far as I know, both interfaces doesn´t colour the sound. I would buy the 0202 anytime again.
marlene-d.blogspot.com

e-mu 0202 vs. 0404 usb

Reply #7 –
Quote from: Canar on
To make the 0404 (and presumably the 0202) work on 7, I simply had to install the Vista drivers. Occasionally I have to turn the power off then on again or the audio reproduction freezes on my 0404, but that's once a day or less. Creative is sure not rushing any win7 drivers out for it... This is my only complaint.


Yeah, the Vista vs. 7 drivers are fairly common for a lot of hardware, same thing happened with Vista and XP a few years back. Eventually companies would get around to it, or they would just give up, so hopefully Creative is one of those "eventually" groups.


Quote from: Cavaille on
Both interfaces (0202 & 0404) are very decent. They offer much for their price. I own the 0202 - it is essentially a low-noise, no-nonsense interface. The built-in headphone amp is quite good (if you don´t use a Sennheiser HD-600 or any other comparable high impedance headphone), the inputs are very good though my ASUS is even less noisy. Well, we are talking about a -100 dB and more noise floor. The 0404 has better converters (if that´s audible is another question) and more in- and outputs. Furthermore it needs to be powered by an external power supply - the 0202 is bus powered.

However, if you plan on using foobar2000 with the ASIO driver for both interfaces, you´ll have to configure the ASIO component for foobar anew everytime the PC restarts. Both interfaces use the less common asynchronous USB protocol to achieve less jitter - if I remember correctly. Either the driver is crap or the ASIO component for foobar simply can´t handle it. The driver also puts considerable stress on the processor ressources, with regularly processor cycle spikes occuring every 5 seconds or so. It´s the aforementionend USB protocol... I´ve also read some comments that Intel USB chips can´t handle that card very well - but I´ve never encountered something like this on my Intel based motherboard.

Apart from that its driver works flawless for me, even on Windows 7 64. As far as I know, both interfaces doesn´t colour the sound. I would buy the 0202 anytime again.


Are you just talking for playback? If I want to use the 0202 for high-res stuff? Current soundcard supports 24/96 (but computer only has a microphone in, not a line-in, hence the need for an external soundcard to record) so I'm usually okay there, but I've read about the foobar/ASIO problem and will be keeping an eye on that for sure.


Quote from: PlazzTT on
I was never able to get recording above 48kHz working with my 0202 on Windows 7.

I had some threads on it here: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....c=71910&hl=
and here: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....c=80591&hl=


Curious. First I've heard of it. Hopefully (for me) it's a standalone issue. You never got it fixed, hey?

e-mu 0202 vs. 0404 usb

Reply #8 –
Quote from: PlazzTT on
I was never able to get recording above 48kHz working with my 0202 on Windows 7.

I had some threads on it here: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....c=71910&hl=
and here: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....c=80591&hl=
Possibly something with your USB controller. Have you tried another USB port? 48 kHz maximum sampling frequency indicates USB protocol 1.1 is used instead of 2.0 (where 96 kHz and more become available).

Quote from: shakehurst on
Are you just talking for playback? If I want to use the 0202 for high-res stuff? Current soundcard supports 24/96 (but computer only has a microphone in, not a line-in, hence the need for an external soundcard to record) so I'm usually okay there, but I've read about the foobar/ASIO problem and will be keeping an eye on that for sure.
Recordings in 96 kHz or 192 kHz are possible (even in 88.2 or 176.4) and they work wonderfully. High-res stuff is possible with both 0202 and 0404. The playback issue with foobar won´t be a problem if you use Direct Sound interface.
marlene-d.blogspot.com

e-mu 0202 vs. 0404 usb

Reply #9 –
Quote from: shakehurst on
i'm looking into getting one of these soundcards. leaning towards the 0202 due to it being a fair amount cheaper, but does anyone have any recommendations of one over the other?


0202: http://www.emu.com/products/product....&product=15186
0404: http://www.emu.com/products/product.asp?product=15185


and, if not these, what soundcards would you recommend for 24/96 ripping?


I have an 0202 that still plays back pretty well, but I fried the mic preamps pretty early on. The mic preamp failure is subtle - a loss of sound quality instead of actual loss of sound.

e-mu 0202 vs. 0404 usb

Reply #10 –
What kind of hardware damge can do that?

e-mu 0202 vs. 0404 usb

Reply #11 –
put a deposit down on the 0202 today. music shop here has to order it in as no one locally carries it. 2 weeks from now it should be in my hands.

now, i read today that audacity doesn't record in true 24bit? anyone confirm? and in that case, what program would any of you recommend?

e-mu 0202 vs. 0404 usb

Reply #13 –
Quote from: AndyH-ha on
What kind of hardware damge can do that?


I think I fired the mic preamps by hooking up too loud of a signal.  Mic preamps are supposed to be far more bulletproof than that. BTW, the line inputs are routed through the mic preamps, so when you screw up the mic preamps, you screw up *all* recording.  They still pass music, its just that the music is not so pristene any more. Maybe a little more abuse and I could have fried them altogether. Then it wouldn't record at all. It's a congenital weakness.