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Topic: M-Audio comparison (Read 4062 times) previous topic - next topic
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M-Audio comparison

I have read many good things about both the M-Audio Revolution and the Audiophile 24/96. Obviously they serve different purposes but if you had to get one over the other for audio quality only... 

Price difference doesnt matter.

M-Audio comparison

Reply #1 –
If price was no object I'd get the Audiophile...USB (actually if price was no object I'd go with a much more expensive card).

M-Audio comparison

Reply #2 –
From what I've seen, the Revolution is more a card for gamers and general use like watching DVD's / listening to music.  The Audiophile is more suited to home recording and music..

I'm unsure if there's any difference in their playback quality (which I guess is what you're after?) - the M-Audio range seems to use great parts even down to their cheapest card
< w o g o n e . c o m / l o l >

M-Audio comparison

Reply #3 –
I have an Audiophile, I just got a Revo a couple of days ago, and I've performed some quick loopback measurements over it.

According to these quick measurements, sound quality-wise, both are very similar, both at recording and at playing. At recording, the AP tends to be slightly less noisy (~ 1 dB less noise over a 20 KHz band), but in practice mine is a little bit noisier than the Revo at one channel, and a little bit less noisy at the other channel. THD & IMD figures and signatures are nearly identical in both, in loopback tests. Frequency response is not equal, but sort of equivalent. Just at playing, I guess both they will measure very similar.

The differences, then, lie in the different features and drivers of each card:

- The AP has Win9x drivers, Revo doesn't.

- AP drivers are more solid. Revo drivers have crashed once since I have it, due to playing with surround modes while music was playing, but not on "steady" or "proper" operation. Current Revo drivers mute SPDIF output when when playing with ASIO drivers (but this supposed to be fixed in future driver releases), AP drivers work OK here.

- Revo drivers include DSP processing for bass management, surround and 3D gaming effects, AP drivers don't.

- AP mixer app has a slight advantage on routing/leveling possibilities over Revo control pannel, but in practice both are equivalent.

- AP has a SPDIF input, Revo doesn't.

- Revo has a mic input, AP doesn't.

- Revo has what seems to be a proper headphone connector, AP doesn't (I want to do some tests over connecting both to a headphone and see the actual differences).

- Revo has 8 output channels, 6 of them are a little bit worse quality than the main 2 ones, but still very good quality. AP has just 2 output channels.

- Revo supports 192 KHz sample rate at playing (AP just 96 KHz), but without support for DVD-A, this is useless in practice.

Edit:

- Revo is cheaper

M-Audio comparison

Reply #4 –
Thanks very much! Great info.

One thing. The Revo records 24/96 through an analog line in jack where the AP records 24/96 through an analog RCA jack like the Delta cards. Is there a big advantage/higher quality with the RCA? If I was looking to record lets say an electric guitar, bass and drums one track at a time what would be better.

M-Audio comparison

Reply #5 –
Quote
Revo has 8 output channels, 6 of them are a little bit worse quality than the main 2 ones, but still very good quality. AP has just 2 output channels.


According to M-Audio, the Revolution outputs measure a stellar 107db SNR in both two and eight channel mode - are you saying you've tested less than this or are you using another measure of quality?
  I am aware that this sort of thing is common with SoundBlaster products (high SNR on primary output, less on others), but I haven't heard a similar complaint about M-audio yet.

M-Audio comparison

Reply #6 –
Quote
According to M-Audio, the Revolution outputs measure a stellar 107db SNR in both two and eight channel mode - are you saying you've tested less than this or are you using another measure of quality?

I haven't tried to measure the noise limits of the Revo outputs, and maybe I was too fast on saying this, and quality is in practice equal in all 8 outputs. But what is true is that the 2 main outputs are feed fom an independant 2 channel DAC, the AK4381, which is rated 108 dB of dynamic range, and the other 6 channels are feed from another slightly lesser quality 6-channel DAC, the AK4355, which is rated 106 dB of dynamic range.

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/m-audi...o-revolution71/

M-Audio comparison

Reply #7 –
Quote
One thing. The Revo records 24/96 through an analog line in jack where the AP records 24/96 through an analog RCA jack like the Delta cards. Is there a big advantage/higher quality with the RCA?

Neither RCA nor mini-jack connectors are considered to be very robust. However, maybe RCA is a little bit better in this respect. However, in practice, neither of two will have an detrimental influence in audio quality if the connectors are making good contact, which should be the normal thing.

If you are going to plug and unplug cables a lot of times maybe RCA could be better. Anyway, in either case, I would recommend to use an extension cable with the type of connector you want at the end, so that the connectors at the card don't wear out from repeated plugging and unplugging.

M-Audio comparison

Reply #8 –
well, i know nothing of all this other technobabble. but what i do know is a have the Revo 7.1 and am very happy with the playback in both games and music, this card smokes!
 

M-Audio comparison

Reply #9 –
I'm considering an M-Audio Revolution 7.1
4 my new pc. (I have 2 order, cos it's not
available in Greece  ).
I've heard that the Audigy 2 is a good all-around
gaming card. How good is the Revo in this respect?
Why should performance in gaming be any different
than that in music playback?
Wanna buy a monkey?