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Topic: Great Sound Card Needed (Read 3667 times) previous topic - next topic
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Great Sound Card Needed

I've recently been charged with putting a computer build together for a friend of a friend. His main use is going to be HD video and audio editing and he works for a local radio station so I think he's looking for something professional quality. I normally just sell basic PCs for a local retailer and build gaming PCs for myself and friends, so I have to admit that I know absolutely nothing about audio. I could really use some help with ideas for cards to pitch to this guy. I think the price range of a card for his build is going to be 200+ based on the budget he was planning to spend with HP. However, any and all ideas will be a help for me, since I have no clue about audio besides gamers like Creative X-fi cards for gaming, however I feel that would fall way short of useful for audio editing.

Great Sound Card Needed

Reply #1 –
X-fi has three different modes, each one optimized for special tasks - There are also one dedicated for "Audio editing".

Although many people are flaming Creative products in general (most without even have used them), I'm actually quite pleased with my X-fi Fatality card which I mainly use for bitperfect playback.
Can't wait for a HD-AAC encoder :P

Great Sound Card Needed

Reply #2 –
Quote from: Deken on
I've recently been charged with putting a computer build together for a friend of a friend. His main use is going to be HD video and audio editing and he works for a local radio station so I think he's looking for something professional quality. I normally just sell basic PCs for a local retailer and build gaming PCs for myself and friends, so I have to admit that I know absolutely nothing about audio. I could really use some help with ideas for cards to pitch to this guy. I think the price range of a card for his build is going to be 200+ based on the budget he was planning to spend with HP. However, any and all ideas will be a help for me, since I have no clue about audio besides gamers like Creative X-fi cards for gaming, however I feel that would fall way short of useful for audio editing.


You may want to consider the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1. Also based on the X-Fi technology but I think they do it better there. You'll be the judge. http://www.auzentech.com/site/index.php

Regards.

Great Sound Card Needed

Reply #3 –
Quote from: Deken on
I've recently been charged with putting a computer build together for a friend of a friend. His main use is going to be HD video and audio editing and he works for a local radio station so I think he's looking for something professional quality. I normally just sell basic PCs for a local retailer and build gaming PCs for myself and friends, so I have to admit that I know absolutely nothing about audio. I could really use some help with ideas for cards to pitch to this guy. I think the price range of a card for his build is going to be 200+ based on the budget he was planning to spend with HP. However, any and all ideas will be a help for me, since I have no clue about audio besides gamers like Creative X-fi cards for gaming, however I feel that would fall way short of useful for audio editing.

We have had good experiences with Echo cards in the past for making measurements in the field. They seem to conform to standards (e.g. the Linux folk can write drivers easily) unlike many consumer cards and they seem well constructed. The AudioFire2 is about $200 and fits your budget. It is switchable between the professional balanced/higher voltage system and the consumer unbalanced/lower level. A radio station is likely to use the former and so I would suggest avoiding cards that only have consumer unbalanced connections unless you know these are useable.

To get a broader view I would suggest going to your local music shop and having a chat and/or posting to a pro-audio site.

Great Sound Card Needed

Reply #5 –
Asus Xonar DX.

CS4398 DAC for front output, CS4382A for surround. The chip's a rebranded CMI8788. The card draws power for the amps directly from the PSU instead of the PCIe bus (supposedly less noise from power feed, needs an available power connector). Is a PCIe 1x card, tho.