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Are you using a specific soundcard!? Tell us !
What kind of soundcard do you use? Is it expensive? What's your experience with it?
Ask whatever you have got to ask in this topic!

I'm planning to buy a new sound card! Which particular one should i get
a friend of mine suggested me the M-Audio Audiophile 2496 ? Anyone got some experience with that card

If you're planning to use it with a x64 version of Windows, leave M-Audio away. I have a Audiophile 1010LT which works but is a bit of a pain.
For your soundcard buy, you have to check your needs and buy accordingly. If you don't need to record microphones or external gear, and you don't plan to have those needs soon, you don't need inputs. Things with 4 outs and 2 ins are enough for that, so you can buy at a lower price or with a better quality for the same price of a soundcard with more converters.
Do you need mic ins? Preamps? Phantom power? You have to take it into account. Which interface do you want to use? PCI, PCIex, USB, Firewire? Narrow down your list.
Look and read accurately on the internet for other people's experiences with the card you want to buy. Common troubles, company user support, drivers, quality. Suggesting you a popular Audiophile 2496 or a 1010 is easy and will probably do the job, but you would want to check for yourself, there's a broad variety of cards which may suit your needs better and fully, improving the relationship between you and your wallet.

Roby31 wrote:If you're planning to use it with a x64 version of Windows, leave M-Audio away. I have a Audiophile 1010LT which works but is a bit of a pain.
For your soundcard buy, you have to check your needs and buy accordingly. If you don't need to record microphones or external gear, and you don't plan to have those needs soon, you don't need inputs. Things with 4 outs and 2 ins are enough for that, so you can buy at a lower price or with a better quality for the same price of a soundcard with more converters.
Do you need mic ins? Preamps? Phantom power? You have to take it into account. Which interface do you want to use? PCI, PCIex, USB, Firewire? Narrow down your list.
Look and read accurately on the internet for other people's experiences with the card you want to buy. Common troubles, company user support, drivers, quality. Suggesting you a popular Audiophile 2496 or a 1010 is easy and will probably do the job, but you would want to check for yourself, there's a broad variety of cards which may suit your needs better and fully, improving the relationship between you and your wallet.

I don't use a microphone.. I would suggest a PCI soundcard.. But i want a quality card! I currently have Windows 7 32bit but im upgrading it to 64bit soon..

Then definitely no M-Audio. It's not for the quality, which is not bad itself, but I can not suggest you to buy something whose drivers don't work yet and have no estimated release date. The forum is full of people complaining about that and I have found myself in trouble with the beta ones which stopped working all of a sudden, forcing me to go through complete reinstallation. The Machine also has had troubles with his card and W7 x64.

Roby31 wrote:Then definitely no M-Audio. It's not for the quality, which is not bad itself, but I can not suggest you to buy something whose drivers don't work yet and have no estimated release date. The forum is full of people complaining about that and I have found myself in trouble with the beta ones which stopped working all of a sudden, forcing me to go through complete reinstallation. The Machine also has had troubles with his card and W7 x64.

Hmmm yeah well, which ones do work on the 32bit then ?

If you don't do records there's no need for a new soundcard, even an integrated one is perfect
I do a lot of recordings, currently using digidesign 96 I/O (for PT HD) an RME fireface 800 and an Apogee rosetta 800 AD/DA converter (which rocks so baaaaaaadly)
For Laptop (no recordings) i use an integrated REALTEK and sometimes an Mbox2, just for the PT LE dongle

I use the M-audio 2496 and haven't experienced any 64bit issues, had it for a few years and been running it on XP and win7 with different hardware. They seem slow on releasing final 64bit drivers for a few of their products tho (?) so I guess there's always the risk of it not working..

Roby31 wrote:Then definitely no M-Audio. It's not for the quality, which is not bad itself, but I can not suggest you to buy something whose drivers don't work yet and have no estimated release date. The forum is full of people complaining about that and I have found myself in trouble with the beta ones which stopped working all of a sudden, forcing me to go through complete reinstallation. The Machine also has had troubles with his card and W7 x64.

My M-Audio Studiophile 2496 works perfectly with my VIsta 64x.. And it's a good card for starters.

I know it works with Vista x64. The Vista x64 drivers however WON'T work with Windows 7 x64, and I really don't know why, given the 7 kernel is marked as 6.1 (and Vista's is 6.0) - The w7 x64 beta drivers lack support for some features in some soundcards (like the bass management in the 1010, which is used to make the soundcard act as a 5.1 surround one) and often stops working at once without apparent reason. I was happy with my product, and M-Audio itself is a small team although the company is owned by AVID, but I sure for hell can NOT suggest to buy one of their products until there are drivers.

Which sucks, since the beta version was out 4 months ago.

I know some other drivers will work on Vista x64 AND 7 x64, e.g. Terratec's drivers. My phase 22 worked well on both OSs.

i have this sound card and works nice

http://www.focusrite.com/products/saffi ... re_pro_40/

I don't really think he has any use for all those inputs.

I wanted an external interface because I wanted to use it at my laptop and computer. Also my laptop doesn't have firewire, so I needed an USB one.

So I bought a Tascam US-122L for €90,- It works with Unix / Mac / Windows (Both x64 and x86) and so far I only have 6ms latency with the awesome asio drivers (updated a few months ago).

It has midi in/out / 2x mic in (with phantom power supply) / normal line output / headphone output / line in / guitar in.

And It doesn't need an external power supply, the USB bus is enough.


Recently the MKII was released, so that would be the way to go for me if I had to buy one now. (And maybe the 144 instead of the 122 because that one has more in/outputs + digital)

Edirol Cakewalk UA-25 EX via USB

works perfect after a few starting problems !

Right now, i still use my onboard soundcard.. I'm using a MacBook Pro, so the soundcard on it is quite good actually! When i'm going to buy a set of good studio monitors i'm going to buy an external interface, with some balanced outputs. No need to get one now, as i'm still working on my Z5500