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Sound Cards

Well, in another thread, I got great advice on this topic, which I am now exploring further. I am looking to be able to record LPs and perhaps CDs.

I found this good link, which tests various sound cards along various technical criteria: http://www.pcavtech.com/soundcards/compare/index.htm

The Turtle Beach Santa Cruz is the highest-rated "consumer" card, rated "excellent" in all areas except signal-to-noise ("very good") and dynamic range ("very good"). This card lists for $80, and costs a mere $40 extra when buying a Dell.

I'm trying to decide if this is good enough.

1. A poster pointed out that the Turtle Beach card doesn't do A/D conversion at 24/96 (it does 18/44), and that even though CDs are only 16/44, the extra headroom allows for digital manipulation of the "image" without loss of quality prior to recording. What if I don't care to manipulate the sound files (I don't imagine having time)? Will there be an audible difference between 18/44 and 24/96 when doing "no-fiddle" copies from LP or CD?

2. The more expensive cards seemed aimed primarily at musicians, and allow mixing signals from various sources, and the like. None of this applies to me. Are these more expensive cards harder to use, or less appropriate for my purpose for any reason?

3. What is S/PDIF? It seems to allow attaching the CD source directly to the sound card (internal to the computer). Is this desirable? Or is it preferable to write the file to hard disk first, then burn it, to avoid timing issues?

4. Since the cost of the higher-end cards is about the same as the cost of a mass-market standalone CD burner stereo component, would I be better off just buying one of the latter?

5. Finally, what higher-end card do people prefer? I've found three internal cards that are listed in the above link as "excellent" across the board, cost $400 or less, have Windows XP support, and do 24/96 A/D conversion:
-- Digital Audio Card Deluxe. $400. Well-reviewed in this forum.
-- Midiman Audiophile 2496. $230. The only one of these three that doesn't support balanced inputs. Also reviewed positively in this forum.
- Echo Audio MIA. "Under $250". Not mentioned in this forum so far.

Thank you for any comments/advice!

- Eric
ehart
beatlefred
17 posts
 
Thank You for your reply and helpful/informative info. I have a Plextor 24/10/40A which I bought recently- just havent had the time yet to use it as much as I'd like. I noticed it can burn fine up to 20x, but when its set to its highest-> 24x, its performance really slows down for some reason- so, until I figure out why, I have to be content with 20X. I also did upgrade my soundcard to a CreativeLabs
Live! from an older generation one. It took a few times for the driver CD to install on my computer- I went to the CL website to see about if any new driver patches - but they have very poor info there regarding that- dont see where the drivers are to install! Used www.google.com to search for sites with drivers, got the card working now but I noticed my computer with Win 98 SE hanging up more often now. As for the Marantz: thanks for explaining to me- I thought all standalones (as opposed to pc-based)didnt allow copies of a copy. So, in other words- if I buy that dual Marantz- it will do the same thing as my computer Plextor Burner (copies of compilations) at approximately the same speed?
rwwear
2,848 posts
 
I'm sure you know that in order for your Plextor to write at 24X the drive it is reading from has to be able to read at 24X. And the disc that you use must be 24X capable also. The dual well Marantz will only burn at 2X I believe.
beatlefred
17 posts
 
I dont use the other drive as there is no need to when burning CD's. I use just the Plextor. Simply make an image on the Hard Drive of the tracks I want to record and then burn them onto the blank disc in the Plextor- bypass my other CD drive all-together. And Yes, I did check that the discs were 24x compatible. As for the Marantz- Ok , so the bottom line is: can do the same as a PC-based Burner, only much slower- 2x instead of 24x or whatever the current fastest is, 32x perhaps by now.
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