Sound Card Upgrade Shootout - Pre Purchase Review

Musician's Friend     After many loyal years with Sound Blaster Live! PCI, as the main interface for my Home DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), I have decided to pursue other avenues of connection, that further appeal to digital music production, quality of sound, and capabilities.

In this blog I will compare; my on-board Realtek High Definition Audio, previous incarnations of Sound Blaster Live!, M-Audio Audiophile 192 (on my current wish list), E-mu 0404, and other comparable interfaces from various other manufacturers. The list will begin from my chosen device from each manufacturer, and proceed with head to head spec comparisons, as well as online research.

As a baseline, my on-board Realtek HD falls short of what I have become accustomed to with the Live! Series cards, and the Live! itself, has issues as well, but still quite capable of low latency, multi-track audio, as well as the use of VST plug-ins. Upon researching other products, that have since come into a suitable price range - I decided upon the Audiophile 192 as my product of choice from M-Audio. At the time of this writing Musician's Friend has this card for $123.99 with free shipping to the lower 48 states.

As a further baseline of neutrality, I will use RightMark Audio Analyzer 6.2.3 to harvest real world benchmarks from these cards whenever possible. Testing both MME and WDM drivers as well as Asio and others, whenever applicable.

So... what else is out there, that fits my needs and self imposed budget??? That remains to be seen...

 Selection Rules: 24-bit/192kHz (in and out), @least 2-in/2-out analog, MIDI I/O, S/PDIF (in and out), under $200, balanced or unbalanced I/O, ASIO support preferred, "Single" PCI or PCIe interface only (no break-out boxes, daughter cards, USB, or FireWire).

(Update - 3/6/2011) Cards so far...
The Old:

Realtek HDA
Creative SoundBlaster Live! 5.1
Yamaha YMF724F-V (Labway A301-G50)
Creative Ensoniq ES1371 & 1373 (Just because I still have them handy)

The New:

M-Audio Audiophile 192
E-MU 0404
ESI Juli@

The Specs: (For now these will be cut and paste, but reorganized for readability as I progress.)

Creative SoundBlaster Live! 5.1

General Features:
Hollywood-Quality Digital Audio Engine
User-selectable bit rates from 8-bit to 16-bit.
User-selectable sample rates from 8kHz to 48kHz.
All sound sources are handled with 32-bit precision for highest quality output.
Analog and Digital I/O modes supported.
Hardware full-duplex support
Utilizes AC97 audio codec.
Supports MPU-401 UART mode.
IBM® compatible 15-pin joystick port with analog support.
Support for digital and DirectInput game devices.

Playback and Recording Sources:
Sound Blaster® 16 Emulation in DOS box and real mode DOS.
64 audio channels
Each channel can operate in 8 bit or 16 bit mode.
48kHz recording from AC97 sample rate converted to 8 common rates to host memory
Playback Recording Sources: CD_IN, AUX_IN, LINE_IN, MIC_IN, TAD, MIDI and Wave..
- CD_SPIDIF In
Full duplex recording and playback.
MIDI Interface via MIDI/Game port

E-m Systems EMU10K music synthesis engine:
64-voice hardware polyphony
64 hardware and 1024 PCI wave-table synthesis
48 MIDI channels with 128 GM & GS-. compatible instruments and 10 drum kits
Uses SoundFont technology for user-definable wave-table sample sets
Loads up to 32MB of samples into host memory for professional music reproduction

Effects Engine:
E-mu Systems EMU10K1™ patented effects processor.
Supports real-time digital effects like reverb, chorus, echo, flanger, etc.
Customizable effects architecture allows audio effects and channel control.
Full bass, treble, and effects controls available for all audio.
Bass management functionality for center & subwoofer channels in 5.1 mode.
Only Bass Management Configuration 0 with Bass (LFE) redirection implemented.
Environmental Audio and 3D Audio Technology

User-selectable settings are optimized for headphones, 2, 4, and 5.1 speakers
Accelerates Microsoft DirectSound and DirectSound3D, EAX.


M-Audio Audiophile 192 ($123.99)Musician's Friend

• up to 24-bit/192kHz audio
• 2 balanced analog inputs (1/4” TRS)
• 2 balanced analog outputs (1/4” TRS)
• S/PDIF digital I/O (coaxial RCA connectors) with 2-channel PCM
• SCMS copy protection control
• digital I/O supports surround-encoded AC-3 and DTS pass-through**
• direct hardware input monitoring via separate balanced 1/4” TRS monitor outputs
• software routing of inputs and outputs
• digital I/O can be routed to/from external effects
•16-channel MIDI I/O
• ASIO, WDM, GSIF 2 and Core Audio driver support for compatibility with most applications 64-bit driver support for Windows
• PCI 2.2 compatibility
• Apple G5 compatible
E-MU 0404 ($119.99) Musician's Friend

General
Sample Rates: 44.1, 48, 96, 192kHz from internal crystal or externally supplied clock (no sample rate conversion)Bit Depths: 24-bit I/O, 32-bit processing
PCI Specification:
– PCI 2.2 Compliant
–Form Factor: Universal Keyed, Short PCI Card
–3.3V I/O, 5V Tolerant
–PCI Bus-Mastering DMA subsystem reduces CPU usage
E-MU E-DSP 32-bit DSP with 67-bit accumulator (double precision w/ 3 headroom bits)
Hardware-accelerated, 32-channel mixing, and multi-effects processing
Zero-latency direct hardware monitoring with effects
ASIO 2.0, WDM/MME/DirectSound Drivers
Anti-Pop speaker protection minimizes noise during power on/off
Ultra-low jitter, clock subsystem: < 1 ns in PLL mode (44.1kHz, Opt. S/PDIF Sync)

Analog Line Inputs (2)
Type: DC-coupled, low-noise input circuitry
A/D converter: PCM1804
Frequency Response (20Hz - 20kHz): 0. 20dB/0.10dB
Dynamic Range (1kHz, A-weighted): 111dB
Signal-to-Noise Ratio (A-weighted): 111dB
THD+N (1kHz at -1dBFS): -100dB (.001%)
Stereo Crosstalk (1kHz at -1dBFS): < -120dB

Analog Line Outputs (2)
Type: low-noise, 3-pole low-pass differential filter
D/A converter: AK4395 Level: -10dBV nominal, 6dBV max (unbalanced) Frequency Response (20Hz - 20kHz): + 0.05/-0.10dB,
Dynamic Range (1kHz, A-weighted): 116dB
Signal-to-Noise Ratio (A-weighted): 116dB
THD+N (1kHz at -1dBFS): -100dB (.001%)
Stereo Crosstalk (1kHz at -1dBFS): < -109dB

Digital I/O
S/PDIF: 2 in/2 out optical or coaxial (transformer coupled)
AES/EBU or S/PDIF format (software selectable)
MIDI: 1 in, 1 out

ESI Juli@ ($149) zZounds

Features
- 2 analog input channels, 2 analog output channels

- 24-bit/192kHz AD converter with 114dB(a) dynamic range

- 24-bit/192kHz DA converter with 112dB(a) dynamic range

- Swappable socket (Unbalanced RCA with -10dBv or Balanced TRS with +4dBu )

- Coaxial S/PDIF digital input

- Synchronisation to digital S/PDIF input signals

- Optical S/PDIF digital output with automatic shutter (max.96kHz)

- Coaxial S/PDIF digital output (max 192kHz)

- 1 MIDI input (16 channels) / 1 MIDI output (16 channels)

- Support for DirectWIRE 3.0

- 4 inputs and 4 outputs can be used with 24bit/192kHz simultaneously (incl. MIDI I/O) - full duplex

- PCI card is compatible with 3.3V and 5V PCI slots

- Independent monitoring control for analog and digital input signals and playback

- EWDM driver: MME, DirectSound, ASIO 2.0 and GSIF 2.0 support

- Windows 98SE/ME/XP/2000/Vista/7 compatible

- Compatible with Mac OS X 10.1 and newer (Power Mac G4/G5)

- Linux compatible (ALSA)

Included Break Out Cable:
This cable provides 24bit/192kHz coaxial inputs and outputs and 16 MIDI I/O channels and fully supports up to 192 kHz.

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 12-20-2014 - I ended up buying the Audiophile 192 - haven't used it once (I put it in when I got it though). The onboard sound of my MSI MoBo is capable of 24bit/192 kHz, and has done quite well for my purposes (mostly videos, with 2 stereo audio streams). The M-Audio card may come in handy later on, if my recording needs expand, beyond my current setup. Loopback Recording in Windows 7, could possibly push me past that threshold, maybe sooner than later, we'll see...