Just picked up an M-Audio Audiophile USB... [Archive] - Audio & Video Forums

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royphil345
02-10-2007, 10:37 PM
Got tired of messing with the Audigy 2 trying to get good transfers from vinyl and good sound from the computer to my main system.

This thing sounds AWESOME!!!

I'm going to be listening to ALOT more music from the hard drives now I think... 128 kbps internet radio even sounds good. "Drone Zone" on Soma was blowing my mind.

Highly, highly recommend this thing to anyone wanting excellent transfers from vinyl to digital using a computer... or just an excellent sounding interface between a computer and sound system. I should have listened to the people here and dumped the Soundblaster long ago!!!

I will say that the USB 1.1 interface seems just barely fast enough for the job. I have to select only 1 stereo input or output at a time and tweak the latency setting to it's limit in order to avoid getting clicks and pops in the playback. I couldn't use the newest version of the driver at all without getting artifacts at times. The one that came on the disk works fine. The Firewire version of the Audiophile is probably the one I'd recommend. I see now that I could have gotten it for the same price... Oh well... it's working great!!! I can see potential problems with slower or bogged-down computers though...

Dusty Chalk
02-11-2007, 02:13 AM
Yeah, I haven't upgraded yet -- all I have is a M-Audio Sonica (the Audiophile's predecessor). And it sounds pretty effin' good to me...

royphil345
02-11-2007, 03:14 AM
Yeah, I haven't upgraded yet -- all I have is a M-Audio Sonica (the Audiophile's predecessor). And it sounds pretty effin' good to me...

If it ain't broke...

Feanor
02-11-2007, 04:35 AM
Got tired of messing with the Audigy 2 trying to get good transfers from vinyl and good sound from the computer to my main system.

This thing sounds AWESOME!!!

I'm going to be listening to ALOT more music from the hard drives now I think... 128 kbps internet radio even sounds good. "Drone Zone" on Soma was blowing my mind.

Highly, highly recommend this thing to anyone wanting excellent transfers from vinyl to digital using a computer... or just an excellent sounding interface between a computer and sound system. I should have listened to the people here and dumped the Soundblaster long ago!!!

I will say that the USB 1.1 interface seems just barely fast enough for the job. I have to select only 1 stereo input or output at a time and tweak the latency setting to it's limit in order to avoid getting clicks and pops in the playback. I couldn't use the newest version of the driver at all without getting artifacts at times. The one that came on the disk works fine. The Firewire version of the Audiophile is probably the one I'd recommend. I see now that I could have gotten it for the same price... Oh well... it's working great!!! I can see potential problems with slower or bogged-down computers though...

I've had an Audiophile USB for a while now. Mine is the USB device and I have had "clicks and pops" from time to time but very rarely of late; (scary how similar they are to what you get off vinyl). I have been using the 5.10.00.5077 for Windows XP software for while without glitches.

Perhaps you understand this better than me, if so I'd love a better explanation. As I understand it, the Audiophile has its own proprietary drivers that use the ASIO standard which is according to some preferrable to built in Windows sound drivers. Of course, it is external to the PC itself hence away from that RFI environment. I use its S/PDIF output to feed my Assemblage DAC for possibly a minor improvement, but the built-in Audiophile DAC is pretty good I'd say.

I haven't used the device for recording vinyl yet but I indend to do so one of these days.
...

royphil345
02-11-2007, 10:37 AM
It can use ASIO drivers. The thing is... Only professional recording software uses ASIO drivers. When listening to Windows Media Player, etc... the ASIO drivers aren't being used. I believe I've read that you can download an ASIO plugin for Winamp. Wouldn't be surprised if there's something out there for other media players as well. I'll look into it eventually...

Using the older driver, setting latency to the max and only selecting 1 stereo input or output at a time completely solved the problem for me, so I quit looking for solutions for the time being. I use a USB wireless mini keyboard with that computer and also stream most of the files I play over a wireless network. Thought maybe that was the reason I was having problems. The strange thing is... I was having no problems streaming DVD-quality video over the network with SAGEtv, yet I'd get clicks and pops playing a simple mp3 with Windows Media Player or Winamp.

The recordings from vinyl come out excellent. You will be pleased. The ones I made using the Audigy card weren't horrible. It was hard to tell though, because playback from the Audigy WAS horrible!!!... no matter how much I played around with the settings...

I sort of like that it's "finicky". I'm sure that's why I was able to pick it up for $130.00 instead of $200.00... LOL. The problem seems to be that most of their products are geared towards multi-track home recording using ASIO drivers. Most people probably use only 1 mono input and output at a time for that purpose. Working in stereo and using Windows sound drivers seems to test the limits of the USB 1.1 interface.

Feanor
02-11-2007, 11:51 AM
It can use ASIO drivers. The thing is... Only professional recording software uses ASIO drivers. When listening to Windows Media Player, etc... the ASIO drivers aren't being used. I believe I've read that you can download an ASIO plugin for Winamp. Wouldn't be surprised if there's something out there for other media players as well. I'll look into it eventually...

....

The whole thing about drivers is totally confusing to me. I use iTunes for playback so I guess I'm using what ever it dictates. In any case, it works well and I get very, very few dropouts -- I set the Latency to maximum a while back.

royphil345
02-11-2007, 12:10 PM
This might be something to play around with someday when you're bored. http://worshiptheglitch.com/2006/02/apple-itunes-powered-by-foobar2000.html


Looks like iTunes is a fancy front-end that actually uses Quicktime to play files. This software alters iTunes to use Foobar for playing files instead (you see the same interface), and Foobar2000 supports ASIO.

You would just need Foobar 2000 and the Multi-Plugin. ASIO drivers for the Audiophile USB are already installed on your system.


I really want to try making some multi-track guitar recordings with this thing... Maybe add some "virtual" drums... My "monitor" on that computer is an old big screen TV though. Too blurry to learn pro recording software on. I'm probably going to have to buy another M-Audio interface for this computer. Probably a firewire one with an instrument input and that comes with software guitar modeling / effects to keep things simple.

Feanor
02-11-2007, 01:26 PM
This might be something to play around with someday when you're bored. http://worshiptheglitch.com/2006/02/apple-itunes-powered-by-foobar2000.html


Looks like iTunes is a fancy front-end that actually uses Quicktime to play files. This software alters iTunes to use Foobar for playing files instead (you see the same interface), and Foobar2000 supports ASIO.

You would just need Foobar 2000 and the Multi-Plugin. ASIO drivers for the Audiophile USB are already installed on your system.

....

Indeed, iTunes does use Quicktime. I don't know whether I really care to muck with Foobar. Basically I pretty content with the playback as it is, every bit as good as my CD player.

royphil345
02-11-2007, 01:41 PM
Indeed, iTunes does use Quicktime. I don't know whether I really care to muck with Foobar. Basically I pretty content with the playback as it is, every bit as good as my CD player.

Yes, I agree completely. Better than I expected. Haven't considered the computer a "serious" part of my home theater until now. Probably won't worry too much about using an ASIO player either. Thought maybe if you still had the occasional clicks and too much time on your hands someday... LOL

That's an old page... Looks like you'd have to find newer versions of the software and make sure they still work together and with the newest version of iTunes... Pain in the butt...

squeegy200
02-12-2007, 09:42 PM
Wow, I am currently wrestling with Audicity and I must say this is the first time I had ever heard of this.

I do have Fire Wire capability on my PC. So this bypasses the limitations of the sound card?

Does it come with the software to edit the resulting wav files from Vinyl LPs? Can I separate them into individual tracks?

royphil345
02-12-2007, 11:08 PM
It becomes your sound card when plugged in. It doesn't automatically upconvert, compress, equalize, or otherwise mess with the integrity of music files when playing them. It has a great D / A converter for recording analog or outputting analog to your sound system. Can also be connected to your system with a coaxial digital cable. Dolby Digital or DTS can be passed through and decoded by your receiver / HT preamp. The RCA connectors for all of the analog connections are a big plus. Allows the use of quality cables.

It comes with some pro recording / editing software. Will also work with just about any recording software.

I'm still using this: http://www.freefilehosting.net/download/NjE1MTI= (hit the download button) This will work with your current sound card or the Audiophile.

It has a simple recorder and the fastest, simplest interface I've ever seen for separating recordings from vinyl into tracks. It was designed just for that purpose by someone tired of using a full-featured editor for the job. Once you learn it (easy), you'll be able to separate a full album into tracks in about a minute. I'd be happy to answer any questions about using the software. The recordings also sound better to me than those made by Audacity, which sound a little bright to me. I'm not too sure how this is possible when recording digitally at the same bitrate / recording level... but I can hear a difference...

The best price I've seen on the firewire version of the Audiophile is $130.42 with free shipping. http://www.audiomidi.com/FireWire-Audiophile-P4608.aspx## I paid the same thing for the USB version at Sam Ash http://www.samash.com/catalog/showitem.asp?itemid=25129&sourcetype=singleitemsearch . Like I said... Very happy with it, but I can see it not working well on some systems due to the speed limitations of USB 1.1... Was just barely able to make it work well on mine...

The firewire version also adds direct monitoring, a desirable feature for those making multi-track recordings. Just didn't do enough research before buying the USB version for the same price... Like I said... Still VERY happy with it!!! For all I know the firewire version may have some glitch the USB version doesn't...

Lo-Fi
02-13-2007, 06:02 AM
thanks for posting this Roy. After I can upgrade my OS, I am so going to get one of those, the firewire version of course :cool:

squeegy200
02-13-2007, 06:40 AM
Thank you Roy, This is great stuff!

I will try the software you suggested. I'm finding the line level outs of my preamp seem to saturate Audacity software recording levels. So I find myself turning every line level down to prevent distortion.

You've now sparked my curiosity.
I was scouring M-audio products and noticed they also make two PCI card versions. I was especially curious of one model, the Audiophile 192 which is a 24b/192KHz card. I does have a Windows XP minimum requirement apparently because previous versions of windows are only capable of 96KHz.

Would there be an advantage of the PCI card version compared to the stand-alone powered unit?

The standalone units do have their own power supplies but only support 96KHz.

royphil345
02-13-2007, 08:22 AM
The stand-alone units are supposed to have superior D/A converters and slightly lower noise. I'd be willing to bet the PCI cards are pretty good too. Haven't tried one though... I can tell you for sure the Audiophile USB sounds great and it's nice having the connections out in the open. 24/96 is more than I'll ever need... Higher resolution comes in handy for professional quality multi-track recordings with many tracks. The level of each track has to be reduced quite a bit to prevent clipping in the final product. Resolution is lost lowering the levels, so recording the tracks at very high resolutions helps... I don't think most people into home recording often use more than 24/96 or even 24/48. I've heard it's fine to record vinyl at 16/44.1 because recording at higher resolutions and then down-converting with anything but the best pro software will often do more harm than good.

The PCI interface is obviously faster (allowing for the higer recording resolutions). Might be less problematic on some systems...

If you use the software I put up, the line-in control on the recording screen of your Windows Mixer controls the recording level. Halfway up is usually "flat". It can differ with different soundcards though... The driver for your sound card determines how the Windows Mixer "acts". I sort of like how the driver for the Audiophile USB eliminates it completely :).

The Audigy 2 was insane!!! All I wanted to do was hook it's digital out to my receiver and hear music files. In order to do that, it had to first compress the music, then up-convert it to 48hz, while seemingly applying EQ during both of these steps... There was absolutely no way to simply connect the digital source to a digital input and hear anything that vaguely resembled music. Someone at Creative really needs to get it together!!! I don't know if their newer cards are any better for music...

squeegy200
02-14-2007, 09:20 AM
I made my first recording last night using the CD Wave editors you suggested.

the line level adjustability was so much better and just as you described, seperation of tracks was easy. It does seem to have been designed for LP>CD conversions. I used my onboard sound card.

I burned the digitized tracks to a blank CD and listened to it during my morning commute. The resulting files sound good. With a little tweeking, I think I could make it sound even better.

Thanks for the recommendation. ;)

royphil345
02-14-2007, 09:56 AM
GREAT!!! :)

Glad you like it.

I've been posting this older version because it doesn't stop working if you... forget to register it... LOL

I see there is a new version that looks exactly the same, but adds the capability to output lossless or mp3 files without converting in a separate program. He's back to the honor system on registration as well. I've used this program so much, I think I'm actually gonna' pay the guy this time. http://www.milosoftware.com/cdwave/index.html

EDIT: I don't know... Tried the new version and the recordings sound a little on the bright side again... Guess old people should stick with old software... LOL

Dusty Chalk
02-14-2007, 06:48 PM
If it ain't broke...Never mind, I didn't realize we were talking about doing this for recording -- the Sonica only does output...

royphil345
02-16-2007, 10:00 AM
I wonder how good this one is. http://www.guitarcenter.com/shop/product/buy_behringer_ucontrol_uca202_usbaudio_interface?f ull_sku=702540&src=4WPGWXX

Seems to be popular and selling out everywhere. Doesn't have a separate power supply like the Audiophile. Much cheaper though... I may pick one up for this computer and see how it compares with the Audiophile on the other.