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Topic: m-audio audiophile replacement (Read 7729 times) previous topic - next topic
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m-audio audiophile replacement

hi.

so, i've been googling for days, actually. and, i'm kind of overwhelmed. if anything, it seems like a lot of people are having a similar problem. so, maybe we can answer this question here for everybody.

i have an old receiver; it takes analog rca ins, and doesn't understand what digital audio is. i have a modern computer; it has a low quality dac in it, because it expects you to connect digitally over surround sound. what i actually want to do with this computer is listen to music in regular old two-speaker stereo. but, i'd like to do it in cd quality, or a little higher. the way you used to do this was that you got a a $100 pci card - like the 24/192 ones by m-audio - with an rca out on it. you would then bypass the dac in the onboard sound by sending it to the receiver over pci and out through gold-plated rca. and, jimmy chamberlin sounded crisp and clear and everything was fine.

i understand that pci cards are no more and that pcie cards have lost out to external interfaces, mostly over usb for windows users. i'm up to date on the technology, at least.

but, it seems like the middle has fallen out of the market. you can find all kinds of cheap dacs for $10 that i suspect don't sound very good, and you can find high end options for $3000, but that $100 pci card seems to have disappeared from the planet, and nothing seems to have replaced it. worse, companies like soundblaster to seem to have skyrocketed the price of their products, while actually decreasing their specs. i could buy a 24/192 card 15 years ago for $100; today, a 16/96 card costs $300. not even housing inflates like that. and, this is electronics, it's supposed to move the other way.

i'm trying to shift systems. i want to save my audiophile for my studio pc; i'd buy another one if i could, and may have to resort to trying to find a used one, from what i can see. but, i'd like to find something new, in a box, that is at least comparable to twenty year old technology for a reasonable price. that's reasonable, right? surely, there's a way to get around the onboard dac and that will make jimmy chamberlin sound crisp and clean without costing me $3000 dollars.

is this not possible using today's consumer hardware? am i really better off tracking down an old audiophile?

Re: m-audio audiophile replacement

Reply #1 –
don't assume that there's something wrong with your onboard soundcard apriori, test it with something like RMAA by using a simple 1/8 inch connector to 1/8 inch connector cable. if that test reveals some issues then move on to the next stage of trying to alleviate them with a different soundcard or an external dac, there are countless of options out there.

Re: m-audio audiophile replacement

Reply #2 –
Quote from: deathtokoalas on
i have an old receiver; it takes analog rca ins, and doesn't understand what digital audio is.

Not only that, but to this day, AVRs seem to have only one kind of digital output, and it is HDMI.  I can't think of one that has a TOSLink, SP/DIF or AES digital output that duplicates its analog outputs.  Of course you can demux the audio out of HDMI pretty cheaply and easily, these days.

Quote
i have a modern computer; it has a low quality dac in it,

Maybe yes, maybe no. Probably that DAC is at least average - in the same league as a low end AVR.  And the good news is that there is a pretty good likelihood that the DAC in that PC is a better product than its ADC.

Quote
because it expects you to connect digitally over surround sound.

In that way it is more potentially useful than the AVR.


Quote
what i actually want to do with this computer is listen to music in regular old two-speaker stereo. but, i'd like to do it in cd quality,

Pick the right off-the-shelf PC and its internal DAC might be CD quality or close enough.

Quote
or a little higher. the way you used to do this was that you got a a $100 pci card - like the 24/192 ones by m-audio - with an rca out on it.

The AP 24192 is whole lot better than that. I have 3, one of which I recently bought NIB off of eBay.  The RCA jack is the bane of the world of audio, and converting the AP24192's balanced outputs are a simple matter of a cheap, simple adaptor cable.

M-Audio made a number of PCI cards that have CD Quality RCA and TRS outputs, and they are still available used and as NOS.

Quote
you would then bypass the dac in the onboard sound by sending it to the receiver over pci and out through gold-plated rca. and, jimmy chamberlin sounded crisp and clear and everything was fine.

That still can be true, even if the quality is somewhat sub-CD. Perceptually, CD audio is an overkill format.

Quote
i understand that pci cards are no more and that pcie cards have lost out to external interfaces, mostly over usb for windows users. i'm up to date on the technology, at least.

There are such things as relatively inexpensive PCI-E to PCI adaptors and there are reports that they work fine, even with high end PCI audio cards.  I have some on hand, and need to do some testing.

Quote
but, it seems like the middle has fallen out of the market. you can find all kinds of cheap dacs for $10 that i suspect don't sound very good, and you can find high end options for $3000, but that $100 pci card seems to have disappeared from the planet, and nothing seems to have replaced it. worse, companies like soundblaster to seem to have skyrocketed the price of their products, while actually decreasing their specs. i could buy a 24/192 card 15 years ago for $100; today, a 16/96 card costs $300. not even housing inflates like that. and, this is electronics, it's supposed to move the other way.

i'm trying to shift systems. i want to save my audiophile for my studio pc; i'd buy another one if i could, and may have to resort to trying to find a used one, from what i can see. but, i'd like to find something new, in a box, that is at least comparable to twenty year old technology for a reasonable price. that's reasonable, right? surely, there's a way to get around the onboard dac and that will make jimmy chamberlin sound crisp and clean without costing me $3000 dollars.

is this not possible using today's consumer hardware? am i really better off tracking down an old audiophile?

The Behringer UCA 202 USB audio interface is close enough to CD quality to work fine. RCA ins and outs and change from $30.

Soundblaster's cheapest current stuff is pretty competitive or better in terms of performance.

Re: m-audio audiophile replacement

Reply #3 –
I had been using the MAudio Audiophile 2496 myself for several years but recently have been trying to move to the Linux world. But, that card won't work if I have my graphics card in. Anyway, so I needed an alternative solution. The headphone output from the motherboard was noisy so I ended up using one of these: PROZOR DAC Digital SPDIF Toslink to Analog Stereo Audio R/L Converter Adapter. Works a treat.
daefeatures.co.uk

Re: m-audio audiophile replacement

Reply #5 –
Quote from: evereux on
I had been using the MAudio Audiophile 2496 myself for several years but recently have been trying to move to the Linux world. But, that card won't work if I have my graphics card in. Anyway, so I needed an alternative solution. The headphone output from the motherboard was noisy so I ended up using one of these: PROZOR DAC Digital SPDIF Toslink to Analog Stereo Audio R/L Converter Adapter. Works a treat.
Juli@ still available? Analogue and digital i/o, and you have the choice of installing it to use either balanced or unbalanced analogue. I have a feeling it might no longer be a current ESI product, but it is not that long since I bought mine.

It works with Linux. More expensive than the mentioned Behringer.
The most important audio cables are the ones in the brain

Re: m-audio audiophile replacement

Reply #6 –
Quote from: Thad E Ginathom on
Quote from: evereux on
I had been using the MAudio Audiophile 2496 myself for several years but recently have been trying to move to the Linux world. But, that card won't work if I have my graphics card in. Anyway, so I needed an alternative solution. The headphone output from the motherboard was noisy so I ended up using one of these: PROZOR DAC Digital SPDIF Toslink to Analog Stereo Audio R/L Converter Adapter. Works a treat.
Juli@ still available? Analogue and digital i/o, and you have the choice of installing it to use either balanced or unbalanced analogue. I have a feeling it might no longer be a current ESI product, but it is not that long since I bought mine.

It works with Linux. More expensive than the mentioned Behringer.

There is also the ESI UDJ6 (the USB will be supported in the future)
https://www.thomann.de/gb/esi_udj6.htm

Re: m-audio audiophile replacement

Reply #7 –
Quote from: Thad E Ginathom on
Quote from: evereux on
I had been using the MAudio Audiophile 2496 myself for several years but recently have been trying to move to the Linux world. But, that card won't work if I have my graphics card in. Anyway, so I needed an alternative solution. The headphone output from the motherboard was noisy so I ended up using one of these: PROZOR DAC Digital SPDIF Toslink to Analog Stereo Audio R/L Converter Adapter. Works a treat.
Juli@ still available? Analogue and digital i/o, and you have the choice of installing it to use either balanced or unbalanced analogue. I have a feeling it might no longer be a current ESI product, but it is not that long since I bought mine.

It works with Linux. More expensive than the mentioned Behringer.

I don't know if any PCI/e audio card would work with the combination of motherboard (Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3) and graphics card (NVidia). I didn't have another sound card to try and didn't want to spend money on another card to find that didn't work either.

Everything is fine under Windows but there's something in the Linux kernel I suspect causing a problem. The MAudio card works just fine if I boot without the graphics card installed in Linux. This was the same for all debian based distro's that I tried. There's a thread on the Linux Mint Forums discussing this.

I did try a cheap USB solution but that was riddled with noise too. Anyway, I'm happy with the current solution, it was cheap and effective. I'm due a machine upgrade some point soon and I'm hoping I can go back to the MAudio card then.

Sorry to derail topic OP.
daefeatures.co.uk

Re: m-audio audiophile replacement

Reply #8 –
Quote from: evereux on
Quote from: Thad E Ginathom on
Quote from: evereux on
I had been using the MAudio Audiophile 2496 myself for several years but recently have been trying to move to the Linux world. But, that card won't work if I have my graphics card in. Anyway, so I needed an alternative solution. The headphone output from the motherboard was noisy so I ended up using one of these: PROZOR DAC Digital SPDIF Toslink to Analog Stereo Audio R/L Converter Adapter. Works a treat.
Juli@ still available? Analogue and digital i/o, and you have the choice of installing it to use either balanced or unbalanced analogue. I have a feeling it might no longer be a current ESI product, but it is not that long since I bought mine.
It works with Linux. More expensive than the mentioned Behringer.
I don't know if any PCI/e audio card would work with the combination of motherboard (Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3) and graphics card (NVidia). I didn't have another sound card to try and didn't want to spend money on another card to find that didn't work either.
Everything is fine under Windows but there's something in the Linux kernel I suspect causing a problem. The MAudio card works just fine if I boot without the graphics card installed in Linux. This was the same for all debian based distro's that I tried. There's a thread on the Linux Mint Forums discussing this.
I did try a cheap USB solution but that was riddled with noise too. Anyway, I'm happy with the current solution, it was cheap and effective. I'm due a machine upgrade some point soon and I'm hoping I can go back to the MAudio card then.
Sorry to derail topic OP.

My xx (reputed well known professional brand) USB interface has 75mV of DC offset and 15 mV (30 mV peak to peak) of noise.
Why ?

Re: m-audio audiophile replacement

Reply #9 –
Quote from: .halverhahn on
Recently I was looking for a reasonable USB DAC and found a positive article about the Behringer U-PHORIA UMC204HD.

For just 80$/€ you will get a decent device.



This is a pretty complete test of the UCA202. It seems to have lower noise and distortion, and a lower price (ca. $30) as well.  It is far simpler and thus easier to install and debug. The second harmonic is about 10 dB further down, and the remaining harmonics are below 100 dB down, which ensures absolute inaudibility.  I have one that I have tested myself, and confirm the results that are published in this Blog.



Re: m-audio audiophile replacement

Reply #10 –
i checked out a couple of those, and its pretty much what i thought: all of those cards (even the juli@) are inferior to the audiophile, and some of them are more expensive. somebody's going to tell me that i can't tell the difference between <0.005 thd and <0.002 thd, and 102 snr and 105 snr, but that's not the point. the prozor has a 0.25 thd; the behringer has a 96 db snr. even the juli@, at $200+ cdn, is just barely on par with the 15 year-old audiophile.

i guess i could say something about people listening to mp3s on their phones, right? but, i never thought we'd get to the point where you have to trudge through pawn shops trying to find a decent dac for less than the cost of tuition.

i appreciate the attempts to help, but it seems like i'm searching for a second audiophile.

Re: m-audio audiophile replacement

Reply #11 –
You may try SMSL, but DAC only, no ADC.

USB only, tested with Focusrite Forte:
http://archimago.blogspot.hk/2017/05/measurements-smsl-idea-usb-dac.html

SPDIF only, tested with ASUS Xonar:
https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,111411.msg919331.html#msg919331

If it is still not enough, you may try Creative or Asus's flagship PCIE cards, but more expensive.

My X-Fi Titanium HD purchased in 2013, approx USD$170 at that time. RMAA attached.

...and a test of my X-Fi card against interference.
https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,100481.0.html

Re: m-audio audiophile replacement

Reply #12 –
If all you need is a very good unbalanced stereo line-level output, a Xonar D1/DX will do the job just fine - does 108-112 dB SNR and <0.001% THD sound like enough? Just make sure you find out how to deal with driver quirks or source alternate ones, and buy a good 1/8" to RCA cable.

The trusty Audiophile 2496 is actually cheating a bit in the distortion department by having a slightly lower than usual maximum output level (~1.2 Vrms if memory serves, which is typical higher-end DAP or onboard level but short of CD player levels which tend to be at ~2 Vrms and often a bit higher; the D1 came in at 1.9ish V). It's also more like 15 years old rather than 20, which makes a pretty big difference.

BTW, the days of cards like the AP2496 in even a home studio context are pretty much over as people have generally transitioned to balanced connections, but if the setup has been carefully assembled and there are no ground loop problems, it should still make a pretty decent recording card.

Re: m-audio audiophile replacement

Reply #13 –
I find a lovely issue with the Xonar DX in my MSI Z77A-GD65 motherboard and Fractal Design Define R3 case. Unlike the onboard audio, the Xonar DX has horrible crosstalk between the front microphone and front headphone output.

Re: m-audio audiophile replacement

Reply #14 –
Quote from: kode54 on
I find a lovely issue with the Xonar DX in my MSI Z77A-GD65 motherboard and Fractal Design Define R3 case. Unlike the onboard audio, the Xonar DX has horrible crosstalk between the front microphone and front headphone output.

I find a lovely issue with my Asus Xonar Phoebus, MSI Z170A SLI Plus motherboard, and AMD Radeon RX 480 graphics card.  All the multiples of 48 KHz play at a noticeably lower and slower sounding pitch.  This never happened when the ASUS Xonar Phoebus was in my old machine (Asus CM1630).  Fortunately all the multiples of 44.1 KHz are unaffected by this.  To be honest I never thought in a million years something bizarre like that could happen.