Good sound-card for pci slot?

The CardDeluxe is excellent value if you can source it in this country, and I'd also recommend the RME HDSP 9632. They're both cheaper than the excellent Lynx, but might be too much for what you have in mind. Certainly better than a SoundBlaster though
Cheers
John

Thanks both,

It have wondered about server systems like the AE, but I am no great shakes at sorting out a PC and the gizmos involved. In this light, of course, the Naim HDX would be ideal for me, but it is an absolute mile beyond anything I could afford.

I have heard what can be achived with iTunes on a MAC and the portability of the Macbook makes this a splendid portable recorded music library carrier as my ultimate aim. Affordable in time, and rather fine in replay terms.

Really $400 is more than I would want to spend on a sound card, but it does look like a viable option after a while. Certainly a way to consider when I have that amount of money spare.

Thanks again, from George

Dear Avole,

Don't worry! I certainly did not read more than irritation woith someone so computer illiterate that I would not undertsand the significance of it till you pointed it out!

Your posts have been a great help in clarifying it for me. Thanks

ATB from George

George,

I know very little of the ins-and-outs of hard disc storage etc. but this is just a thought for you. Acoustic Solutions and Cambridge Audio both make stand-alone hard disc players (about £200 and £300 respectively, but may be available for less). These appear to be the budget equivalent of Naim's HDX! Who knows, but used with your Lavry DAC it may well be that these machines will give acceptable sounding results, and would be a neater and less complicated / cumbersome method IMO of hard disc storage. Maybe you've considered this already and ruled it out on quality or other grounds. Just a thought anyway.

Peter

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:
What I want to find is a good sound-card for a pci slot ... With optical toslink out, and/or coaxial through RCA cynch ... [I am not really worried about ASIO drivers due to the complexity, or Lynx sound-cards with breakout connections for AES/EBU standard output, which would probably be too costly for what I want at this stage ...].

OPTICAL TOSLINK, RCA CYNCH, ASIO DRIVERS, LYNX SOUND-CARDS, AES/EBU STANDARD OUTPUT.


George

Appears you’ve been bitten by the PC upgrade Bug. (No pun intended)

Once you’ve successfully added a couple of pieces of hardware your confidence will grow exponentially. You may have found a new hobby.

Dear PJL,

I have ruled nothing in or out. the plan is for a Macbook Pro with the 320 gig HD in time, and likely as not this will have been superceded by the time I could aford it ...

I have the Lavry which I find is the best value digital piece I have ebver bought. Nothing to criticise about the way it presents music from this quarter. The best digital machine i ever ran was a gift [obviously beyong my actual possible budget] - the CDS 2 - and that set a standard where most items would fail to please. The Lavry pleases even after the old top CD player, as it has most of the good points of the old CD spinner ...

Dear Fatcat,

That is quite funny! I keep an open mind, and at last I have a PC with enough quality and very light software load, so it could be brought into use for HD storage of music in the interim, before a MAC comes. I am not an enthusiast of Windows software, or PCs, for all that ...

ATB from George

Check out the m-audio 2496, it's in your price range and is a very fine audiophile card at reasonable money.

Don't dismiss the added complication ASIO adds, it's the single best upgrade you can do to a windows music system, the differnce is black and when when you hear it.

I've been using an m-audio card (2496) for many years and have been very happy with it. Looks as though it can be purchased for about £50 now! I seem to recall paying about £200 when I purchased.

I guess there are much better cards in the £200 range now.

Jack

Dear Friends,

As ever the collective understanding of people here is instructive. I am at the begining of the journey and very greatful for the suggestions, and the fact that I can actually miss the point here and there simply indicates that I am a beginer, and learning at a later stage in live than many. The young seem to get all this much more easily!.

Dear Occean, I certainly will not pass over using ASIO( drivers if this gets a benifit, is not hundred of GBPs to implement and is simple enough for me to fix up.

At least I am working with a clean sheet of a computer with very little software loaded.

Thanks for all the replies, and fear not! I'll be back asking inane question which have obvious answers [but not necessarily obvious to me!] as things progress. I got my first download from Amazon earlier, after a fals start. I may have ordered it twice, doubling the cost to 14 GBP, but I'll resolve this when Amazon reply to my panicked email about it!

No doubt in five years time I shall have become a great master of it all!

ATB from George

You're 2 up on me George. My 3 various attempts to D/L music have all failed,the best was 2 tracks out of 8.

Amazon were kind enough to ring me up and resolve the problems and only charge me the once for the downloaded files. I thought I had bought it twice in my efforts to make it download which it did not the first time.

In fact I had only doubled up on one track, and they kindly refunded me the 79 pence cost of this! It specifies in the terms that there are no refunds for downloads, but I guess no one buys "Comfort ye" from the Messiah twice in half an hour in the same recording!

We have the boiler down at work, and having done the picking and labelling for tomorrow, I could not see anything obvious left to do, so I asked for the "half day" as holiday!

And turned up to a respectable level these files sound quite respectable.

ATB from George