A/D converter + digital input for PC

[Croline]

hello again and again

i was planing to buy a soundcard only to record my final mixes and burn them
but my computer is not audio dedicated (there's even a tv card inside it
imagine the parasites) and i don't want it to be.

i thought of a simple solution : buying a good 24 bit 96khz A/D converter
(the best i can for around 200$) which would be in my studio away from my
computer, and a cheap SPDIF box for my computer (as long as it works- and i
guess there's no quality loss isn't it ?).

question : do SPDIF support 24 bit 96khz ?
which AD converter do you think i should get ? which SPDIF box too ? (if not
SPDIF, which format ?)
how long can a SPDIF cable be ?

i continue my research on the web but can't seem to find what i'm looking
for yet

thanks a lot

matthieu

[Arny Krueger]

"Croline" > wrote in message
...

> i was planning to buy a soundcard only to record my final mixes and burn
them
> but my computer is not audio dedicated (there's even a TV card inside it
> imagine the parasites) and i don't want it to be.

Consider your typical analog/digital (ADC or DAC) converter box. Right
inside the same box one typically finds a power supply and TTL clock
generation circuits running up in the MHz range. Then there are the SP/DIF
and AES/EBU I/O stages. You really don't want to hear about the spectrum of
SP/DIF & AES/EBU, which often reach further into the video range than simple
NTSC video.

> i thought of a simple solution : buying a good 24 bit 96khz A/D converter
> (the best i can for around 200$) which would be in my studio away from my
> computer, and a cheap SPDIF box for my computer (as long as it works- and
i
> guess there's no quality loss isn't it ?).

IME a waste of lots of things.

Stand-alone ADCs, DACs and sound cards are what is known in the trade as
mixed signal electronics. They have analog and digital signals in the same
boxes, on the same cards, and heaven forbid, in the same chips! Horrors!

Doing mixed signal electronics is a relatively old art and many fine
examples exist.

> question : do SPDIF support 24 bit 96khz ?

Yes.

[Justin Ulysses Morse]

Croline > wrote:

> i was planing to buy a soundcard only to record my final mixes and burn them
> but my computer is not audio dedicated (there's even a tv card inside it
> imagine the parasites) and i don't want it to be.
>
> i thought of a simple solution : buying a good 24 bit 96khz A/D converter
> (the best i can for around 200$) which would be in my studio away from my
> computer, and a cheap SPDIF box for my computer (as long as it works- and i
> guess there's no quality loss isn't it ?).
>
> question : do SPDIF support 24 bit 96khz ?
> which AD converter do you think i should get ? which SPDIF box too ? (if not
> SPDIF, which format ?)
> how long can a SPDIF cable be ?

I think your logic fits very well with the state of the art 5 years
ago, and at a much higher price point. In practice today, with the
kind of budget you're talking about, you'll get WAY better results
buying the best PCI card with on-board converters that you can afford.
Look at the Lynx22.

Part of the deal is that the technology has matured to the point where
you can get excellent analog performance out of converters that are
sitting inside your computer.

Another factor is that $200 wouldn't even pay for the power supply and
chassis for standalone converters that are worth bothering with. The
nice thing about a PCI card is that you don't have to pay for those
things.

Now, I don't pretend to know how a DA converter can drive a real-world
balanced line output off the power supplies available inside the
computer, but they do.

ulysses

[Croline]

thanks for your answers !

i'll go with a PCI soundcard then. i hope there won't be too much parasites
going on inside my computers : i got a modem, a tv card, an ethernet card, a
soundblaster pci 128...

thanks
matthieu