Internal signal path of audio interface.

[Tobiah]

I have an M-audio fast track ultra. BTW, I normally
shy away from their products, but I have to recommend
this one to the bedroom hobbyist. It has four decent
phantom powered preamps, two high-Z inputs, and six
regular line ins. You just can't use more than six
total at once (well, plus S/PDIF), which is ample for my needs.
If you watch they can be had for < $100 on ebay. I
get excellent latency figures and haven't dropped a sample
yet.

Anyway, I decided to leave my Echo Mia MIDI installed
because I was having some trouble watching video in
the normal system when the M-Audio ASIO driver was set to
96KHz. I just use the Mia MIDI as the default system
device, and send its outputs to the 5/6 line ins of the
M-Audio which in turn feeds my amplifier. I could
always analog mix the outputs from the two devices,
but this way affords me the convenience of controlling
everything from the M-Audio's software mixer, and
circumvents the need for another device.

I normally go crazy trying to eliminate extra steps
in the audio chain. I was thinking about this
arrangement, and decided that there was probably an
extra A/D step here but I wanted to ask whether I
was correct. I'm assuming that the very first thing
that happens to any of the inputs on this unit would
be the A/D, since the route levels can be controlled
by a software mixer.

I'm not too worried about it. Anyone think that they
could sniff out the extra A/D-D/A here in an ABX?

Thanks!

Tobiah


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[Sean Conolly]

"Tobiah" > wrote in message
...
>I have an M-audio fast track ultra. BTW, I normally
> shy away from their products, but I have to recommend
> this one to the bedroom hobbyist. It has four decent
> phantom powered preamps, two high-Z inputs, and six
> regular line ins. You just can't use more than six
> total at once (well, plus S/PDIF), which is ample for my needs.
> If you watch they can be had for < $100 on ebay. I
> get excellent latency figures and haven't dropped a sample
> yet.
>
> Anyway, I decided to leave my Echo Mia MIDI installed
> because I was having some trouble watching video in
> the normal system when the M-Audio ASIO driver was set to
> 96KHz. I just use the Mia MIDI as the default system
> device, and send its outputs to the 5/6 line ins of the
> M-Audio which in turn feeds my amplifier. I could
> always analog mix the outputs from the two devices,
> but this way affords me the convenience of controlling
> everything from the M-Audio's software mixer, and
> circumvents the need for another device.
>
> I normally go crazy trying to eliminate extra steps
> in the audio chain. I was thinking about this
> arrangement, and decided that there was probably an
> extra A/D step here but I wanted to ask whether I
> was correct. I'm assuming that the very first thing
> that happens to any of the inputs on this unit would
> be the A/D, since the route levels can be controlled
> by a software mixer.
>
> I'm not too worried about it. Anyone think that they
> could sniff out the extra A/D-D/A here in an ABX?

You almost certainly won't hear the extra conversion steps by themselves,
but you could* hear something from the analog buffers along the way. Every
stage has noise and distortion, and following stages pass it on as signal
while adding their own touch.

*'Could' in this case means not likely, but not impossible. It's entirely
possible that what you're playing already has enough noise and distortion to
mask any effects.

Sean

[Mike Rivers[_2_]]

On 8/5/2014 8:24 PM, Tobiah wrote:
> I have an M-audio fast track ultra.

> Anyway, I decided to leave my Echo Mia MIDI installed
> because I was having some trouble watching video in
> the normal system when the M-Audio ASIO driver was set to
> 96KHz. I just use the Mia MIDI as the default system
> device, and send its outputs to the 5/6 line ins of the
> M-Audio which in turn feeds my amplifier.

OK, so you're using the M-Audio as a console, or a router, or a monitor
controller. That's perfectly reasonable.

> I normally go crazy trying to eliminate extra steps
> in the audio chain. I was thinking about this
> arrangement, and decided that there was probably an
> extra A/D step here

What's crazy about that? If you can stand to listen to the M-Audio, the
converters are good enough not to worry about. After all, you're just
watching a movie on your computer, not mastering a really high quality
studio recording.

> I'm assuming that the very first thing
> that happens to any of the inputs on this unit would
> be the A/D, since the route levels can be controlled
> by a software mixer.

Some audio interfaces use analog mixing, but when it gets to mixing more
than two inputs with a stereo playback from the DAW, they go to a
digital mixer because it's cheaper.

> I'm not too worried about it. Anyone think that they
> could sniff out the extra A/D-D/A here in an ABX?

Not me. But more important, can you? If you actually hear something that
you worry about, you need to decide if it's important enough to do
something about. If you can't hear a problem, why should you care
whether anyone else can?




--
For a good time, visit http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com

[Jay Ts[_4_]]

On Tue, 05 Aug 2014, Tobiah wrote:
> I have an M-audio fast track ultra. BTW, I normally shy away from their
> products, but I have to recommend this one to the bedroom hobbyist. It
> has four decent phantom powered preamps, two high-Z inputs, and six
> regular line ins. You just can't use more than six total at once (well,
> plus S/PDIF), which is ample for my needs.
> If you watch they can be had for < $100 on ebay. I get excellent
> latency figures and haven't dropped a sample yet.

I don't know that exact product, but have an M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 PCI
card and a DMP3 mic preamp, and both have really good circuit designs as
far as basic audio quality is concerned. They are both definitely good
for much more than just "bedroom hobbyists".

Both products are designed around high quality chips, and although I
would prefer a better brand of electrolytic capacitors, it's not worth
replacing the ones they used because they work fine as far as I can tell.

With both products, I have to push them hard (running the inputs and/or
outputs from -10 to 0 dBV) to see even small amounts of harmonic
distortion. At a 0 dBV signal level, the 2nd and 3rd harmonics at at only
about -95 dB.

> I'm not too worried about it.

Good! I suggest you don't worry about it _at_all_ until you have several
hundred or maybe thousands of dollars to upgrade to something better.

[Tobiah]

On 08/06/2014 05:48 AM, Mike Rivers wrote:
> On 8/5/2014 8:24 PM, Tobiah wrote:
>> I have an M-audio fast track ultra.
>
>> Anyway, I decided to leave my Echo Mia MIDI installed
>> because I was having some trouble watching video in
>> the normal system when the M-Audio ASIO driver was set to
>> 96KHz. I just use the Mia MIDI as the default system
>> device, and send its outputs to the 5/6 line ins of the
>> M-Audio which in turn feeds my amplifier.
>
> OK, so you're using the M-Audio as a console, or a router, or a monitor controller. That's perfectly reasonable.

It replaced my Mixer, but it's also the device I use now
for all ASIO I/O when I'm recording. I just keep the
Mia MIDI now because it's nice to isolate all system
sounds on the other piece of hardware. I leave the
ASIO driver at 96K, and the system at 44.1K.

Tobiah.