Jay Ts wrote:
Well, the discussion was maybe 6 months ago, or at least
long enough that I don't remember how long ago. 
It was about
the "Wave From Hell" example relating to the question of
whether we should avoid normalizing to 0 dB.
IMO totally irrelevant in a musical context due to the amount of hf-energy
in that waveform.
In real life you need between 0.1 and 2 dB's of headroom to be able to mp3
encode and decode without clipping, test it with the actual file. That test
is more demanding that any concern regarding real life between sample overs
in my understanding of said real life.
My AP 2496 card (which is several years old, and I assume not the
most recent version) didn't handle the Wave From Hell properly.
To me, it seems like a minor issue, but one I'd like to
avoid in the future.
Sound cards for post pci slots are entering the market, but right now they
are not USD 100 sound cards.
Haha. But wait, Has anyone ever patented multitrack recording
using wax cylinders? There might be an opportunity there.
For digital you could use any reasonably large mountain face and a skilled
work crew. Stone age engravings generally have stood the test of time, of
course: we haven't found those that haven't ...
I'm starting to wonder if my next computer-based audio
platform might be some kind of Android tablet from India. :-|
You get more in the same size box every year, and also more when the box
gets smaller, reckon that's the single largest difference between computers
as a vice and chocolates as a vice.
As for M-audio, I like their products. I became disenthused with their
support when I understood that a memory allocation conflict between the raid
0 pci harddisk controller I used then and the DiO2428 would not be addressed
by them. On the bright side, the card worked well last time I had it in
fitted to a box.
With the AP2496 I prefer to use the non-newest drivers, the newest version
gives it a lobotomy and removes the possibility of recording the monitormix
as I recall testing it.
Jay Ts
Kind regards
Peter Larsen