Subject:Audiophile 2496 or Echo Mia?

Posted by: longb

Date:7/6/2003 2:19:31 AM

Hey Folks, just curious about what cards are being used out there. The Mia seems to have better specs like +4 Dbv max input level (the audiophile has a +2 consumer level) and the Mia also has balanced inputs. Im doing multitrack work in Acid 3.0 and plan on buying a Great River mic pre ($1000).......I knosw that there are more expensive cards out there but I want to know what YOU use. Also, let me know if you are a hobbyist or pro and what kind of projects you usually work on

Peace

Subject:RE: Audiophile 2496 or Echo Mia?

Reply by: dkistner

Date:7/6/2003 7:26:20 AM

Peace, I've got the Echo Mia, and I've been happy with it. Only thing is (and this may also be true of the Audiophile), if you're using Windows XP installed as ACPI (which is recommended over Standard PC installation), it can be a bear to get it isolated on its own IRQ, which Echo says is needed for it to work. Right now, though, I've got it on an IRQ with the SMBus controller (which I think is not being heavily used), and it's working. Also, because of the balanced inputs/outputs, getting the cabling set up properly can be kind of tricky. But it's a beautiful-sounding card.

I would consider myself somewhere between hobbyist and pro. Closer to hobbyist than pro, but more demanding of a DAW than the usual hobbyist might be. I compose classical-style music in a scoring program, record individual voice lines via Chainer hosting VSTis and XS-1 for soundfonts, and then mix and effects-process in Acid. Because I don't have to record anything into the card, I don't know anything about how it handles for that...just that it has no midi on the card, so if you need that, you'd need the MiaMidi.

The one thing I'll say about the Mia, it is extremely faithful to the digital signal. So if you've got any noise at all, you're going to hear it. Recording as I do, I never have noise; I can boost the amplitude of recorded waves a ton and there will be no noise floor at all. But I did a cleanup job on some voice recordings somebody else had done using a Soundblaster, and I thought I'd lose my mind before I got it cleaned up. I could listen to the voice files on the Soundblaster and I didn't hear nearly the amount of noise I could hear through the Mia. I figure this is an advantage of the Mia, though, because if the noise is in the waves, you certainly want to be able to hear it and get it out. The Soundblaster apparently has masking routines that make it work better for gamers and such; I don't want anything being altered/masked by my soundcard!

The latest drivers for the Mia, 6.08, work well with XP. These drivers have the Pure Wave option (as well as WDM), and the Pure Wave seems to work very well in Acid. Chainer (which requires ASIO) handles both of them.

Also, I've got a Soundblaster Live Value! card residing in my box alongside the Mia. I set my midi player in Control Panel to the SB Live and the rest of it to the Mia, and I am able (for example) to listen to midi files (say, from a program like Poodles and Flan that generates music and outputs a midi file) with the SB and then, if I've got something I want to actually work with in a composition, I switch to the Mia/Chainer setup. It gives me a lot of flexibility in how I work.

Subject:RE: Audiophile 2496 or Echo Mia?

Reply by: jam

Date:7/6/2003 8:54:31 AM

all 2 are great for Acid.
there is a new Mia (with midi) that can be intresting, but Audiophile is cheaper.
You can also have a look to the software bundled with each card. Not the same, and can help you to do the choice.
Anyway, whatever will be the card you choose between these 2, you will make a good choice.

jam

Subject:RE: Audiophile 2496 or Echo Mia?

Reply by: drbam

Date:7/6/2003 10:01:29 AM

The balanced I/O definitely swings in the Mia's favor if you're using analog inputs, which I assume you will be doing with the GR pre. It seems a bit ridiculous to spend $1k on a really sweet mic pre to then run it into an unbalanced input IMO. If you need midi, then you could get the new Mia Midi (about $200 maybe less). I have a Layla 24 and really like it.

HTH,

drbam

Subject:RE: Audiophile 2496 or Echo Mia?

Reply by: MyST

Date:7/6/2003 9:10:55 PM

I've got a Mia, and I like it alot. I was kinda dissapointed awhile ago with it only because it didn't have midi input. My midi keyboard was gathering dust.
Now I've discovered midi thru USB(M-Audio UNO) and all's well again.

Strickly hobbyist here, but man am I LOVIN' my new Pro 4.0!!! :)

M

As a side note;

If you've got the $$$, why not go with the Gina instead. IF you decide you want to start mixing in surround, you'll be already set. I only mention this because I'd like to try creating in surround, and with the Mia I can't. :(
I'd get the Gina if I had the $$$.

Subject:RE: Audiophile 2496 or Echo Mia?

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:7/8/2003 1:15:07 PM

I have an Audiophile. Both are actually very good cards and are equally comparable. The only real difference is the MiaMIDI has balanced 1/4" I/O as you've noted. Even then, people who've had interference with unbalanced connections are few and far between. Balanced I/O gives you peace of mind overall should you be concerned.

Hobbyist or pro? I can't pick both? :o) Seriously, I remix projects at ACIDplanet for the fun of it and produce music for clients that want my style of music (which is usually hard).

I work almost exclusively with digital audio (both with canned and custom made loops/audio); sometimes I use MIDI but more often than not I don't.

Iacobus

Subject:RE: Audiophile 2496 or Echo Mia?

Reply by: ATP

Date:7/8/2003 3:41:49 PM

i have the Audiophile as well, and i'm absolutely loving it. that is not to say the MIA is not at least as good, on the contrary, basically the only reason i eventually chose the Audiophile was because it has a midi port. but i have no regrets.

as for hobbyist or pro, it doesn't really apply for me. i would like to think i'm somewhere inbetween. but in any case, i'm a producer, not a mastering engineer. i'm not gonna do the final mixing and post production of my work at my own place. a friend of mine has an actual studio, with all the works, from digital mixing boards to expensive monitor speakers. no need for me to bother with buying all that stuff myself. so, in that regard, an Audiophile (or MIA) more than suits my needs. i guess if you wanted to go all out, and do the post production etc yourself as well, you'd probably need a higher class of soundcard to begin with, and you'd need a much bigger budget for that as well. :)

btw, since we're pimping our own work, here's my website :)
crookram.net

i did all the post production of the tracks on my website myself using the Audiophile, and obviously the mastering and mixing leaves much to be desired. not a fault of the card tho, this is pure human ineptness here. ;)