Members eightyeightkeys Posted January 11, 2007 Members Share Posted January 11, 2007 I'm going to upgrade my A/D D/A convertors fairly soon. I'm not going upscale such as Lavry or Apogees and I would like to stick to PCI. It's been rock-solid stable and doesn't seem to have any issues that Firewire does.I don't need pre-amps or any effects for monitor - I'm interested in sound quality and really stable drivers at an affordable price. So, looking at the EMU 1616M vs the Echo Layla 3G - which would you choose, if any ? Alternatives ? Tuff to beat the price and the specs are outstanding :EMU1616MDynamic Range - 120dbDistortion 0.0003%Frequency Response +0/-0.03 db 20-20kHz Echo Layla3GDynamic Range - 114dbDistortion 0.002%Frequency Response +/-0.10 db 20-20kHz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted January 11, 2007 Members Share Posted January 11, 2007 If you can hear any difference between these two, I'd be surprised...so it's down to price and features. One point in the 1616's favor is that if you use a laptop, you can insert a PCMCIA card and avoid the USB/FireWire issues...it's like the laptop equivalent of plugging in a PCI card. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted January 11, 2007 Members Share Posted January 11, 2007 OK, Craig -- are you REALLY trying to tell us yuo can't hear a 7/100 dB dip or rise in frequency response? And what about that whoppin' .028% of distortion?!? Time for the hearing aid fitting, man! :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jonmatifa Posted January 11, 2007 Members Share Posted January 11, 2007 OK, Craig -- are you REALLY trying to tell us yuo can't hear a 7/100 dB dip or rise in frequency response? And what about that whoppin' .028% of distortion?!? Thats good and all for numbers, but what do your ears tell you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeff da Weasel Posted January 11, 2007 Members Share Posted January 11, 2007 Thats good and all for numbers, but what do your ears tell you? That was a joke son, see, a joke. No human (or possibly dog, or bat) could expect to hear such minute differences, based on the spec. - jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jonmatifa Posted January 12, 2007 Members Share Posted January 12, 2007 Uuhhh..... yeah..... *goes back and reads the numbers again* DOH! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members eightyeightkeys Posted January 12, 2007 Author Members Share Posted January 12, 2007 That's why I titled the thread Spec ? What Spec ? After all if you look at the Lavry Black D/A specs (just for fun):Noise -110 db FS unweighted (20-22kHz)Distortion 1k Tone @ -1dbFS = 0.002 % @-20dbFS + 0.0013 %Jitter 0.1 ppm/10secFrequency Response +/- 0.05db (10-20kHz) you cannot compare specs directly. Weighted ? Un-weighted ? A-Weighted ? @ -1dbFS ? or -20dbFS ? Echo doesn't list their jitter specs. Lavry doesn't list the dynamic range...etc... Anyway, you can't tell too much by specs alone. I like to try before I buy. But, my usual retailer doesn't even carry the Echo (he's never heard of it). So, I could be stuck with making my best guess by specs. Are there any users out there that may have had good or bad experiences with these units ? Or, are there better alternatives in that price range or even slightly above ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members zenchin Posted January 12, 2007 Members Share Posted January 12, 2007 Whoever the retailer was who had never heard of Echo is a retailer I'd stay away from. Echo has been around for many many years ...one of the oldest companies in the sound card biz. My vote..get the Layla3g. If you ever go to firewire, get the Echo Audiofires. Either way, they are fantastic products and as Craig says, you're not going to hear sound differences... and those written specs are not going to paint the whole picture. I'm up to 6 Layla3gs...3 of them each in two different pcs. Plus a few Layla 24s in other pcs. Plus Audiofires in a few more. All sync'd together and master clocked by a Motu Digital Timepiece. Whether you're using one or a bunch, Laylas are great sounding and based on solid drivers that just simply w-o-r-k with anything I've ever thrown at them. They're a total joy and as far as I'm concerned, Echo could be charging a whole bunch more than they do for these products....and as I keep hearing...will be shortly. You can read opinions about them all over the place (Gearslutz etc). You just can not go wrong with them for any pro application as far as I'm concerned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Dylan Walters Posted January 12, 2007 Members Share Posted January 12, 2007 I haven't used either, however, I've had great experience with Echo's past products for what it's worth. The drivers and performance from Echo are top notch! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted January 12, 2007 CMS Author Share Posted January 12, 2007 That was a joke son, see, a joke.No human (or possibly dog, or bat) could expect to hear such minute differences, based on the spec.Hey, you're in the advertising business. You should know that whatever specs a manufacturer publishes were measured in a way that gets the numbers he's aiming for. And more important, most don't publish numbers that might actually mean something. You can't choose something like this on paper, and in fact you probably can't choose it by ear either, unless you hear something you don't like when operating it in a way that's unrealistic - like you hear a little more hiss in one than the other when the mic input is open and the monitor gain is up full. Then you hear that most of it goes away when you terminate the input, and you realize that one has 5 dB more gain or sensitivity than the other, but that wasn't published in a meaningful way. Like Craig said, at this level, price and features are the best qualifiers. Price is absolute, but the value of certain features varies from one user to another. It might be as simple as the size and shape that makes one work for you and the other not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members D Charles Posted January 12, 2007 Members Share Posted January 12, 2007 I'd definately go with the EMU card. Thing is, then you'd already have your dongle for your Emulator X2 software! Check out Craig's pro review if you might need an unbelieveable soft sampler in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted January 12, 2007 Members Share Posted January 12, 2007 That's a real good point. The only reason I got into E-Mu sound cards was because I HAD to have one to run the Emulator. Now I dig them Just remember to "reset to defaults" occasionally if things start to get weird, that's important. Also I don't know how much I/O the Echo had, but the E-Mu has turntable inputs, optical, etc. Might be important to you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jon Gnash Posted January 12, 2007 Members Share Posted January 12, 2007 Just remember to "reset to defaults" occasionally if things start to get weird, that's important.I can Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted January 12, 2007 Members Share Posted January 12, 2007 Well, I guess it's the equivalent of "reboot your computer if it gets weird." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted January 12, 2007 CMS Author Share Posted January 12, 2007 I can Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members eightyeightkeys Posted January 12, 2007 Author Members Share Posted January 12, 2007 Since I'm using HALion 3, I don't really need a soft sampler, but, it doesn't hurt to have another one either. Who doesn't need more and different sounds ?Hmm, a "re-boot" once in a while ? - and losing all of your defaults/preferences. It's not that big of a deal, but, it makes you think a bit about the drivers. My TANGO A/D D/A is pretty good, but is definitely on the hissy side - especially if you like mix to a level of 0dbu. An example of a convertor, albeit an older one, that you might not choose if you could A/B it directly with another-if you like a super quiet noise floor. I do. TANGO Specs ? (just for interest & general uselessness) from the manual 105db S/N (but measure it using the DigiCheck Meters ! With nothing connected I get -92dbFS of noise on each Input Channel-Now add that up, plus Output channels.)from the manual THD + Noise 0.002% Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted January 12, 2007 CMS Author Share Posted January 12, 2007 TANGO Specs ? (just for interest & general uselessness) from the manual 105db S/N (but measure it using the DigiCheck Meters ! With nothing connected I get -92dbFS of noise on each Input Channel-Now add that up, plus Output channels.) from the manual THD + Noise 0.002% Well, 0.002% is -94 dB, so your measurement is pretty close. If you were to terminate the input rather than measure with nothing connected, your measurement might even exceed the published specification. What happens if you record something that peaks at full scale, then reduce it by 90 dB and play it back. Can you hear anything? Don't cheat and adjust the volume control. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted January 12, 2007 Members Share Posted January 12, 2007 Yes, I noticed. And rather that "reboot the computer" as Craig suggested as a parallel, to me it sounds more like "re-install Windows." No, it's not like that at all. It's an option in the applet, and from what I can tell, it basically re-installs the drivers. You don't really have "preferences" in the traditional sense with the E-Mu stuff, you save presets and call them up as needed. Those are left alone; after restoring to defaults, you just call up whatever preset you like to work with. I didn't mean to give the impression that it was an intrusive process. A better analogy that re-booting the computer would probably be closing a program and opening it again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted January 13, 2007 CMS Author Share Posted January 13, 2007 No, it's not like that at all. It's an option in the applet, and from what I can tell, it basically re-installs the drivers. You don't really have "preferences" in the traditional sense with the E-Mu stuffARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! So why do they use the term "Preferences" which has a fairly well established meaning in the field of software? Shirts like that pisz me off more and more these days. More and more companies and writers seem to be doing it. I suspect that if they said put a button or menu item on there that said "Re-install the drivers" people would wonder why you had to do that, and competitor-critics would talk about how it crashes so frequently that they even had to make it easy to rebuild important parts of the software installation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members d. gauss Posted January 14, 2007 Members Share Posted January 14, 2007 FWIW, i have the ECHO audiofire8 and it totally rocks. ( this after returning 3 very messed up mackie 400f's) -d. gauss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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