Posted: 05 May 2011, 15:18
its my first NI hardware, so here my review:
technical data can be easily found on the web, it has 4 balanced analog in/out and s/pdif in/out, 6ch together.
look+feel:
solid, metal housing, plastic on the sides. stabile connectors, the plugs snap in tight and are not loose. the usb conector is somehow special, it holds the cable very tight to not loose connection. the s/pdif rca seem a bit loose.
lots of led on top, the status of every connection is showed, as well as phantom power. i find that pretty good.
the big volume knob on top only responds to out 1/2. still i think its useful to have direct access on main out. it is analog, so no signal quality declination. it looks stable, but i would prefer a more flat design with a cavity for a finger, like a jog wheel or so, so it would not exceed the box so much.
technik:
sound quality is perfect for live performance. signal/noise ratio is great (101dB). output level is good (9,6dBu). freq. resp. 10-40khz. my subwoover confirmed that (but i cut at 30 Hz anyway). well defined subs. the upper highs seem a little sharp, but well, no prob. all tested with 48000.
direct monitoring only works on in 1/2 and can be routed on hardware to out1/2, 3/4 or both.
it can word clock sync on the s/pdif in.
it is usb-powered.
there is no stand alone using. i took a usb-power supply and the input led showed signal, but no output, no headphone. no direct monitor, even though there is a hardware swich for that. so no use as a di-box.
there is one thing i dont like at all: even if the (analog) volume is down all the way it gives a very loud impulse when starting the computer. so NEVER forget to mute channels. and in a live situation this can be very annoying if the FOH/monitors is not muted. this might even kill speakers. i really dont understand the problem to auto mute outputs for some milliseconds when powered on....
software:
installing on win7 64 no problem. it has a settings and a diagnostic page. the lowest buffer size is 32 samples, max smpl. rate 96000. there is a USB-buffer field with settings between 1ms and 4ms, which is not described in the handbook. this of course adds to buffer size/latency. only output latency is shown, not input, which i would expect on a modern card.
on the diagnostic page they integrated the DCP latency check software (http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml) to check system performance. there is also drop out detection, buffer underrun and USB- errors shown. plus driver/firmware vers. and a integrated troubleshooting guide.
there is no mixer software at all, no routing etc. so if you want to perform on out1/2 and record on the digital out the same time, you must route it in the DAW with a aux bus, which i did not test yet. this is sad. i would prefer a software mixer to maybe mix/route DAW outs to hardware outs.
but it is kind of multiclient. i could run usine+reaktor and reaktor+nuendo2 on seperate outputs of the card after some restarting till the progs had the correct asio settings.
the midi driver seems to be well designed, it seems to perform very stabile.
all in all its a ok deal to have a handy and solid card for live for 279 euro if you are ok with 4ch in/out. for 6ch surround you will need an extra converter.
its not really made for a projekt studio due to not enough in/out, the missing mixer, a strange direct monitoring implementation, and no word clock BNC in/out.
cheers
technical data can be easily found on the web, it has 4 balanced analog in/out and s/pdif in/out, 6ch together.
look+feel:
solid, metal housing, plastic on the sides. stabile connectors, the plugs snap in tight and are not loose. the usb conector is somehow special, it holds the cable very tight to not loose connection. the s/pdif rca seem a bit loose.
lots of led on top, the status of every connection is showed, as well as phantom power. i find that pretty good.
the big volume knob on top only responds to out 1/2. still i think its useful to have direct access on main out. it is analog, so no signal quality declination. it looks stable, but i would prefer a more flat design with a cavity for a finger, like a jog wheel or so, so it would not exceed the box so much.
technik:
sound quality is perfect for live performance. signal/noise ratio is great (101dB). output level is good (9,6dBu). freq. resp. 10-40khz. my subwoover confirmed that (but i cut at 30 Hz anyway). well defined subs. the upper highs seem a little sharp, but well, no prob. all tested with 48000.
direct monitoring only works on in 1/2 and can be routed on hardware to out1/2, 3/4 or both.
it can word clock sync on the s/pdif in.
it is usb-powered.
there is no stand alone using. i took a usb-power supply and the input led showed signal, but no output, no headphone. no direct monitor, even though there is a hardware swich for that. so no use as a di-box.
there is one thing i dont like at all: even if the (analog) volume is down all the way it gives a very loud impulse when starting the computer. so NEVER forget to mute channels. and in a live situation this can be very annoying if the FOH/monitors is not muted. this might even kill speakers. i really dont understand the problem to auto mute outputs for some milliseconds when powered on....
software:
installing on win7 64 no problem. it has a settings and a diagnostic page. the lowest buffer size is 32 samples, max smpl. rate 96000. there is a USB-buffer field with settings between 1ms and 4ms, which is not described in the handbook. this of course adds to buffer size/latency. only output latency is shown, not input, which i would expect on a modern card.
on the diagnostic page they integrated the DCP latency check software (http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml) to check system performance. there is also drop out detection, buffer underrun and USB- errors shown. plus driver/firmware vers. and a integrated troubleshooting guide.
there is no mixer software at all, no routing etc. so if you want to perform on out1/2 and record on the digital out the same time, you must route it in the DAW with a aux bus, which i did not test yet. this is sad. i would prefer a software mixer to maybe mix/route DAW outs to hardware outs.
but it is kind of multiclient. i could run usine+reaktor and reaktor+nuendo2 on seperate outputs of the card after some restarting till the progs had the correct asio settings.
the midi driver seems to be well designed, it seems to perform very stabile.
all in all its a ok deal to have a handy and solid card for live for 279 euro if you are ok with 4ch in/out. for 6ch surround you will need an extra converter.
its not really made for a projekt studio due to not enough in/out, the missing mixer, a strange direct monitoring implementation, and no word clock BNC in/out.
cheers
