I'm having a good time with my new Egosys ESI ESP1010e, a PCIe card with a 19" rack "breakoutbox".

Stable, very low latency and I only payed about 150€ for it. Dont know if it is available for the US though (if you are located there...)

If its "low end" or middle class, I cannot tell :)

Bought it here:
http://www.thomann.de/gb/esi_esp1010e.htm

Lanceindastudio

With the hardware and software we have today, with a somewhat educated guess, "low cost" is much more appropriate than "low end".

+1

Good point!

yep thus the "somewhat educated guess"

Is the Behringer USB Interface (UCA202) a waste of limited resources?
 
I'm running Windows 7 64 bit on a 2.5 GHz Quad Core, just took advantage of the too-good-to-be-true loyalty upgrade and moved from Sonar 3 Studio to 8.5 Producer. The Realtek HD Audio card is causing problems and the Cakewalk and forum recommendations have not solved them. So now I need to look at low end cards, thus my involvement in this thread. The recommended Echo MIA MIDI or Audiophile 192 may be wisest, but I really should stay as close to $100 as I can. What about the Audiophile 2496?
 
I know I'd later regret not spending the extra money for MIDI I/O capability, but I don't have a keyboard controller now anyway (did I say i shouldn't spend the money? ).

What about the Cakewalk UA-1G if I decide to go USB instead of PCI?

John,

I didn't look at the specs but behringer is always suspect.  They make some good cheap stuff, but they also steal other co's designs and do cheap version of same, so I''m always loath to give them money.  But Beagle knows of what he speaks, and it is dead simple to get 24 bits these days.

@

Thanks to all for their "thumbs down" input on the Behringer.

I found a source for the Echo Mia Midi for $154 plus free shipping/no tax, but then I noticed I could find no evidence of a headphones out. That's a deal-breaker for me, since I had to sell my monitors a few years ago and now operate headphones only when it comes to music. Hmmm, now that I think of it, a PCI card would be rear-of-computer access only, right? So the same problem would be true of all PCI cards?

If PCI remains an option, I'm looking again at the 192. It appears to be more "state of the art" audio, not sure if that's correct.

Is it workable to figure some cost-effective way to connect my headphones to the (rear) outs on a PCI card?
 
Thanks for the "thumbs up" on the UA-1G as a reasonable USB option.

Your feedback is most valuable.

Is there any reason, as a "for now" cost-cutting measture, I can't just hook up my headphones to the 192 or other PCI card using a 3.5" stereo mini plug Y adapter to the audio outs from the card? Will that result in a loss of fidelity, or in some way damage either the card or the headphones?

Thanks JohnnyV

If youre not as concerned with lowest possible latency performance and want a headphone out near you that works good, the UA-1G is a good option.

I need good low latency performance for softsynths and such, so I am PCI based.

With the ECHO miamidi or the Audiophile 192, getting a cheap mixer is one of the best ways to set it up.

I actually recommend this unit to work with it because it is like a mackie big knob and gives you 3 sets of in and 3 sets of outs, a headphone out with separate independent volume controls, and it has a talk back mic and it sound great, no knobs crackling when changing volume, etc.
http://www.amazon.com/Beh...-Monitor/dp/B000MJ40D2

John,

you've discovered the money sink hole of recording.  You can get a headphone amp for $50 or less.  Time to sell more books, I guess, or wait to hear your glorious sounds as they should sound.
Best

@

sure, that would work.

i have one of these:

http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/Rolls-HA43-Stereo-Headphone-Amp?sku=483850



basically the same thing, but with 4 headphone outputs.

you'll need a stereo TRS cable to go from the breakout cables of the 192, into the little headphone amp.


another thing, i've already mentioned, but you can find used stereo receivers and amplifiers all over the place...
your garage....
your girlfriend/cousin/best friend's garage.....
pawn shops....
newspapaper classifieds.....
craigslist.....

that would work just as well, as long as it has enough inputs/outputs....

i go 1/4" out, into a single-quarter-inch-to-(2)mono-rca-outs.....
into my yamaha natural sound amp...
headphone out.
works great.
plus, the yamaha sounds awesome, much better than a simple little headphone amp which is nothing but a very small amplifier 

johnnyV


SO Guitar hacker when you say you have 2 "cards" do you mean 2 PCI cards or a PCI and an onboard card?
Like I said I think you need not worry about on board cards so much as a PCI card in combo with a real USB or Firewire interface. And maybe 2 PCI cards can also co exist, can't see any point in that unless they offered more ins and outs.
I do not even install the audio drivers for my MOBO anymore.

That doesn't make any difference either. I run four interfaces on mine- a USB (either an AK 1 or the original Kore controller), a FW (an old Firewire 410), a PCI (an even older EWX 24/96) and my onboard sound using ASIO4All on occasion just for fun. The real secret is to determine which clock to use for the master; once you do that right, everything's pretty harmonious.
 
@ the OP- my main **** about E-MU/Creative's always been the drivers. Because of Creative cards being OEM in a lot of the consumer market, the drivers are written to associate themselves with everything on the principle that brute force overcomes finesse when it comes to writing drivers. Unfortunately, it's not the case  :~
 
I was uninstalling a Creative card for a friend of mine one day. He had done a drivers only install; after the uninstall and a reboot, I went on a search and destroy through the registry to see what was left behind. Try 350 orphaned keys- that's what I found.
 
My sig on KVR for a few years was "friends don't let friends buy Creative". It's still true.
 
ew
 
 

you probably won't find any Y adpaters to run from the 1/4" outputs of the AP192 that are TRS because TRS is the same thing as stereo 1/4" and a Y adapter's purpose is to separate or join stereo signals.

so you will just need a Y adapter with 1/4" mono male plugs to TRS (stereo) 1/4" male to plug into the headphone amp.

a small mixer will work if that helps your workflow.