Well, I ain't gonna go out and buy another one. You're on your own with M Audio. I did my bit for posterity....

"it seems to me that you would want to work with the EXACT same input, not takes of the same stimulus recorded several times into each device. Then when you have the exact same waveform from both cards"

Yeah, that's probably true but I don't think there's anyway to do that with what I've got. Its been a real pain trying to do these recordings because when I have the SB plugged into a USB port (turning it on) neither Audition nor GT Pro will recognize my Echo MIA card until I yank out the USB cord. I've tried everything but it seems I'm stuck with one at a time.

ORIGINAL: Joe Bravo

Well, I ain't gonna go out and buy another one. You're on your own with M Audio. I did my bit for posterity....

Yes you did, and kudos to you. It's really hard to conduct even a casual test like this.

This thread reminds me of another one about two years ago. Substitute preamps for the soundcard and it was the same debate. In that thread, the engineer claiming that expensive preamps were all hype and audio differences between low end and high end were insignificant posted a sample of session he had just tracked and mixed using low end pres. ART, Behringer, something like that.

Anywhoooo, his source material was perfect for the test: 32 tracks of a big funky Tower of Power-ish horn band. Really good musicians and singer. The guy did a great job of mixing it.

How did it sound? Just like you'd expect. Thin and 2D, even though the relative levels and soundstage were right. Very interesting considering the obvious skill with which the track was mixed. As Rossipus said, the differences really add up when multitracking. Can't hear it on a whole song? Tune your ears for a while listing to low (or high end), then listen to stuff recorded on gear from the other end of the spectrum.

If you still can't hear the difference, consider yourself blessed and buy a Soundblaster.

if you can't record a hit song on cheap gear you'll never record it on expensive gear. The cheap gear just sounds so good today. At least that's where I'm at with it. I just hate it when I see people in forums or guys working off commission in music stores telling kids that they'll never get good sounds with cheap gear. You can get great sounds with cheap gear now.

Amen, brother. Speak it. Speak the truth! Bravo, Joe Bravo!

Great sounds compared to what? Think you can get "Dark Side of the Moon" sounds on a Behringer or ART pre?

There are so many different things that contribute to an album like that, like well designed big rooms, teams of well trained people collaborating together, analog tape instead of A/D. That's not even including factors relating to the musicians themselves.
I beleive that if all things were kept the same, with the exception of swapping out preamps, to properly functioning ones similar to the ones you listed above, Alan Parsons and the band would be the only ones who would know.

ORIGINAL: deiseldave

Great sounds compared to what? Think you can get "Dark Side of the Moon" sounds on a Behringer or ART pre?

There are so many different things that contribute to an album like that, like well designed big rooms, teams of well trained people collaborating together, analog tape instead of A/D. That's not even including factors relating to the musicians themselves.
I beleive that if all things were kept the same, with the exception of swapping out preamps, to properly functioning ones similar to the ones you listed above, Alan Parsons and the band would be the only ones who would know.

I get your point, but Joe said "great", which is a relative term. My point is, great compared to what? It isn't great compared to great, is it? More like great, we can sound decent for just a few bucks great. Which is in itself, um, great.

Back to your point, you're right about the many factors contributing to the sound. Who else would know? I don't what your ears are like, but lots of folks hear really fine stuff. Far more don't of course, and moreover don't care. But to me that is beside the point. I want my music, and they did theirs, to sound as good as I can possibly make it. Period.

In one sense it's futile for a guy like me in a converted master bedroom to buy Neve, API, Eventide stuff because I will never, ever, sound like [insert fave record here]. But, I sound tons better than I would otherwise. I know. I can hear the difference as I've moved up the audio chain. Plus it's easier!

Jitter, for one. Innaccurate sampling, resulting in a narrower, less detailed and frequency challenged soundstage.

Which I don't think anyone has shown the ability to consistently hear. And I must say that I've been trying different sampling resolutions with this little SB Live and it seemed to me that the ones recorded at 48 were the worst. This makes me wonder if the new SB Live is based entirely on the Audigy cards because I read the same thing about Audigy. (The old SB Live cards had a default recording rate of 16/48 and sounded good at that). I think the samples I've posted have already gone a long way toward proving that the SB cards are darn good but I'm gonna work with some more samples to post over the weekend recorded at 16/44.1 (which sounded best to me) and we'll see what people think. The brightness I heard at 48 seems to have disappeared at 44.1 and 96.

How do the samples I've already posted show inaccurate sampling? Or Jitter? The stereo filed is every bit as wide as the Echo card (listen in the headphones and you'll see they are the exact same). And listening to myself play while recording and then listening to it through the headphones on playback, both cards seem to put out exactly what I put in. How do you improve on "exactly the same"? I thought maybe the SB files were a tad brighter at 48k but it was extremely subjective and subtle.

Come on, all other things being equal, don't you think that the horn band would have sounded better recorded through Apogee converters and a Neve or SSL board?

I'm guessing that you could have never heard the difference in a blindfold test. I've heard the claims of people who think they have the best hearing on the planet over and over but they never pass a blindfold test. MIX Magazine did a test a couple of years back where they had several industry pros listen to tunes recorded at both 16 and 24 bit and resolutions of 44.1, 48, and 96. Not one person could consistently tell the difference although most claimed they would easily be able to tell before the test. I did a sound test a few years ago in another forum where I wanted to see if anyone could tell the difference between certain mp3 resolutions compared to the original wave file. I conducted these with some well recorded CD's I ripped. I found that most people could tell an acoustic instrument that was miked in stereo in mp3 form from the CD if it was below 225kbps. MP3's tend to skew the stereo field below that rate. (WMA files don't do that until you get below 160kbps). In a typical rock n roll setting, nobody could consistently tell a 128kbps mp3 file from the original wave. In one extreme case I took a wave file, converted it to a 128kbps mp3, then back to a 16/44.1 wave, then back to a 128kbps mp3, back to a wave, and then one more time back to a 128kbps mp3 and back to a wave one final time. The majority of the people who took the test (about 20) guessed that this was the original wave even though I had ripped the guts out of it 6 times. Most people think they're super human, especially young people. Jonas compared recordings, basically just like I'm doing, between some things recorded with a Grace Design 101 and then re-recorded with a cheap Behringer mixer. I think everyone who heard it pretty much thought they sounded about the same. So to answer your question, no, I don't think it would make a bit of difference if the horn band had been recorded with even a Neve board or a Behringer. At least no one has been able to present proof of such a claim in these forums in the three or so years I've been here.

Think you can get "Dark Side of the Moon" sounds on a Behringer or ART pre?

Heck yeah. I think a monkey could given the same recording environment.

I'm guessing that you have never owned top shelf stuff. It can impart audio magic

Not too much. I started recording in the mid 80's with a TEAC 3440-S 4-track. I never progressed past Tascam gear to something like a 24-track Otari and certainly not even so much as one channel torn from an old Neve console (as used to be the fashion to do providing you could even afford 2-grand for one lousy channel from a Neve). But I've been around it all my life. And one thing I must say is that I have a friend who used to work in the sound department at MacMurray Music in St. Louis and when the first 24-bit work stations started to come out, he and I both sat there startled to see that they sounded no different from the 16-bit work stations that everybody already had. He said to me that sales in work stations had been sluggish for several years, assumedly because everybody already had a work station of some kind. After more than a decade of working in 16-bit all the sudden the guys who manufacture recording gear decided we needed 24-bit after all. And just when they couldn't sell anymore work stations....

I think there's so much BS concerned in every facet of the music industry that its amazing anyone even wants to be involved in it anymore. Sorry, I don't believe in magic. St. Thomas has got nothing on me in the skeptic department. If high priced pres and converters are soooo much better, then I say, lets hear it.

I just think that people are laboring more on correcting +/- .05db specs, than writing a meaningful song, or ensuring that they have properly tuned / intonated thier guitar with fresh strings, or working on thier timing, vocal pitch, groove, or a bunch of other things that would really make a big difference.
I'm not denying that a Hardy pre might be better than a Mackie. Just saying that it's small potatoes differences.

Exactly.

If anyone's inerested, here are some 15-second excepts of piano/synth recorded with the SB Live at 16/44.1, 16/48, and 16/96. I just did a real simple finger roll where i thought it would be fairly easy to keep the volume even. I personally think the 16/48 file is a little brighter than the ohers. They're all very nearly the same though.

16/44.1

16/48

16/96

Ok, I've listened to the synth samples through my ATH-M40fs headphones. I think that the difference between the samples is barely discernable if at all. I thought that the Echo 24 had a slightly smoother sound. But it could be my imagination, I don’t know. What does an Echo cost compared to an SB Audigy? I thought of something else that I'm confused about. If the samples are all played through my SB Audigy card, will I be able to tell the difference? Does the Audigy color the sound regardless of which soundcard the samples were made with? Would they sound different if played back through an Echo or M Audio, etc?

It seems that the Live! 24-bit (PCI) is a 24-bit card (far better 24-bit support than Audigy 2 and Audigy 4 (excl. Audigy 4) cards has by the mesures iXBT.com has made) - this model seem to support 24-bit by the RMAA results (difference between 16 and 24 bit results is clear).

So, I think you can do testing w/ 24-bit resolution too (monitoring can be turned OFF using start run... mssys.cpl --> Recording Control -->Volume --> AnalogMix (Advanced -button)). The only concern would be the throughput of USB 1.1 -> can it handle this resolution?

44.1kHz and 48kHz rates have alawys been worst for SB Live/Audigy cards (resampling). 96 kHz should give 'bout straight frequence curve (20Hz - 20kHz under ±0.4dB).

Junski

The jitter specs on my Maudio delta are way beyond excellent, and it still gets dissed.

You seem to have an inferiority complex about your audio card, there Dave. Did someone hurt it's feelings or something ??? I haven't really heard anyone smack M-Audio here...I think they make good interfaces.

If you cannot understand that jitter (timing errors / digital errors), EQ, noise DOES have a cumulative effect and not only increases with track count but can increase with signal chain, then the conversation stops here, doesn't it? No amount of technical specs or general engineering knowledge will convinve you otherwise because if *YOU* don't hear it, NOBODY ELSE CAN...right ??? What you may be mixing may not be what the orchestra down the road is. Different styles require different sonic aspects. I agree with a good bit of your ideas re: mic placement and songwriting and stuff. But at THAT point is where the subtle differences / improvements in gear can start to make a difference.

You make the assumption everyone is jumping right to 6. You'd be wrong...

If the samples are all played through my SB Audigy card, will I be able to tell the difference? Does the Audigy color the sound regardless of what soundcard the samples were made with? Would they sound different if played back through an Echo or M Audio, etc?

That's a really good point.

If you cannot understand that jitter (timing errors / digital errors), EQ, noise DOES have a cumulative effect and not only increases with track count but can increase with signal chain, then the conversation stops here, doesn't it?

No one is saying that those things, if they're really bad and easily discernable, cannot have a cumulative effect. My argument is that the SB cards, at least since the SB Live, don't have anything discernable in that regard. Sure the soundcard built-in to your MOBO might be really bad, but I don't hear anything like that in the SB Live or Audigy. And I think these tests have proven that. If this SB Live is worse than the Echo MIA I tested it against, I don't think anyone could honestly say after listening to these samples that the difference is anything other than mild at best. Since you can buy something like the Echo MIA now for about a hundred bucks, or one of the lower priced M-Audio cards for the same price, then I would buy one of those for their features alone. The exception might be if I needed a synth because I'm told (I don't do much with synths so I don't really know) that, for a cheap synth, the one that comes free with SB cards is quite good. But if I had to shell out $500 for the Echo MIA card I wouldn't have done it based on this test.

As regards cheap versus expensive pre-amps, if anyone here lives near St. Louis and has expensive pres, I'd be more than happy to get together with you and run a few tests at your house or mine and see how they stack up. I think it would be a good thing to try and do.

You seem to have an inferiority complex about your audio card, there Dave. Did someone hurt it's feelings or something ??? I haven't really heard anyone smack M-Audio here...I think they make good interfaces.

If I must, I will reluctantly consume the time to dig up (upon request) a minimum of 10 threads that have people painting the M-Audio stuff as substandard. I would rather you do some reading. Trust me, it's there. The reason why I used it as an example is simply that it's what I own, and have the most experience with. I don't take it personal, I resent anyone dissing the quality of a Layla, or any similar card based on unproved pseudo-science.

If you cannot understand jitter (timing errors / digital errors)

I do understand it. In modern prosumer cards like the Echo Layla or others in the same league, jitter and timing errors are between negligible and virtually non-existent.

EQ

Whoa, I didn't say anything about EQ. If you are talking about the subtle curve differences between different converters, then I would say application of subtle EQ (+/- .5db) would make the curves more similar. I just can't be bothered with that degree of effort for such small rewards. If you are talking about curves of pickups, amps, speakers, mics, etc. Then, I agree that everything in a chain certainly applies it's own signature curve, and those curves effects are indeed cumulative, along with phase anomalies and other sound phenomena inherent to: speakers, mics, amps, rooms, etc.
But, modern prosumer converter curves are typically accurate to a degree of minutia, and this debate was originally about converters.

No amount of technical specs or general engineering knowledge will convinve you otherwise because if *YOU* don't hear it, NOBODY ELSE CAN...right ???

Show me these specs that you claim to be "hearable" audible deviations. Refute me with empirical data produced by your general engineering knowledge. Just make it proof. You know the rule: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. My argument is that I believe, you along with a group of your peers can't prove you can hear the difference between, say, a: Lavry, Lynx or a Layla. In a properly conducted A/B/X test. I truly believe the results of a test like that would be about the same as if everyone just guessed without even listening.
Never mind my tin ear. I don't believe you or anybody else can hear it, and prove that you did. There's a reason why psychic ability can never make it past a test. Because it just doesn't exist. Until they can prove it, I have to agree that it doesn't exist.

You make the assumption everyone is jumping right to 6. You'd be wrong...

I made no assumption that "everyone" is doing anything. Simply stated that many gearsluts have over $15K in high end converters and pre's, and are recording in a room that is more problematic than cheap pre's and converters. I think that $14K worth of room modifications and $1K worth of converters and pre's would harvest way better recordings than dumping all that money into esoteric pre's and converters.

You know, David, I started to write out a "dig" in retaliation of the "inferiority complex" bit. Then I deleted it. That crap is futile, and I get caught up in it as easy or easier than anybody.
I apologise for anything I may have typed that has offended you or anyone else. Since this is the second time I have been involved in a dispute that has degraded to uncomplimentary exchanges. I will assume that my attitude may need some work, and again apologise.
Let's try to be friendly, and discuss like students of the same discipline that are in simple disagreement.
All we are saying, is give peace a chance... (sing it with me)
By the way, I listened to a few of your songs. Very nice. Congratulations.

Dave

I think the point I'm trying to make here on one level is that some of you are trying really hard to justify the low end gear because that's all you can afford.

Well, that's quite possible however it works the other way around also. There may be some people who are trying to rationalize spending all that money on a more expensive sound card when they realize the difference is hardly audible. I know I would feel pretty silly if I shelled out big bucks for a soundcard that did not produce a significant improvement in quality. I have the money to spend on a more expensive card but I want to make sure that it's worth it. I question whether I'm really getting a superior product or just buying into the hype. Joe Bravo's soundcard comparison experiment tells me that there isn't much difference at all between the cards he tested. The method of testing may not have been perfect or completely reliable but I thought it proved his point. I would love to hear a "day and night" dramatic difference when using various sound cards. That would convince me to purchase a new card. I'm not sure about the cumulative effect of jitter, inaccurate sampling, etc. I would like to learn more about that. I do know that I will now be worried about that stuff and be listening intently for jitter (whatever the heck that is!) when I'm recording this weekend. The link that Joe provided to the "Jonas compared recordings" tells me that even the cheapest piece of equipment in the right hands can produce beautiful results. When Larry Kriz, Frank Coffey, Dave Rossi and other knowledgeable people here advise me to purchase better equipment, I tend to listen to them. I respect the opinions of many people on this forum and have learned a great deal here. However, I think Joe Bravo makes a very good point and it's healthy to question what most people take for granted.

I'm feeling the love again. If anyone calls group hug, don't forget to wake me up!