Life after an EMU 1820M

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epillarbox
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2011/10/05 11:52:22 (permalink)

Life after an EMU 1820M

My EMU 1820M audiodock with "Christmas Tree" effect is having some capacitors replaced which may or (sadly) may not bring it back to life.
 
I've been very happy with it but the time has probably come to look reality in the face so I'd be very grateful to hear from anyone who has had to switch to a replacement interface and to know what they have chosen.
 
The options are daunting.  I'm wary of the EMU 1616M because it lacks the ADAT that the 1820M had and because I am disappointed at the accelerated obsolesence that Creative build into their gear with poor quality caps.
 
So where to go from here?
 
Thanks all.
 
Laurence
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    brundlefly
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    Re:Life after an EMU 1820M 2011/10/19 11:34:14 (permalink)
    Don't know if you're still watching this thread, but I am in somewhat the same boat. My1820m is still running okay, but the drivers are very unstable in my x64 environment, and it does the "soft dropout" thing, which may also be due to tired capacitors.

    I was not aware that the 1616m no longer had ADAT. I had pretty much ruled out another Creative/E-MU interface already, but that seals the deal.

    For overall quality/stability/performance, RME seems the way to go, but I can't bring myself to shell out, unless maybe I find a used one. I'm leaning toward a new Presonus 1818VSL (USB), but also considering a used MOTU 2408mk3 (PCIe) or 828mk3 Hybrid (Firewire/USB).

    SONAR Platinum x64, 2x MOTU 2408/PCIe-424  (24-bit, 48kHz)
    Win10, I7-6700K @ 4.0GHz, 24GB DDR4, 2TB HDD, 32GB SSD Cache, GeForce GTX 750Ti, 2x 24" 16:10 IPS Monitors
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    Reggmail
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    Re:Life after an EMU 1820M 2011/11/19 21:22:32 (permalink)

    I feel ya, my 1818 just died and I loved it.
    I've read of people changing the capacitors only to have a different Hi end shift in sound. [link=http://www.productionforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10846&start=45]http://www.productionforu...p;t=10846&start=45[/link]
    I think I would spend lots of time on the repair finding proper caps, changing them just to have other problems later.
    If I can't get it repaired from Emu.....I just need to let it go.

    I purchased the Motu Hybread 828mk3.
    It has firewire and USB although Firwire is better for audio chaining and all, it took some time to configure using an square 8 pin firewire plug.
    It seems that firewire is on it's way out so it was good to have USB so that my audio interface would not become obsolete soon.
    I experienced that getting a new laptop when I had the E-mu 1616M with the PCI card, the new laptops stop using PCI slots and went to Express cards, and no good adaptors to be found.
    The sound of the ''Motu 828mk3 hybred'' is very good and once you get use to it, ( sometimes the mixer pops up on it's own ) but the job still gets done.
    Hope this helps someone.
    Peace & blessings.
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    brundlefly
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    Re:Life after an EMU 1820M 2011/11/20 12:11:57 (permalink)
    I came very close to pulling the trigger on the Presonus 1818VSL, and then found some posts online indicating it has really atrocious latency compared to PCI/PCIe interfaces, or even most other USB interfaces. You can run it at very low buffers, but it has so much AD/DA and "hidden" latency that even at 32 samples the RTL isn't as low as the E-MU at 96 samples (7+ms RTL vs. the E-MU's 5.9ms).

    So I'm back looking for a good deal on a used 2408mk3 PCIe.



    SONAR Platinum x64, 2x MOTU 2408/PCIe-424  (24-bit, 48kHz)
    Win10, I7-6700K @ 4.0GHz, 24GB DDR4, 2TB HDD, 32GB SSD Cache, GeForce GTX 750Ti, 2x 24" 16:10 IPS Monitors
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