Recently I tried to find out if I could do better with another audio interface, atm I got an old M-Audio Delta 44.
 
Motu and RME had been recommended to me. The RME HDSP 9632 PCI seems to be quite cheap in comparison to other  RME products and goes on Ebay in high numbers for below 200€, some even include warranty.
 
So anyone has this card and has any experience with it? What's so bad about it that it's rather cheap on Ebay? I mean PCI-Slots become more rare but my new mainboard (B350 Tomahawk) still got two of them.
Are there Windows 10 drivers? Does Sonar work with it? Is it comparable to other RME products regarding low ("zero") latency?
 
Some people here and on reviews write that with RME they also get less dropouts on low buffer sizes and even less DAW crashes, both things I'm experiencing with my M-Audio Delta.
 
I mean, 170€ used 9632 - over 700€ Babyface.. where's the catch?

Thanks.

Nothing is bad about it.
 
It doesn't work with laptops b/c you need a computer to put it in.
 
It doesn't have pre-amps.

The 9632 is primarily a digital I/O card.
It has two channels of A/D D/A... but it's more for convenience than ultimate fidelity.
 
The Babyface provides higher quality A/D D/A.
The Babyface also provides basic tactile control over master volume, headphone volume, monitor dim, mic preamp gain, etc.
 
Nothing at all wrong with the 9632... it's just very basic as far as features... and it's a bit long-in-the-tooth.
Some PCI audio interfaces have issues when installed in "bridged" PCI slots (most PCI slots today are bridged).
ie: Echo and Lynx PCI cards typically won't work at all.
RME and M-Audio typically work fine in bridged PCI slots.

Thanks a lot, Jim, that's the kind of info I was looking for.
 
The only D/A conversion I need 99% of the time is from Sonar to my Monitors / Headphones. Other than that I'm looking for low latency / less dropouts / less CPU involvement / less driver related crashes. If the card can provide that on Windows 10 64bit - bought.
 
TotalMix looks great, I actually would have a scenario where it may be useful to me, I got some older standalone software that I want to route into Sonar on the same PC, at the same time route Sonar's Midi into that software. Is TotalMix able to provide that? With the M-Audio I'm having the issue that Sonar needs to be in exclusive driver mode, otherwise things "go south".

TotalMix will let you direct audio from any combination of sources to any combination of outputs (including the digital ones you don't use) and lets you loopback audio from any output to the input of the same name (e.g. ADAT OUT 1/2 loops back to ADAT IN 1/2). That's just in its "basic" configuration, things get really crazy when you switch to "free" routing mode.

So yeah it may sound complicated but it will make sense when you work with it. Recording audio from another app is super easy, I do it all the time, e.g. when I need to sample from Spotify. RME's drivers are multi client, and you can use ASIO (e.g. Sonar) and WDM (e.g. Spotify) all at the same time.

I haven't used a 9632 in fifteen years but RME are usually quite good about driver support for many years.

occide
Recently I tried to find out if I could do better with another audio interface, atm I got an old M-Audio Delta 44.
 
Motu and RME had been recommended to me. The RME HDSP 9632 PCI seems to be quite cheap in comparison to other  RME products and goes on Ebay in high numbers for below 200€, some even include warranty.
 
So anyone has this card and has any experience with it? What's so bad about it that it's rather cheap on Ebay? I mean PCI-Slots become more rare but my new mainboard (B350 Tomahawk) still got two of them.
Are there Windows 10 drivers? Does Sonar work with it? Is it comparable to other RME products regarding low ("zero") latency?
 
Some people here and on reviews write that with RME they also get less dropouts on low buffer sizes and even less DAW crashes, both things I'm experiencing with my M-Audio Delta.
 
I mean, 170€ used 9632 - over 700€ Babyface.. where's the catch?

Thanks.

 It's going to be more difficult to find boards with PCI busses.  I would go over to the RME forums and find out how well the are working with PCI to PCIe adapters.
 You might as well keep using your Delta instead of forking over 170 that could soon be a doorstop.  RME will still support it them. 
 

Well I bought my current board on purpose, because it has PCI ports. Back then I actually planed to continue using the M-Audio for as long as it's alive, but that was before I ran into the recent problems. My PC is new now, I've planed to use it for at least 5 years, I got an 8-core Ryzen at 4 Ghz, 32GB DDR4, SSD, SSHD, GTX 1080, it can handle basically anything I throw at it, and that won't change very quickly. Before I had an overclocked i7 2600k at 4.5Ghz and been running that for 6 years just fine. The only reason I upgraded was more like "I got some money right now, it's probably time for that old piece to get replaced before it starts smoking".
 
Long story short I don't have any problem to use a PCI-based solution for another 5 years minimum, my guess is there will always be boards for niche products that are only PCI. It's a compromise you got to make, but 600€ is a lot of money, I could build a second computer from that. I think it can justify the compromise.

If your current machine has PCI slot/s, the 9632 should work fine.
TotalMix is super flexible.
Low-latency performance is rock-solid.
 
You can even go back two generations prior to the 9632... and those RME audio interfaces were rock-solid.
RME has been delivering great audio interfaces for literally decades.
 
RME models are expensive... but you get an audio interface that can be used for 10+ years... and you won't give it a second thought. 

Bought it now, the Ebayer had the price dropped to 159€ including shipment and 1-year-warranty - at that price I don't think anything can go wrong (except being ripped-off), I could likely sell the card myself at a higher price.
 
Thomann is still selling the same card new for 379€, so I don't think it will be obsolete by next week.
 
I'll report back how things went. Thanks guys!
 
 

Nice deal! It's a great card, I hope it helps with your issues too!