M-Audio 2496 versus M-Audio Audiophile 192

[ynnek4]

hi,

i am going to be buying one of these strictly for listening to music. i am usually at my computer for long hours doing work and i figured i would try to get my puter to sound the best i could.

i guess i am wondering what the difference is between the two models?

on my audigy2 card i have spots to connect the internal analog/digital audio jacks directly to the card from the cd-rom. i think i lose this with the m-audio cards (lack of internal connectors).

i have always wondered if there is a difference with the analog audio jack versus the digital one? sound difference? i currently have two cd-roms (plextor 2410 for music/plextor 760a for burning music/dvds as well as playing dvds).


i guess what i am asking is; how will changing to an m-audio card change this current setup?

thanks for any info.:righton:

[ynnek4]

bump.

[I Am The Lolrus]

on my audigy2 card i have spots to connect the internal analog/digital audio jacks directly to the card from the cd-rom. i think i lose this with the m-audio cards (lack of internal connectors).

i have always wondered if there is a difference with the analog audio jack versus the digital one? sound difference? i currently have two cd-roms (plextor 2410 for music/plextor 760a for burning music/dvds as well as playing dvds).


i guess what i am asking is; how will changing to an m-audio card change this current setup?

thanks for any info.:righton:
Hey there, well the first and most obvious thing, is that the 192 supports the higher res content natively- no resampling needed to playback 192 content.

Concerning the cd connectors, they are completely useless so no worries :) The analog and spdif connectors are legacy ports for compatability with old systems- they are quite redundant, as the data off the cds is read through the ata bus anyway. In fact, it is better to not use the connectors anyway becuase it eliminates a possible area of transmission error.

[ynnek4]

thanks for the info (very informative)!

its very much appreciated.

[Gary Freed]

Hey there, well the first and most obvious thing, is that the 192 supports the higher res content natively- no resampling needed to playback 192 content.

Concerning the cd connectors, they are completely useless so no worries :) The analog and spdif connectors are legacy ports for compatability with old systems- they are quite redundant, as the data off the cds is read through the ata bus anyway. In fact, it is better to not use the connectors anyway becuase it eliminates a possible area of transmission error.

What then if you are capturing from an analogue source?

[Phil Elliott]

What then if you are capturing from an analogue source?

The M-Audio's have regular phono connectors. What the above posts are referring to is the lack of internal analogue CD Rom connector, which would only be useful nowadays for playing games that have audio on the disc in audio format.

[ynnek4]

The M-Audio's have regular phono connectors. What the above posts are referring to is the lack of internal analogue CD Rom connector, which would only be useful nowadays for playing games that have audio on the disc in audio format.

thanks for the info!:righton:

[Gary Freed]

The M-Audio's have regular phono connectors. What the above posts are referring to is the lack of internal analogue CD Rom connector, which would only be useful nowadays for playing games that have audio on the disc in audio format.

Fewer connections for a cleaner signal.

[ynnek4]

do either of these m-audio cards support plugging in a 1/4 headphone jack (for listening to headphones of course?

[Phil Elliott]

No they don't. And I got mixed up earlier: I said both cards have phonos; I was getting the 192 mixed up with the old Delta 410 (discontinued). The 192 actually has balanced 1/4" jack connectors:

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Audiophile2496-main.html

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Audiophile192-main.html

[ynnek4]

No they don't. And I got mixed up earlier: I said both cards have phonos; I was getting the 192 mixed up with the old Delta 410 (discontinued). The 192 actually has balanced 1/4" jack connectors:

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Audiophile2496-main.html

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Audiophile192-main.html

ick!

i would like to listen with my headphones through the m-audio card ala the audigy front panel box. i wonder if there is some sort of adapter to do this?

thanks.

[ynnek4]

well, ordered a m-audio 2496. cant wait.

had a question; i currently have an audigy 2 and i have heard that the 2496 is quite different in that it doesnt run some types of sound applications (ala the gaming sound cards). is that true?

i have also heard some people run two sound cards?

thanks for any info.

[dongle]

I've been quite happy with my 24/96. I'm now on the third desktop using the same card, Keep upgrading, but feel no need to buy a new soundcard. I have the RCA analogue out connected to a Creek-OBH-11, and from there on to some cheap computer speakers. Sounds good with my Senn HD-600s.

One can get two 24/96s and chain them together in the mixer to give you four-track recording setup. You can go up to four cards for eight-track recording. That would be one reason to run more than one card.

Gaming cards are usually rated by how few CPU cycles they demand, frees them up to do graphics, physics, and AI. Gaming surround cards also do a special type of processing based on a sound's location in 3D space. Say, if an enemy moves behind a building, his sounds will be quieter as if the build was blocking the sound. That would be another reason to get two cards, one for 3D surround gamming, and one for hi-res stereo music.

[Phil Elliott]

I'm running a Soundblaster Live! card for gaming and an RME HDSP 9632 card for music stuff. If you try to run the games through the RME, odd things tend to happen, so if you have an existing card that works well with games, keep it. I remember the M-Audio card playing well with Soundblasters in the same system.

My GF got me "Call Of Duty" for my birthday recently; I think I would have been stuck without the Soundblaster :)

[dongle]

Just to clarify, the 24/96 plays games just fine. I've played everything from the newest games, all the way back to DOS only RPGs. Never had a problem. Doesn't give you that extra 3D positioning thing I mentioned, but I'm only two channel, so it's not a big deal to me.

[ynnek4]

thanks guys, much appreciated!

cant wait for it to get here!

[lukpac]

One can get two 24/96s and chain them together in the mixer to give you four-track recording setup. You can go up to four cards for eight-track recording. That would be one reason to run more than one card.

I haven't tried it, because the only software I have that works with the 2496 is two-channel only, but couldn't you in theory utilize both the analog ins and SPDIF in with an external ADC for 4-channel recording?

For some reason the 2496 picks up some noise inside of my G4 on the analog ins. Doesn't on my G3. I got a DI/O to get around that...

[shane]

I have an external 2496 that I've had for a few years now that works great. I only used it to transfer DATs to my hd for cd burning but it was very accurate through the spdif in.

Shane

[ynnek4]

i have read that the m-audio 2496 has a lack of "volume control."

i plan to just use this card strictly with my swan m200's for cd playback. i have heard the applications (such as cdplayer/vuplayer) will control the sound.

do you still have control through the good old windows volume control?

thanks.

[Phil Elliott]

The 2496 card bypasses the windows volume control completely, and deliberately so for many technical reasons. It does however come with it's own mixer application which sits in the bottom right corner of your screen. You can control the output volume with this.

[ynnek4]

The 2496 card bypasses the windows volume control completely, and deliberately so for many technical reasons. It does however come with it's own mixer application which sits in the bottom right corner of your screen. You can control the output volume with this.

awesome, thanks phil!

[RapsodiaStellare]

Just to clarify, the 24/96 plays games just fine. I've played everything from the newest games, all the way back to DOS only RPGs. Never had a problem. Doesn't give you that extra 3D positioning thing I mentioned, but I'm only two channel, so it's not a big deal to me.

For what it's worth, any system fast enough to run contemporary games is probably fast enough to perform positional audio processing for 5.1 audio on the CPU alongside the game. The math is relatively simple (compared to rendering 3D graphics). You shouldn't need special hardware.

[dongle]

For what it's worth, any system fast enough to run contemporary games is probably fast enough to perform positional audio processing for 5.1 audio on the CPU alongside the game.

I'm pretty certain that the EAX HD processing I'm talking about, where sounds get occluded by 3D meshes between the player and the sound source, can only happen on a specific chip on a sound card.

Gamers are nuts about framerates. Even if you're getting 100 frames per second, if you can up that to 102 frames per second by upgrading, it's worth it to them. Typically 3D geometry is filled by the video card, but CPUs do a lot of work on AI and physics nowadays that need to be calculated before a frame can be drawn. Anything that takes other loads off - ethernet, sound - is good.

[ynnek4]

hi,

well i have it installed and running.

any suggestions on how to properly get the most out of the card (i.e. settings) in the delta control panel?

thanks a lot.

[dongle]

Don't think I did anything special. I usually mute all the sliders I'm not using, don't know if that makes any difference. I have Patchbay/Router set to "Monitor Mixer" in both columns. It used to be when you had "Reset Rate When Idle" checked in Hardware Settings you'd get a click after something that wasn't 44.1k stopped playing, they might have fixed that. Other then that, don't think there is much else to set?

How's it sound?