Soundcards, from low cost great function to all out

[ergo]

I had not checked the latest in soundcards... so I did and found two very interesting ones

This one is inexpensive, but has a very unique feature -> one can connect two computers to it or an iPad and computer. And then route audio whichever way.

http://www.iconnectivity.com/products/audio/iConnectAUDIO4plus

This would actually enable an easy means to use ARTA or Spotify one one PC and run the LspCAD crossover simulation on another. Source audio would remain digital and then analog would go to amps -> speakers in end. Would allow either measuring or listening to crossover before the build. As LspCAD only accepts same soundcard to be an input and output this scenario is usually not so easy to solve (unless one has RME soundcard for example that allows such routing internally)

The other one is this

http://www.synthax.co.uk/rme/converters/rme-adi-2-pro/

Just amazing performance/functionality. With 768kHz sampling and that would also make an above average measurement instrument for all audio hobby projects. Not quite an AP analyzer level but very good indeed.
Price will be high though (1400EUR), but in this case one cas see where it goes to too.

[JonMarsh]

Yeah, in the good old days there was a very nice sound card with AES/EBU outputs, but it's hard to make them quiet enough in a PC environment to keep up with the newer solutions, especially multi-stage network servers and renderers.

OTOH, putting them out on a USB or Thunderbolt bus can pay some real dividends. RME stuff is generally very good, I have an RME Fireface 800 which I bought to use for ripping SACD's, as it will ignore the copy protection bit on S/PDIF streams, and combined with a modified player with AudioPraise cards one can extract SACD discs converted to 176.4/24 PCM, which generally works very, very nicely- I have most of my older collection converted, but now have accumulated a lot of new SACDs, as well as an AudioPraise board to convert my Oppo player for this task. As usual, I seem to be perennially short on time for completing these less urgent projects.





But I must say you have done me no favors by bringing this converter to my attention- it clearly belongs in my arsenal of tools, and might be an "ultimate weapon" for speaker measurements and perhaps the same things I use the FireFace for, but with higher quality. I wonder about the full details of what it will do different than the RME ADI-2, and how much more that will cost through my favorite dealer for these products...