Bargain digital replay

Just a heads up on the M Audio Firewire Audiophile really.

Anyone with a Firewire equipped laptop should look into one of these relatively inexpensive(c£200) devices for outputting their HD based music to their systems.

It's equipped with 2 firewire in's, SPDIF in/out plus analogue in/out. I have been sceptical about using it as a dac in a quality system, but hooked up with decent cables, it is eminently musical, offering the downward tilted response that will be familiar to many vinyl users and is the antithesis of hard digititis.

Now comes the clever bit Being Firewire equipped it can of course take it's power from the PC. Not a good idea given the RFI/EMI generated I thought, and indeed I noticed little difference when used in this mode. I however use a Powerbook, and the thought sprung to mind to disconnect this from the mains. So in effect, both transport and dac are running from battery power, whilst Firewire is compensating for any jitter.

Well I have to say, with the proviso that people used to hard upper mids courtesy of digititis may not like it, this is bloody good full stop. Not a trace of harshness, imaging that easily beats my £800 CD source, and a musicality that reminds me more of a turntable than many fairly expensive CD players. Not bad for £200 and I would urge people to try it out to see if they too like the results.

 

Hi Merlin,

Interesting read, I've gotta admit that I also like my PCI-based Terratec card which is on a similar level of performance to the Audiophile cards, so its interesting to hear someone who is used to better quality kit say that it is a good buy for the money

The internal cards are generally IME not as bad as they should be given the usual audiophile chatter about RFI and the like, I've never heard with my own ears the effects of this anyway, which leads me to believe there may be something in it, but its hardly enough to worry this pair of ears.

 

I bought the creative Mp3+ USB external box for my laptop just to pep up the audio on it and I have to say for £39 it sounds great. Nice output from the earphone socket, a decent line in and out and optical in and out. Works a treat.

 

I have the M Audio 'Audiphile' PCI card for my studio PC (I write music in addition to listening to it!). The audio produced from this card is superb - the treble and mids being particularly vibrant and 'crisp'. My only criticism, is that the bass response seems to be slightly lacking - at least when compared to the mid and top end.

However, I've never heard mp3's sound so good. For the £150 or so I paid, it was a very worthwhile investment. Plus, its as it can record as 24/96 as well as replay (many cheaper cards will only playback at 24/96) - it's ideal for the studio.

I've not seen the firewire modules - but I guess they essentially use the same electronics/DAC/ADC's...


Steve

 

a bargain at £150, now a complete steal at £55

 

where?

 

it was £56.40 at making waves, but it looks like they're upped their price (google has it cached). still great at ~£66 though (the standard price now, it seems).