ancient history: M-Audio Audiophile 2496 and Delta 410 cards from close to 25yrs ago

[TonyJZX]

Midiman/M-Audio Audiophile 2496 Sound Card Review

M-audio Delta 410 (Sep 2001)

M-audio Delta 410 (Sep 2001)

www.oldschooldaw.com

i had both these cards... there were something like $150 to $250 usd back then

this was when Soundblasters were all there was (and maybe Gravis Ultrasound is your were a bit arch)

back then these cards were 98 or XP and they worked fine... even in games... they lasted a long time... I seem to recall I was still using these cards when Win7 came out in 2009

the drivers just worked HOWEVER they did not last long in Win7 due to the fact that you cannot expect a company to keep releasing drivers close to a decade after the fact

now this was a funny time in that digital out on PCs werent that common and so I was a bit reluctant to spend hundreds on cards that STILL had the dacs inside but truth be told they got them to work

they both provided audiophile quality in a PC and I just kept transplanting them from PC to PC

i ended up retiring them when digital out cards became real cheap like $20 cheap and you could just pass it out to a DAC

true to form i think both used... AKM

theyre still in the garage at my dads place

 

[restorer-john]

They are still excellent cards, if you have a PC with (legacy) PCI slots.

I have an M-Audio AP 24/192 in an Win7 box which achieves some pretty amazing numbers. I rarely use that machine, but when I turn it on, I realize how far backwards we have gone with Win10 and Win11. Win7 is such a joy to use, and so fast, especially on network file management. XP was even faster.

But I diverge. Here's loopback of the M-Audio AP 24/96

And here's loopback of M-Audio AP 24/192:

And multitone M-Audio AP 24/192:

I have a few Delta 410s someplace too.

 

[TonyJZX]

the drivers were also something else

m-audio released them quite often and i cant actually say i ever seen them ever fail on anything... well they were designed to be used for WORK

i mean this is the real shit

https://www.freekb.net/images/reaper4.png

there were guys i was on pro forums with who ran the real rack mount 19" delta 1010s but we all ran the same software so you were always able to ask for help if you need it

 

[voodooless]

They are still excellent cards, if you have a PC with (legacy) PCI slots.

You can just buy a PCIE to PCI adapter and still use the cards on modern hardware If you use Linux these should still work fine without any issues.

 

[khensu]

Roughly 20 years ago, I spent many hours transferring analog sources to digital (live Grateful Dead primarily) using an M-Audio Delta DIO 2496. Fantastic cards. Never had any problems with the hardware or drivers.

 

[OnLyTNT]

Aahhh, I had 2496. I got it second hand after I got my first guitar. I learned basic recording, mixing, DAWs, amp sims, VSTs and many more with it. Mine failed sadly after years of usage.

 

[Pudik]

I still use the delta 44 with windows xp 64/64 bit driver for composition. Ditto with windows 7/64 bit drivers. Never fails. I also use asus xonar dx 7.1 with these OSs, of course, they don't have such good graphs, but they still do a much better job than any sound blaster. Drivers are Unixonars. I am using these for home theater and composition. Problem is i don't have PEQs for them, so i can do only graph EQ, in only freq zones. The xonars are analogly connected to 2 ancient Integras. Nowadays, one can barely find unswitched avr multichannel inputs even at the highest end. We've regressed quite a bit as far as possibilities. Of course, one can buy USB connected audio interfaces into computers, but that doesn't resolve decoding the multitude of home theater protocols. P

 

[Citizen]

Wow, my first card was an Audiophile 24/96, solid performer, rock solid, never let me down, sold it when I upgraded to a Motu 828 firewire.

I have been watching them on ebay as I now run a linux system and so know they will just work.

 

[Pudik]

Wow, my first card was an Audiophile 24/96, solid performer, rock solid, never let me down, sold it when I upgraded to a Motu 828 firewire.

I have been watching them on ebay as I now run a linux system and so know they will just work.

View attachment 307493

Hi!

I have a Delta44. That too performed rock solid, never tired, always ready. I still have it in my experimental computer and I still us it from time to time, though I graduated to 8 track bluray home theater sound, using a 2009 mobo's quite capable HD sound chip. P.

 

[Pudik]

Wow, my first card was an Audiophile 24/96, solid performer, rock solid, never let me down, sold it when I upgraded to a Motu 828 firewire.

I have been watching them on ebay as I now run a linux system and so know they will just work.

View attachment 307493

Sorry, i forgot: i never used the Delta44 in linux. Linux had still not solved multichannel sound adequately. One still has to write scripts and i am simply not willing to waste my precious time with geeky stuff. I used to, but i am a composer and time is of the essence wok flow wise. P.

 

[Speedskater]

That goes back to the days of Arnold B. Krueger (Arny K) (RIP May 2018) and his PC AV Tech page.

 

[Citizen]

Sorry, i forgot: i never used the Delta44 in linux. Linux had still not solved multichannel sound adequately. One still has to write scripts and i am simply not willing to waste my precious time with geeky stuff. I used to, but i am a composer and time is of the essence wok flow wise. P.

I completely understand, I use the linux mostly for my online and media front end so is mostly just a stereo signal, I still have to use a mac for Logic Pro and Windows for Ableton Live, I would love to use Linux for production but the support is just dire, if only just one of the major sequencer boys would jump ship it would be a wonderful place, this maybe just because I mac as much as windows these days, one by one my cards stopped working and then all my favorite plug ins followed the same path, I just want to go back to the sweet almost zero latency of my mid 2000 systems, Emagic Logic 5.6, the early Protools stuff, I kept this old Mbox 2 as it just sounds so damn good, I recently bought an Audient card and within ten minutes knew that it had to go.

 

[restorer-john]

I kept this old Mbox 2 as it just sounds so damn good

Classic unit.

 

[Pudik]

I completely understand, I use the linux mostly for my online and media front end so is mostly just a stereo signal, I still have to use a mac for Logic Pro and Windows for Ableton Live, I would love to use Linux for production but the support is just dire, if only just one of the major sequencer boys would jump ship it would be a wonderful place, this maybe just because I mac as much as windows these days, one by one my cards stopped working and then all my favorite plug ins followed the same path, I just want to go back to the sweet almost zero latency of my mid 2000 systems, Emagic Logic 5.6, the early Protools stuff, I kept this old Mbox 2 as it just sounds so damn good, I recently bought an Audient card and within ten minutes knew that it had to go.

View attachment 307527

I'll get back to you, guys, tomorrow. P..

 

[Pudik]

I completely understand, I use the linux mostly for my online and media front end so is mostly just a stereo signal, I still have to use a mac for Logic Pro and Windows for Ableton Live, I would love to use Linux for production but the support is just dire, if only just one of the major sequencer boys would jump ship it would be a wonderful place, this maybe just because I mac as much as windows these days, one by one my cards stopped working and then all my favorite plug ins followed the same path, I just want to go back to the sweet almost zero latency of my mid 2000 systems, Emagic Logic 5.6, the early Protools stuff, I kept this old Mbox 2 as it just sounds so damn good, I recently bought an Audient card and within ten minutes knew that it had to go.

View attachment 307527

Interesting to have composer peers on this forum. When linux will have had their affaires cleaned up, i'd consider it, most probably Ubuntu. Then, there remains the lack of sound library choices, a lot less than those recorded for windows. The main problem, and that is tied to the topics on this forum, is that even stereo audio is becoming obsolete. It's one thing to write something for 4-7 people or a chamber group, but a radically different for s full orchestra. The latter needs at least a multichannel dolby system such that the groups of the orchestra be heard independently, ad well as the leaks between the groups, like in the concert hall. Too, d/a conversion and speakers need to be top notch (stating the obvious).

 

[MRC01]

My PC still uses an ESI Juli@ sound card, another blast from the past classic. Installed at least 15 years ago, still works and measures like new, very clean. It's a unique sound card having a reversible daughterboard to run balanced (1/4" TRS) or unbalanced (RCA), also having SPDIF output both coax and toslink.

Regarding the PC, running Ubuntu it is a seamless experience with ALSA and Pulseaudio, plug it in and go, no drivers needed.

 

[Pudik]

My PC still uses an ESI Juli@ sound card, another blast from the past classic. Installed at least 15 years ago, still works and measures like new, very clean. It's a unique sound card having a reversible daughterboard to run balanced (1/4" TRS) or unbalanced (RCA), also having SPDIF output both coax and toslink.

Regarding the PC, running Ubuntu it is a seamless experience with ALSA and Pulseaudio, plug it in and go, no drivers needed.

 

[Pudik]

In my particular case, I wanted a 16 channel system. I have two asus xonar dx 7.1 cards, so i wanted to combine them to obtain 16 channels out to 16 discrete speakers. Surely, synchronizing them would have been a major issue, nevertheless I was willing to give the whole paradigm a try. No matter what I did, I could not do it, in spite of the numerous script trials. Then I tried it with jack, which recognized both cards and the 16 channels, but couldn't render sound in spite of either the scripts I wrote or others wrote. I don't have your sophisticated card, so maybe the ones I have won't take linux kindly. Reaper is an affordable DAW that has multichannel output, I believe 568 discrete. Of course, it's an aberration, but it CAN do it and it works in linux. But I can't make my cards work with either of linux's audio programs. And, of course, I am a Windows person who had spent his career programming databases, troubleshooting work stations and finally, administering networks. So linux always remained a project to be tackled some time and the time never came because I never had time. This is why i am still tied into windows, like two tweens who have no choice but to live together, however unhappily. And, of course, the narrow choice of instrument libraries for linux remains a big problem. P.

 

[restorer-john]

Surely, synchronizing them would have been a major issue

Did you try physically disconnecting the 24.576Mhz clock crystal on one and slaving it via coax to the other card?

 

[MRC01]

Why is it 24.576 MHz? I would expect 28.224 MHz, since that is the least common multiple of the 6 most common sample rates (44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4 and 192).