DAC-ADC interface : Any that will work FOR SURE?

[Marty111]

Good morning everyone.
So I have been struggling for ten years to get proper audio from my computer to record and listen. I went to the extent to make my windows 7 computer silent and managed it so I'm never buying a new computer. Then in 2017 I lost hope finding a good DAC-ADC interface, I stopped trying and I went back to what was the lesser evil : My motherboard's integrated audio from 2012. The short story is that there is always some crap whatever the DAC-ADC I tried, and apparently it's the same for everyone that hasn't enough money to buy expensive stuff whenever they want. Anything I tried had either electronic noise, driver issues that is always blamed on the computer, the usb, whatever, sнitty drivers that don't adapt at all and blame it on your OS or your settings, bsod, pop & crack sounds, audio that stops. I'm not saying that Microsoft isn't to blame, everyone knows it's a sнitty company, but still the manufacturers should either adapt better, either tell the people "our interface is meant to work with this precise OS this precise OS revision, this precise hardware and nothing else. Therefore avoiding the permanent update scamming scheme of the computer industry that makes our lives impossible and any investment absolutely worthless.

So I'm just asking : Has anything good come out lately? A DAC-ADC witch works GOOD no questions asked? Or should I wait 10 years with the hope they stop trying to sell the same crap to peasants such as me who can't afford the shady "buy regularly and be glad even if it's crap" scheme?

 

[abdo123]

Option1: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/motu-m4-audio-interface-review.15757/

Option2: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...u-ultralite-mk5-review-audio-interface.24777/

 

[hyperplanar]

Hi Marty,
If hardware and driver stability is your number one priority, I suggest you take a look at RME’s interfaces.

If you really have been struggling to find an interface that works well for 10 years, there is a good possibility something is up with your PC though. Some audio interface manufacturers have much worse drivers than others, but most users still won’t face more than sporadic issues. That’s just life in PC land—sometimes a combo of BIOS settings and GPU/chipset/peripheral drivers can conspire to make your PC unusable for audio purposes, and it’s not easy to predict whether a given PC will work well or not for audio (although most will, it’s not of much consolation when your particular PC isn’t). One of the worst culprits seems to be motherboards—some manufacturers like Asus love piling on globs of unnecessary devices on their motherboards and have poorly written drivers for them, contributing to DPC latency.

Windows 10 seems to work better for audio than 7 in my experience, and the less you mess around with arcane BIOS/registry tweaks and software the better it tends to work. A clean install of 10 could solve your problem.

Or buy a Mac

 

[AnalogSteph]

OP, your despair is duly noted. However, we'll need to know more about both your PC (motherboard, case, PSU?) and connected audio components, plus a quick mention of what kind of issues you had with which interface. Is your electrical installation decently modern? Precisely what do you need to connect?

It may ultimately come down to an unlucky mix of hardware issues (would anyone suspect their case of being a problem, for example? I don't trust the things these days, too much paint), driver bugs (the gen2 Focusrite Scarletts had some annoying quirks that only went away with a driver update a year or two back, for example), other drivers wreaking havoc on DPC latency (run LatencyMon to identify culprits, e.g. WiFi is very commonly problematic, but traditional network cards and GPUs can also be) and the classic ground loop.

 

[storing]

As others said: on average it's harder to find one which doesn't work than one which does (that being said, had an M-Audio once which worked flawless except it stopped working when turning on the light in the bathroom; somehow the spraking in the switched killed something in software or in the USB connection or so). But if you have problems with almost all of them, chances are higher it's the rest of the system which is the problem. Also note that older hardware + old OS is going to give more problems in the future: these days you can still get Win7 drivers no problem, but that is not going to last forever.

 

[AnalogSteph]

(that being said, had an M-Audio once which worked flawless except it stopped working when turning on the light in the bathroom; somehow the spraking in the switched killed something in software or in the USB connection or so)

Ground loops making USB hiccup is a problem not unheard of, actually. USB is not galvanically isolated, so if common mode potential wanders off too far communication will be disturbed. I think you need a dodgy front panel and a fairly big ground loop partially involving its USB connection for this to happen, but crummy old electrics may definitely be a factor as well.

 

[DVDdoug]

A LOT of people are successfully making nearly-professional recordings at home. Usually the biggest limitation is the lack of a soundproof recording studio (and the lack of a treated mixing/mastering studio).

Anything I tried had either electronic noise, driver issues that is always blamed on the computer, the usb, whatever, sнitty drivers that don't adapt at all and blame it on your OS or your settings, bsod, pop & crack sounds, audio that stops.

The computer CAN be a problem. Another option is a stand-alone solid state recorder or a "portastudio". Or if you are making simple mono recordings a smart phone can often make a good recording. Other than being mono, the biggest limitation of a smart phone is the non-directional mic which picks-up noise from all directions.

It's also possible to record on a stand-alone device and then edit & mix on a computer. Mixing/editing is just "data processing" and it's more reliable than recording.

Most "computer audio problems" such as glitches/dropouts are related to the multitasking operating system, and the computer is ALWAYS multitasking even if you're running one application. If some application/process/driver "hogs" the system for a few milliseconds too long you get buffer overflow and a glitch. (With playback/monitoring the danger is buffer underflow.) So, it's not usually the audio software or drivers but something else interrupting and hogging the system.

Another common issue with USB-powered interfaces (and USB microphones) is power-supply noise getting-into the interface's preamp.... Then you don't know whether to blame the noisy power supply or the lack of filtering in the interface. an interface with its own power supply avoids that problem.

 

[zhora]

I have a PC I built a year or so ago and a RME UCX. I am on the latest possible Windows 11 build and I have 0 problems with audio.

 

[Marty111]

I've been through the process of trying to know where the problem come from many times and I never quite managed to solve everything. Do RME devices work no matter what ? What RME device do you suggest ?

 

[preload]

I stopped reading at "Windows 7." Not sure what the rest of the post is about, but good luck.

 

[AnalogSteph]

I've been through the process of trying to know where the problem come from many times and I never quite managed to solve everything.

We still don't even know what your requirements are in terms of things to be connected, levels etc. Jeez, this is like pulling teeth.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I've been through the process of trying to know where the problem come from many times and I never quite managed to solve everything. Do RME devices work no matter what ? What RME device do you suggest ?

Recently acquired an RME interface. When I went to download the Windows ASIO drivers, they had them available all the way back to Windows XP. This device is recent and wasn't even around then.

Of course my advice is ditch Win 7. Win 8 runs better or lesser hardware than 7. At least move up to Windows 8.1 will you.

 

[restorer-john]

The M-Audio PCI Audiophile and Delta cards are rock solid on Windows7. I have several of the cards and and old machine that is still running Win7 with two of the cards in it. The drivers are Vista drivers, but work perfectly. It isn't my main box, but whenver I fire it up, it's just a joy comapred to the absolute garbage OS that is Win10.

You can pick them pretty cheap and their performance is truly outstanding for the money. I have drivers in case you ever need them.

M-Audio Audiophile 24/192 loopback in a Win7 box:

M-Audio Audiophile loopback 24/96 in W7 box:

 

[restorer-john]

Of course my advice is ditch Win 7. Win 8 runs better or lesser hardware than 7. At least move up to Windows 8.1 will you.

If it's just a box for audio, not an internet machine, W7 is better for just about everything vintage. If it's off the WAN/Internet, I'd argure everything is better in 7.

 

[restorer-john]

As a comparison, here's a Focusrite 2i2v2 at its best "sweet spot" for THD in a W10 box. 10 years down the track and it cannot match the M-Audio AP card. And we lose some headroom in the front end to get that number.

 

[AnalogSteph]

M-Audio Audiophile 24/192 loopback in a Win7 box:

That's a lot of +N though... not even -94 dB down at -3.5dBFS, i.e. dynamic range ~97 dB? This smells of -10 dBV (consumer) levels being accommodated the easy way, i.e. digitally. The card can do better, as you would expect given its ADC and DAC combo. Estimated ADC input noise floor is about -110.6 dBFS(A) from these results, pretty standard for something sporting an AK5385A. Distortion no longer is that ultralow when approaching real fullscale, of course.

The converters in the 2i2 gen2 (CS4272) actually aren't really any newer or any better than what the trusty AP192 has. Comparing USB interfaces with internal cards isn't really fair though, the latter are always going to be more bang/buck and the M-Audio cost roughly the same in the mid-2000s (plus inflation since then). Consider that an EMU 1212m was only $200 (US) or so back in the day yet was sporting top-grade converters (drivers were another matter.. I think you really want XP for the old EMUs).

 

[Tangband]

Good morning everyone.
So I have been struggling for ten years to get proper audio from my computer to record and listen. I went to the extent to make my windows 7 computer silent and managed it so I'm never buying a new computer. Then in 2017 I lost hope finding a good DAC-ADC interface, I stopped trying and I went back to what was the lesser evil : My motherboard's integrated audio from 2012. The short story is that there is always some crap whatever the DAC-ADC I tried, and apparently it's the same for everyone that hasn't enough money to buy expensive stuff whenever they want. Anything I tried had either electronic noise, driver issues that is always blamed on the computer, the usb, whatever, sнitty drivers that don't adapt at all and blame it on your OS or your settings, bsod, pop & crack sounds, audio that stops. I'm not saying that Microsoft isn't to blame, everyone knows it's a sнitty company, but still the manufacturers should either adapt better, either tell the people "our interface is meant to work with this precise OS this precise OS revision, this precise hardware and nothing else. Therefore avoiding the permanent update scamming scheme of the computer industry that makes our lives impossible and any investment absolutely worthless.

So I'm just asking : Has anything good come out lately? A DAC-ADC witch works GOOD no questions asked? Or should I wait 10 years with the hope they stop trying to sell the same crap to peasants such as me who can't afford the shady "buy regularly and be glad even if it's crap" scheme?

Get Windows 10 at first, if that doesnt work - do as the PRO:s - get a Mac .
I have given up the Windows dependent recordings , its a piece of crap in the way that you never, I repeat never, really know whats gonna happen after each upgrade. If you are a computer-hacker, then maybe its ok for you, but you really dont want to be in a position when live-recording and suddenly nothing works.

I use an audient id14 for semiprofessional use, and a Mac. Everything works perfect. In the way it always should work.

I began with a windows computer with the audientid14, and the whole computer chrashed repeatedly and I was afraid even the audientid14 would be damaged. With that setup, I could record something about 50% of the time, the rest of it was hickups, crashes, no contacts with the audientid14 and so on…. Garbage.
Not fun.

If you get windows 10, and want to continue for some reason with windows-based recordings, I have heard good comments from studio-people about focusrite.
Life is short, though.
The musicians you will record are gonna hate you if you struggle with software issues at the concert.

 

[AnalogSteph]

I began with a windows computer with the audientid14, and the whole computer chrashed repeatedly and I was afraid even the audientid14 would be damaged. With that setup, I could record something about 50% of the time, the rest of it was hickups, crashes, no contacts with the audientid14 and so on…. Garbage.
Not fun.

There must have been more to it than just the OS itself... this would have been hell for anyone. It wasn't a Ryzen-based system by any chance? I think W10 had some issues with USB power management at one time (especially AMD systems), people really weren't happy. But speaking of Audient, they released a new generation of drivers with improved performance earlier this year, both Windows and Mac I think.

 

[Tangband]

There must have been more to it than just the OS itself... this would have been hell for anyone. It wasn't a Ryzen-based system by any chance? I think W10 had some issues with USB power management at one time (especially AMD systems), people really weren't happy. But speaking of Audient, they released a new generation of drivers with improved performance earlier this year, both Windows and Mac I think.

It was a HP laptop.
Many people have had problems with audient gear, the software and windows, thats true. Amirm tested Audientid4.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/audient-id4-audio-interface-review.10679/

 

[restorer-john]

That's a lot of +N though... not even -94 dB down at -3.5dBFS, i.e. dynamic range ~97 dB? This smells of -10 dBV (consumer) levels being accommodated the easy way, i.e. digitally. The card can do better, as you would expect given its ADC and DAC combo. Estimated ADC input noise floor is about -110.6 dBFS(A) from these results, pretty standard for something sporting an AK5385A. Distortion no longer is that ultralow when approaching real fullscale, of course.

The converters in the 2i2 gen2 (CS4272) actually aren't really any newer or any better than what the trusty AP192 has. Comparing USB interfaces with internal cards isn't really fair though, the latter are always going to be more bang/buck and the M-Audio cost roughly the same in the mid-2000s (plus inflation since then). Consider that an EMU 1212m was only $200 (US) or so back in the day yet was sporting top-grade converters (drivers were another matter.. I think you really want XP for the old EMUs).

At the end of the day, let's not argue about a few dB here and there.

My point was an ancient, cheap (now) PCI card can do some amazing numbers within his Win 7 environment in rock solid way.

He loves win7. What suggestions do you have that will do what he wants within that constraint?