Even more Audio Card Joys

So, I got the MAudio Firewire Solo last weekend. And it went back also.

It wasen't DOA. It lit up when I plugged it into my desktop machine (Vista Ultimate). I installed the latest drivers from maudio, shutdown, plugged in the solo, and booted up. The control panel said no card found when I opened it after boot.

I then installed the drivers on my laptop (Vista Basic), shutdown, plugged in the MAudio into the laptop, used a 1200ma 12vdc universal power supply to power the MAudio, and nothing again - the control panel says no device found.

When I plug in the sound card, it doesn't add any devices to the device manager.

So, it went back... sigh....

Now I need to find an audio card, used, portable, that will work with ARTA and LspCAD and SpeakerWorkshop.

Been looking some more at the boards, and people seem to like the M-Audio Transit and the Edirol UA-1EX for under $100.

I did a google search for 'Edirol ARTA' and found some German audio boards (gotta love Google Translate!) where they complain about Edirol and ARTA, and people who were saying they were switching to the Transit. So, a M-Audio Transit it is...

I hope I don't have any latency problems. My fear is probably unfounded - most of those M-audio complaints seem to be a year or two old.

Audio Card Joys

My Dell-sourced Creative X-Fi card came in today.

And it is going right back out. It is DOA - totally freezes my laptop every time I plug it into the Expresscard slot.

There is a possibility that this is a good thing, not a bad thing. I am getting my $ back for the card. And I just bought a M-Audio Firewire Solo for $120 used online.

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

Although $40 more than the Creative, it appears to be a favored sound device in the DIY speaker design crowd. It has phantom 48v power for a mic, balanced outputs, and very low latency.

Hopefully my jig is done this weekend, and I should be testing next weekend. Cross my fingers!