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E-MU 1212M PCIe or ESI Juli@

post #1 of 3
2/19/11 at 4:19am
Thread Starter 

Hi!

 

I'd like to buy one of these two soundcards but I don't know which would be the better choice? I only wanna listening music. Which represents better quality?

 

E-MU 1212M PCIe DAC - CS4398

ESI Juli@ DAC - AKM AK4358

 

Which sounds better?

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post #2 of 3
2/19/11 at 5:24am

I had both and was more impressed with the 1212M. CS4398 is a VERY good dac.

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post #3 of 3
2/19/11 at 11:17am

They both sound fine. The 1212m has better measurements for both the line inputs and outputs. Most home studio users don't really use that extra performance. But it's nice to know that it's there. The E-mu also has a capable hardware DSP that comes in handy with headphones: If you want to equalize the inevitable uneven response resulting from any cans' interaction with your head and your ear canals, several bands of parametric and shelving EQs are at your disposal. And you can apply them independently, on a per-channel basis--so you can have a different setting for L and R. Since this is being done by the hardware there's no load on the CPU and you won't need a plugin for every program that plays audio.

 

Some disadvantages of the 1212m:

1. Patchmix, the mixer app that comes with the 1212m and 1616m, is reasonably powerful and has flexible routing options. But it's harder to learn, especially if you don't have any experience with a mixing console.

2. You have to set the sampling rate by hand if you want to move from 44k or 48k to 96k or higher. I think the Juli@ does this automatically.

3. The Windows 7 drivers are still in beta.

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