Finally! Echo Indigo DJX and IOX
Nov 18, 2008 at 7:00 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 7

Sadiedog

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I've been waiting for the DJX for sometime now. I'm sick of the crap built-in DAC of my laptop and wanted something that would fit my express card slot.

I've been told to stay away from the IO as it's just a sound card. And to get the DJ instead since it has the line out for your own amp. (I have a Graham Slee Voyager amp and want to continue using it) I want this to basically replace my laptop DAC for recording and playback. Hope it works!

My big question now is: if I stick a CD into the laptop drive to convert to mp3, will it record using the DJX or still insist on using the crap DAC. Current PCMCIA users should know the answer to this. If it ends up recording through the crap DAC, I may need to rethink my options.

Please chime in if anyone has any thoughts here. Also on where to buy the DJX card.
 
Nov 18, 2008 at 7:23 AM Post #2 of 7
I'm not sure I see what you mean. You don't need D/A conversion to rip a CD.
 
Nov 18, 2008 at 7:44 AM Post #3 of 7
No conversion to rip CD's. I didn't know that. Then Indigo DJX it is! Now if I can just find out where to buy.

I just assumed it mattered since I have heard some pretty awful sounding MP3's and some really good ones. Years ago, I put together an Incubus greatest hits CD pulling each song from a different source. (Remember Napster?) Some songs sounded fine, some ok, and some sounded terrible. Each song was inconsistent with the others. Drove me crazy! That CD ended up in the trash and that was it for Napster as far as I was concerned. Unfortunately, I still get some bad MP3's now and then even though they are new. (Bad ones always sound distorted and crackly.)
 
May 4, 2009 at 2:56 PM Post #5 of 7
yeah ripping a CD is essentially just copying and compressing something to your HD at the same time. its the efficiency of the algorithm used to compress it and its effectiveness that will dictate how good the rip sounds. also when doing any recording from vinyl or your computer oir whatever, make sure to set the indigo to sample at the same rate in both sample depth and khz as the source material you are sampling. dithering is not your friend and can cause artifacts.

clicks and pops will only occur if you set the buffer size too small for the CPU or indigo to keep up with.
 
May 4, 2009 at 3:47 PM Post #6 of 7
The ripping question was weird anyway...

I consider clicks/crackles to be underruns and pops the gaps if the system has latencies in the 10k-15k uS in my system on a Audiofire2.
If i increase bufer enough i get constant crackles, if i keep them low enough i get no crackles but am affected by system latencies causing gaps which sound like pops due to how short they are.

Since this seems to be a typical firewire laptop issue, i was wondering how a card playing directly from the expresscard interface would sound.

I could always sell on my Audiofire2 to some happy desktop user if my laptop can't handle it, but only if the Indigo series are actually doing any better in this regard.

Thanks,

Daniel
 
May 4, 2009 at 5:50 PM Post #7 of 7
hmmm havent got much experience with what you speak of; although my interface is firewire too, but AFAIK RME use proprietary firewire drivers and I can have latency as low as 32-64, so near enough to zero, with multiple channels and some software synths loaded, but I normally stick to about 128-256 just in case I go overboard on plugins. I use a midi controller keyboard, so I need latency to be fairly low.

sorry for the OT. going to bed now
 

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