[Ross]

I recently bought an M-Audio Audiophile USB, partly to use as a soundcard for playback, but mostly to record LPs and radio broadcast to disc.

I will provide some more detail in a subsequent post, but briefly, as a soundcard it sounds awful and as an analog to digital converter it sounds worse.

In both cases, it sounds thin, bright, metallic, lacking deep bass, and with splashy highs.

Naturally, CD recordings did not even come close to the LP originals. However, as a fairer comparison, I compared recordings from the same source at the same time made to minidisc via my Sony JA20ES MD deck and burned to a CD via the M-Audio Audiophile. The MD recording walked all over the CD, with more depth, three-dimensionality, warmth, blackness, tonal colour and musicality.

In summary, I am unimpressed with this soundcard and will continue making my recordings via minidisc which produces superior results.

 

[lan]

Those ES minidisc decks are pretty good. I don't see why you'd compare it to a cheap soundcard. If you want better recording, use a card with a better ADC.

It's not a true playback comparision since you're not using the same DACs to playback no? Even if you could hookup the CD player to use minidisc's DACs, it's at the disadvantage of more jitter.

In any case, I wouldn't bother with vinyl -> CD now but to DVD instead. It's high resolution.

 

[Ross]

Quote:

Those ES minidisc decks are pretty good. I don't see why you'd compare it to a cheap soundcard. If you want better recording, use a card with a better ADC.

Yes, the ES decks are very good. I had assumed - obviously wrongly - that even an inexpensive soundcard should sound better, especially using uncompressed audio, particularly a sound card as highly regarded as the mis-named Audiophile USB.

Quote:

It's not a true playback comparision since you're not using the same DACs to playback no? Even if you could hookup the CD player to use minidisc's DACs, it's at the disadvantage of more jitter.

You are correct, and that was one of the factors I considered. But since I was playing the CD on my Naim CDS2 which cost twenty times the price of the MD deck, I assumed it should sound comprehensively better than the MD player with any recording.

Quote:

In any case, I wouldn't bother with vinyl -> CD now but to DVD instead. It's high resolution.

Good idea. I hadn't thought of that. How would you do that? Record to 24/96? What sort of file would you need to record it as for a DVD player to read it?

 

[lan]

I wouldn't say the Audiophile USB is highly regarded. Nobody would use that for high quality recording work.

>>>But since I was playing the CD on my Naim CDS2 which cost twenty times the price of the MD deck, I assumed it should sound comprehensively better than the MD player with any recording.

Well there's still taste. What if I like Mercedez Benz more than BMW? That's not to say BMW isn't as good accross the board.

You'd record as 24/96. Do whatever processing you want, save as 24bit linear PCM. Use a DVD mastering program to layout the audio traks. It's certainly not as easy as making a CD. Maybe they can help you out here with that, http://www.dvdrhelp.com/forum/

 

[Ross]

Thanks, Ian.

 

[Jasper994]

I have one and that was exactly my opinion of it's sound when I first got it. After about 8-10 days of constant use (left computer on playing music while I was away). The sound of the Audiophile really smoothed out. While I will accept that part of this may be me getting used to the sound, I did have references the whole time (my DVD player, and my Opto Play) so I'd have to blame the rest on the wonders of burn-in. Give it a little time and see what happens.

 

[taoster]

yes, it's pretty horrific. It's over regarded by gamers who has little appreciation of high audio.

 

[Edwood]

I'm a gamer, and I appreciate high quality audio.

But then again, I'm a hardcore gamer.

Well, I get pretty obsessed with any of my hobbies. Although, I haven't had much time to play games these days. But I always have time to enjoy music when I'm working on my computer.

-Ed

 

[ITZBITZ]

I think the Audiophile USB sounds pretty damn good.

I'm running Windows XP Pro, Foobar2000, 24-bit output, 44.1 KHz sample rate, PPA, Beyer DT880's. All source material is FLAC-encoded from the original CD.

Here's a quick measurement I did of it with RMAA to make sure it worked properly:

RightMark Audio Analyzer 5.3 Results - Audiophile USB

So far, it's a very nice upgrade from my Sonica that I was using previously.