DarkScythe
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2008
- Posts
- 166
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- 0
Hey everyone,
It's been a while since I dropped by (and strangely, I got some notifications the other day about a random guy necro'ing a 5-year old thread of mine.) Anyway, it seems most times I visit, my wallet suffers, so I ended up staying away a while and simply enjoying what I had.
Unfortunately, it's time to revisit and replace my old Audiofire 4. I just built a new PC, and sadly everything seems stacked against my continued use of that interface. Not only is Firewire all but dead, forcing me to rely on a PCIe add-in card for Firewire capability, but this add-in card won't even work with my new PC's motherboard; If it's plugged in to any of the PCIe slots, the board refuses to POST. The card itself still works, as I plugged it back into my old PC and it boots just fine.
Even if I did get the card working, there isn't even any guarantee that it would work in Windows 10, because Echo themselves have stated they have discontinued their 'Pro Audio' products, and will no longer update their drivers, so I'd have to hope their last Windows 8 drivers work in Windows 10.
Based on all that, I think it's time I just bit the bullet, gave up, and moved on to a new USB interface instead.
Unfortunately, because I've been 'out of the game' for so long, I'm not sure what sort of good options there are these days. The best I can do right now is pop over to someplace like BHPhoto and filter their interfaces to at least 4 outputs.
Budget-wise, I'm looking and hoping for a good option in the $150-200 range, although I can probably stretch up to around $250 if it's really worthwhile. I should mention that the rest of my setup remains about the same; I need one set of outputs going to my AudioEngine speakers (my A5's have died, I think, but I'll probably replace them with a set of A5+'s since AE support decided to give me a pretty substantial discount; My A5's are far too old and far too out of warranty for any repairs.) I need at least a second output leading into my headphone amp; Any more is a bonus, but not necessary.
The other important note is that I use a Blue encore200 microphone, which is a dynamic mic that requires an XLR connection and phantom power. Thankfully, it seems almost all the interfaces in this price range include that, so it's not too big an issue. The last thing would be solid software/drivers; I do game on my PC as well, so I'm looking for drivers that aren't too crash-happy, and also allows good audio routing control between the various inputs and outputs. This last part is one major area I'm stuck at, since I've found it difficult to find reviews going over this aspect.
Still, something like the Focusrite 2i4, Native Instruments Komplete Audio6, Roland Rubix24, and others, including the curiously-priced Behringer UMC404HD (why is this half the price of the others?) seem like decent candidates, but I'm having trouble narrowing the field from these. Are there any actual/major hardware differences between these, or is the difference more in the software at this price point?
Anyone have any ideas or maybe can offer insight into the software/routing capabilities of the various interfaces?
Thanks!
It's been a while since I dropped by (and strangely, I got some notifications the other day about a random guy necro'ing a 5-year old thread of mine.) Anyway, it seems most times I visit, my wallet suffers, so I ended up staying away a while and simply enjoying what I had.
Unfortunately, it's time to revisit and replace my old Audiofire 4. I just built a new PC, and sadly everything seems stacked against my continued use of that interface. Not only is Firewire all but dead, forcing me to rely on a PCIe add-in card for Firewire capability, but this add-in card won't even work with my new PC's motherboard; If it's plugged in to any of the PCIe slots, the board refuses to POST. The card itself still works, as I plugged it back into my old PC and it boots just fine.
Even if I did get the card working, there isn't even any guarantee that it would work in Windows 10, because Echo themselves have stated they have discontinued their 'Pro Audio' products, and will no longer update their drivers, so I'd have to hope their last Windows 8 drivers work in Windows 10.
Based on all that, I think it's time I just bit the bullet, gave up, and moved on to a new USB interface instead.
Unfortunately, because I've been 'out of the game' for so long, I'm not sure what sort of good options there are these days. The best I can do right now is pop over to someplace like BHPhoto and filter their interfaces to at least 4 outputs.
Budget-wise, I'm looking and hoping for a good option in the $150-200 range, although I can probably stretch up to around $250 if it's really worthwhile. I should mention that the rest of my setup remains about the same; I need one set of outputs going to my AudioEngine speakers (my A5's have died, I think, but I'll probably replace them with a set of A5+'s since AE support decided to give me a pretty substantial discount; My A5's are far too old and far too out of warranty for any repairs.) I need at least a second output leading into my headphone amp; Any more is a bonus, but not necessary.
The other important note is that I use a Blue encore200 microphone, which is a dynamic mic that requires an XLR connection and phantom power. Thankfully, it seems almost all the interfaces in this price range include that, so it's not too big an issue. The last thing would be solid software/drivers; I do game on my PC as well, so I'm looking for drivers that aren't too crash-happy, and also allows good audio routing control between the various inputs and outputs. This last part is one major area I'm stuck at, since I've found it difficult to find reviews going over this aspect.
Still, something like the Focusrite 2i4, Native Instruments Komplete Audio6, Roland Rubix24, and others, including the curiously-priced Behringer UMC404HD (why is this half the price of the others?) seem like decent candidates, but I'm having trouble narrowing the field from these. Are there any actual/major hardware differences between these, or is the difference more in the software at this price point?
Anyone have any ideas or maybe can offer insight into the software/routing capabilities of the various interfaces?
Thanks!
