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-- which is better ? emu 1820 m or audiophile 192

which is better ? emu 1820 m or audiophile 192

which is better in sound quality ?

It depends a bit on what you mean by "sound quality". The 1820M is really in a different class of products altogether (the "semi-professional"). It definitely has better recording quality and as for playback, all good boards are about the same, although you'll probably be able to pull off lower latency with the 1820 and the DSP features might help - it's not powerful but you can get maybe one or two reverbs or a bunch of EQs.

If you're not seriously anal-retentive then you probably won't even notice a difference in noise or THD or other distortion - most people don't. If you're upgrading from a cheesy old SoundBlaster or building something from scratch then I don't suggest splurging on an E-mu product at this point.

FYI, I use the same Emu card with Emulator X and I think it's great, but if you're deciding between that and an Audiophile then I suspect the 1820 is overkill for you.

I have the 192. I bought it back in 04 I believe. It was over $200 back then. It was a upgrade from my audigy 2 and obviously was alot better. I have been using it no problem since. Low latency and good enough for me for what I do. It pretty decent for the price they go for nowadays. If you have the money for the Emu though. I would get it. But if your poor like me haha. The 192 is decent.

You should be comparing 1212M and audiophile 192. Still the winner would be E-mu.

quote:

Originally posted by supersonik I have the 192. I bought it back in 04 I believe. It was over $200 back then. It was a upgrade from my audigy 2 and obviously was alot better. I have been using it no problem since. Low latency and good enough for me for what I do. It pretty decent for the price they go for nowadays. If you have the money for the Emu though. I would get it. But if your poor like me haha. The 192 is decent.

haha i`m not that rich either
it costs 175 euro and the emu 1820m 400,-
i`m cutting down on food a lot and i almost never buy clothes.
my mom sometimes says, here take this t-shirt from your stepdad.
and if i`m wearing it and she asks if i may keep it he usually says yes.


she even said that she would pay halve of the soundcard,
because i had a bad year.
i said out of a joke ok, i take the one from 2000,-

but i won`t take money from her for that.

quote:

Originally posted by DigiNut It depends a bit on what you mean by "sound quality". The 1820M is really in a different class of products altogether (the "semi-professional"). It definitely has better recording quality and as for playback, all good boards are about the same, although you'll probably be able to pull off lower latency with the 1820 and the DSP features might help - it's not powerful but you can get maybe one or two reverbs or a bunch of EQs. If you're not seriously anal-retentive then you probably won't even notice a difference in noise or THD or other distortion - most people don't. If you're upgrading from a cheesy old SoundBlaster or building something from scratch then I don't suggest splurging on an E-mu product at this point. FYI, I use the same Emu card with Emulator X and I think it's great, but if you're deciding between that and an Audiophile then I suspect the 1820 is overkill for you.

ok, thanks.
i was just wondering if it was at the same level and pay only more for the extra inputs and dsp.
i`ll think about it
(the extra inputs from the 1820m come in handy for my synth that has four outputs)
so in the audiophile case i can`t even use them all.
or can i ?
i even don`t know what s/pdif is. and where to use it for.
i only know the s stands for sony and the p for philips, that`s all

quote:

Originally posted by Chronosis You should be comparing 1212M and audiophile 192. Still the winner would be E-mu.

you`re wright i gues.
i always saw that emu card as inferior to the audiophile.
are the ad/da convertors the same as in the 1820m ?
ok, just checked, the answer is yes.
so the difference between the 1212m and the 1820m is only in the amount of ins,outs and dsp ?

Well.
I don't know how deep you are into production and how experienced you are.
However you cannot compare these soundcards. The Emu 1820M is a ProTools-Converter-Based (thats what the M stands for.."Mastering") with multiple I/Os whereas the audiophile is a single I/O card (well, probably comes with a few more like Mic In or whatever).

If you dont use external hardware or dont plan to record bands or something like that in the future, dont go for the Emu 1820m.
If you dont have any decent monitor speakers, DONT buy it. It'd be way above your needs.

The Audiophile card is by far the best in its price-range. So you deffo wont do a mistake by buying it.


for myself, i got the 1820m. The DSP FX are nice but I hardly ever use em in the production enviroment.

quote:

Originally posted by dEEkAy Well. I don't know how deep you are into production and how experienced you are. However you cannot compare these soundcards. The Emu 1820M is a ProTools-Converter-Based (thats what the M stands for.."Mastering") with multiple I/Os whereas the audiophile is a single I/O card (well, probably comes with a few more like Mic In or whatever). If you dont use external hardware or dont plan to record bands or something like that in the future, dont go for the Emu 1820m. If you dont have any decent monitor speakers, DONT buy it. It'd be way above your needs. The Audiophile card is by far the best in its price-range. So you deffo wont do a mistake by buying it. for myself, i got the 1820m. The DSP FX are nice but I hardly ever use em in the production enviroment.

i`m not so good in production, neither experienced.
i mainly blame it to the lack of hardware, making the wright sound with almost nothing is hard to do and takes a lot of time, i rather
use that time to become more experienced in making the music itself.
spending months to search the wright kick and still don`t find it isn`t that constructive, while the real thing, the 909, could do it in a instant and better.
the same for the synth sounds.

in my case it results in unfinished tracks, and i only call my songs tests, because they just are.
it`s nothing compared to other amateur songs.
i almost can`t get out of the fantasy that it isn`t true


[[ LINK REMOVED ]]


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you tell me

i`m losing my song virginity over here on tranceaddict now.
way before i planned



i don`t have monitors, only those oversized visaton speakers (1,5m high) with pretty good sound quality.
they were homemade by someone i don`t know, i got those for free from an uncle.
but i know they`re not cheap standard speakers.
and i use a pretty good amplifier wih Mosfet.

it`s not exactly nearfield LOL, so i sit on the couch :-D

i sure want to have some nearfields. so i could sit on a more professional place then the couch.
(the +, it is kind of soft)

or restyle my livingroom (and lay a pillow on the chair )

quote:

Originally posted by DigiNut It depends a bit on what you mean by "sound quality".

i asked it because i don`t want to lose quality from my nordlead 3.
as in overall sound.
i now have this onboard sound, it sounds ok for out, but the nordlead loses so much when played through the in.
i understand it`ll be better with higher ratings then 24/192.
but also that it`s not the only thing that does make it sound good.
i just don`t want to lose to much from the original nordlead sound,
that`s all.

i just read the emu 1820m is about to end his days in the stores, because of the not so good preamps (and some other reason(s) ) and they (emu) want people to go on with the 1616m pci with less inputs.


http://www.productionforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=6732

The 1820 is a better product (also higher-priced, obviously) than the 1616, which was originally just for laptops. I'm a little confused as to why they've made this odd decision to "switch", the Emu guy mentions something about Euro regulations which I don't understand because I'm not in Europe.

In any event, don't take the decision as a sign that the 1820M is actually being superceded by a superior product; it's actually an inferior one that they're substituting, and hopefully they're working on something better.

quote:

Originally posted by -_1_--Ben--_1_- i`m not so good in production, neither experienced. i mainly blame it to the lack of hardware, making the wright sound with almost nothing is hard to do and takes a lot of time, i rather use that time to become more experienced in making the music itself. spending months to search the wright kick and still don`t find it isn`t that constructive, while the real thing, the 909, could do it in a instant and better. the same for the synth sounds. in my case it results in unfinished tracks, and i only call my songs tests, because they just are. it`s nothing compared to other amateur songs.

Well, I'm not using a lot of hardware either (except for my computer, my soundcard, a motorized mixing desk, a controller keyboard, and a second computer for visualisation of the output signal..and evne half of this isnt really neccesarry for producing).

I think everyone agrees if I say that we all kinda started like you (quality wise).
The 909 ? Hardly anyone is using that nowadays to make his/her own kicks. A lot of producers actually use pre-made kicks from sample CDs and alter them for their needs (by EQing, brickwall-compression, limiting and whatever). If you're just looking for 909 kicks, its no wonder u dont find anything good.

Sure there's good synth hardware out there (just looking at the new Virus Ti..damn..gimme the mo! ), but then again software aint bad either or is almost equal (Please, for those who got goosebumps on their fingertips now, dont start another software vs. hardware discussion in this topic!)

Anyway, I'd go with the Audiophile card, if you wanna get a new one at all (dont know about your current one). I see your issues coming from a lack of experience rather than from a lack of decent hardware.

Oh..one last word to your monitors:
1,5m tall speakers arent really the thing for production. They need to be more compact as your ear isnt 1,5m tall either
And although they might have a good sound quality in first instance, you never know about their frequency-linearity as they're selfmade.
I dont know about your Amp either, it may have MosFet or whatsoever, okay, but are you sure the signal doesnt run through an integrated DSP and thus changes the sound signal?
Luckily I had an amp with a "source direct"-feature which disabled the DSP...but that stuff changed ever since i bought some active monitors.

I didn't notice the comment about 909 kicks earlier. Ben, you should know that there are virtually no tracks anymore which use raw 909 kicks, unless they're layered with something else.

There's a 909 sample pack that's been floating around for a long time that you can get for free if you hunt around (I don't mean warez, I mean public domain). It's an almost perfect replica of the 909 drum set. I used it in my first few tracks but haven't touched it since; unless you're producing electro which is retro by definition, any track made with raw 909 drums is going to have a thin, old-school sound.

The only reason you'd really want an 808 or 909 is if you're doing live PAs.

hi, i was reading this when i was at my parents place, eating my tummy full, so i can go on for a while.
it was funny about the 1,5 m ears :-)
they`re big, but not that big :-)
i couldn`t immediately check if i had source direct on it, but i thought it was on it, so i just turned up the lights and noticed there`s a direct source button, never knew what it was for, i still don`t exactly, but it`s better ?
it doesn`t color the sound or something when it`s on ?

(i notice while playing a synth it gives a more natural (les distorted) sound)
really like it.


i have some sample cd`s (from vengeance and others) even stylus rmx.
maybe experiment making my own kick, i almost never tried.
listening to a sample cd, harstyle tools (vol. 1) right now (with source direct on hahaha, and i hear a lot of usefull kicks.

i`m still a kind of wanting an emu 1820m, also because of the inputs.
and ok if the preamps are not as good as those in the 1616m, those preamps aren`t in the line inputs wright ? (i don`t know)
i think it will be good to have a card with at least six line inputs, because i want to use the nordlead 3 at the max(with sometimes 4 outs).
and have two spare inputs on the card for maybe further equipment.
i also want an access virus ti, but that`s for later.

my current is just onboard sound.

the weird part of the emu 1820m 1616m story is that they are being sold at this moment for the same price at a store (400 euro), on another the 1820m is 100 euro more.
and i even heard about the 1820m was being sold for 300 euro at thomann (it`s a german site)
but they are sold out now over there.

those eu standards has to do with some material used within the cards i read. (not official, i don`t know how trustworthy that is.)
led (how do you spell it, that heavy material)

quote:

Originally posted by -_1_--Ben--_1_- and i even heard about the 1820m was being sold for 300 euro at thomann

Yeah, it was 311e at cheapest. Bought mine for 255e.

well, i think i`m going to buy an emu 1616m pci, in case i feel like singing some day.
only four ins, but that`s all i need now, can i expand inputs by adding another soundcard ?

The two preamp inputs accept also 1/4" plugs, so actually you have 6 analog inputs.

with the same quality as the other inputs ?

Of course it's not exactly same. But can you hear a difference? Nope.

men o men, focusrite saffire got some good reverbs in it too.
i don`t like the ones on the emu site samples , but on the focusrite page they`re really something. (in the demo video)

if it had only two more inputs i would have chosen that one



maybe it`s because of the better singer

how are the specs of the saffire ad/da convertors ?
and mic, are they really as great as they say.
(i don`t know much about the technical detailes on the sites)

(i`m in love with that reverb)
maybe i`ll take saffires big sister (26) with enough inputs
to cover for a while.
she doesn`t look as pretty as her little sister and certainly don`t match with the red color of the nordlead, but i think i`ll be happy with her.

but she has to do it with a 1.9 pentium, while a 2.0 or higher is recommed for her.
would she mind ? lol

(maybe i`ll give that a little upgrade over a few months)

she almost cheated on me, with seducing me with her "many" inputs.
she only got 2 line ins more then the emu 1820m, so i ordered that one.

dont know specswise but i would prefer emu since it has some nice onboard fx...

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