High End AD/DA

:sup:

No mention of required interface so far..

If you want the very best possible latency (<1ms) and system load performance, you'd be best getting PCIe (desktop) or expresscard (laptop).

DAWBench.com use RME cards for their ultra-low latency benchmarks (down to 32 samples = 0.33ms @ 96Khz)

I'm looking at buying an RME HDSPe Expresscard with a Multiface II. 8 X Analog IO, 1 X Adat IO, spdif and headphone amp. That costs about £860. You could look at the higher-end RME MADI range but I don't think you'll be able to fit that into $2K.

  On 2/14/2011 at 12:57 PM, xy_politics said:

No mention of required interface so far..

 

If you want the very best possible latency (<1ms) and system load performance, you'd be best getting PCIe (desktop) or expresscard (laptop).

 

DAWBench.com use RME cards for their ultra-low latency benchmarks (down to 32 samples = 0.33ms @ 96Khz)

 

I'm looking at buying an RME HDSPe Expresscard with a Multiface II. 8 X Analog IO, 1 X Adat IO, spdif and headphone amp. That costs about £860. You could look at the higher-end RME MADI range but I don't think you'll be able to fit that into $2K.

Thank you for an informative response. It looks like rme is the way ahead for me.

Check out the Lynx Aurora 8, you'll need to get the FW card for it also.

  On 2/14/2011 at 12:14 PM, khrimson said:

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Delta1010LT.html

i had the delta 1010 (not LT) for many years. it was a tad noisy, but it got the job done. a capacitor exploded and i fixed it, then a bit later it died for good.

not exactly top shelf, but if that's your budget range it gets my vote. also, i would go with the version with the rack widget to avoid that horrid cable snake !