Best Sound Card

[zap]

Can any body out there tell me what is the best PCI sound card to use with HomeSeer 2.0
What Sound card do you use?

[JeffCharger]

I just put in a Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2. It was on the advice of Skibum. I haven't done anything exciting with it yet, but I'm hoping that it's more controllable thru external controls.

[pkoslow]

I'm using an M-Audio Delta 410 with good results.

I've used Sound Blaster Live cards in the past which worked well, but the Delta 410 gives additional inputs and outputs.

In my HS2 test server I'm using the Delta 410 and have the output from my VR mic mixer into one of the inputs, the output for TTS on a output, Media player on anouther output, and this still leaves 2 stereo outs for the future.

If you plan to use multiple audio streams now or in the future for distributed audio, this card may be worth looking into because it will give you the capacity you need without adding several PCI sound cards or external USB devices to your PC.

The Delta 410 is really designed for home studio recording so the specs are very good. I've noticed that the quality of TTS is a notch above what I was getting with the SB cards.

Cheers,
PC

[htsource]

Paul,

A question for you about the M-Audio sound card, I have the DiO 24/96 for HS and I have the coax digital out for music playback and analog out for TTS. I get lots of clicks if the hard drive is busy working. I'm running the latest released driver for the DiO and I've set the DMA buffer size to 2048. Not sure if there's any other settings I should look at?

It doesn't seem to happen when I was using the onboard audio. I do agree the M-Audio cards are very nice and even this DiO, it treated as 2 zones - digital and analog are considered separate zones.

Thanks for your help,

Simon

[pkoslow]

Simon,

It wasn't clear to me from your post... are you getting the clicks of the digital output (music), or the analog output (TTS)? I'm expecting the digital???

I'm only using the anaolog outputs connected to my distributed audio for music & TTS, but have in the past had this card connected to some home studio gear using the ditigal I/O without any issues (clicking).

Sorry I can't help. You might search the web for some home studio forums... there are some message boards with good info on the M-Audio products, but i don't have any links for you.

Paul

[zap]

Thanks guys,

I've been looking for a replacment for a very outdated, Diamond monster sound card I've been using for years, But now that Iam starting to get into the whole Home automation thing, I was thinking it is about time to upgrade.

Simon,
I had a problem with some weird faint clicking noise through the whole house audio. I finally figured out what it was, Every time the HS web page refreshed I would hear the clicking noise.

Mike

[htsource]

Paul,

The clicking is happening both to analog (TTS) and digital (coax to prepro) outputs.

Mike,

In my case, it happens when the hard drive has heavy access, or with high CPU usage. When I refresh the HS web pages, it may happen depending on the CPU usage.

I'll Google around to see if I can find a fix for it, thanks anyway.

Simon

[htsource]

It seems like the problem is related to IRQ sharing. I have ACPI enabled with APIC so I have a total of 24 IRQ's. Both onboard Gigabit Ethernet and M-Audio are sharing IRQ 22.

Checked the FAQ from M-Audio site, they recommend the sound card to have its own IRQ. This is going to be tricky! I'll have to disable APIC in the BIOS, try to find a way to let the sound card has its own IRQ. I just don't see it's even possible. And disabling APIC, I'm afraid I need to reinstall the OS

Maybe I'll just disable the onboard Gigabit Ethernet to see if it improves anything first.

Simon

[jwilson56]

Try moving the sound card to a different slot.

John

[htsource]

I'll be getting an Edgeport USB serial box in few days, then I can free up another PCI serial card and swap the slot. Hopefully this will work out!

[htsource]

Okay, I found out the M-Audio is sharing IRQ with 3Com Gigabit onboard LAN. Changed the slot and it's now sharing with onboard IEEE firewire in which I have nothing connected to it. I even disabled it through the BIOS.

But it didn't solve the problem I still get the same problem with stutter audio and popping sound. It's only happening when I'm copying files over the LAN or when the LAN usage is high.

I wonder if a newer M-Audio will help? I'm going to try the onboard audio to see if it's any better. But I much prefer M-Audio for music listening.

[Rupp]

This is the third or fourth report of the M-audio card not working properly with HS and especially with VR. Most have switched to Sound Blaster cards with success.

[Michael McSharry]

In a laptop I went from a -A to -G/108 wireless adapter and now I "hear" the LAN when the laptop is transfering files. The sound is a variant of a modem making a connection or in general a harsh digital data sound. It looks as if the LAN frequency couples with some input sensitivity of the sound circuitry.

[zap]

The M-Audio cards do need there own IRQ to work properly.

As of right now they do not work very well for VR, So if you already own one you can install a second cheaper card (soundBlaster live ) if you are going to use VR. To get the M-Audio card setup with it own IRQ, I had to reformated and reload XP disable ACPI, turned off plug & play in the BIOS than manally setup all devices

Thanks to pkoslow,

This is now mind is set up.

cheap card (SoundBlaster live )for VR and the M-Audio for TTS and playing MP3s

Mike

[htsource]

I'm running ACPI and I guess even though it's not sharing with anything else, but in ACPI mode, Windows is assigning the interrupts.

It means a rebuild I'm not ready yet. Maybe when I'm ready for HS 2.0, I'll do a clean install and start fresh.

But it's strange Michael is having a similar issue and it's also network related.

Simon