M-Audio delta 44 vs the M-audio Audiophile 192

Gtrance · Post by **Gtrance** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 6:44 pm

Hello.

Can anyone tell me which of these two sound cards would be the best one to buy for ableton. the delta 44 is £92. the audiophile is £99 so not much in the price. They both appear to have the multiple outputs i need for ableton but I have not got a clue what the differences are between them. Features mentioned in their description might aswell be in chinese.

Any information on either or both of these would be great cause i would hate to buy one of them then find out that the other one would have been much better.

Thanx

Greg

darren · Post by **darren** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 11:41 pm

As far as i know the delta and audiophile are the principally the (as are all of the delta pci cards).
The differences in the different models include:
number of in/outs
balanced or not i/o
midi i/o
word clock i/o
breakout box / cables

I know this sounds like a lot of differences but there are many variations on a theme with all the differnt cards.
hope this helps

Darren

suburbanbather · Post by **suburbanbather** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 11:43 pm

Are you a newb. to desktop recording? The M-Audio website will tell you everything you need to know about the two soundcards. Either one will is good. I have the Delta 44 and it works great. I have not heard anything bad about the audiophile.

Anyways, tell us about your set-up or atleast what you plan on using.

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 12:55 am

I have the delta 66 with the Omni IO , that combo is useless for DJ type stuff.
Mainly because the headphones socket on the omni IO is hardwired across ALL outputs. you would need to use an external headphones amp or DJ mixer to access channels 3&4 for cue-ing.

other than that the delta range is Ok-ish, if a little old now.

I'm not sure whether the audiophile is the same on the headphone routing front.

Gtrance · Post by **Gtrance** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 1:18 pm

My setup is athlon 1600, 256mb ram. I have an edirol PCR30m controller keyboard. I am using ableton and want to get into the Djing side of things. I also use Reason for production. My knowledge of these things is minimal. I went on the m-audio website which describes all the features of the two soundcards but it doesnt really mean anything to me. Obviously its important i can have both speakers and headphones connected for Djing in ableton. apart from that i have no idea which is more suitable for me.

Any more help will be much appreciated

thanks

louZ · Post by **louZ** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 1:39 pm

Angstrom wrote:I have the delta 66 with the Omni IO , that combo is useless for DJ type stuff.
Mainly because the headphones socket on the omni IO is hardwired across ALL outputs. you would need to use an external headphones amp or DJ mixer to access channels 3&4 for cue-ing.

other than that the delta range is Ok-ish, if a little old now.

I'm not sure whether the audiophile is the same on the headphone routing front.

I have the same combo and I'm pretty annoyed by the headphone/monitor routing as well. Every time I wanna do DJ stuff, I have to switch my monitor and headphone cables to the direct outs on the Omni i/o.

It's not the soundcards routing that's the problem however, it's the Omni i/o's routing. If you get the standard Delta 44 without Omni i/o, all you get is a breakout box with the 4 direct outs. So it is usable for DJ'ing, however you will only be able to control volume from within the software. You could buy a cheap volume box for that, but make sure it does have seperate routing for headphone and monitors.

suburbanbather · Post by **suburbanbather** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 2:04 pm

Gtrance wrote:My setup is athlon 1600, 256mb ram. I have an edirol PCR30m controller keyboard. I am using ableton and want to get into the Djing side of things. I also use Reason for production. My knowledge of these things is minimal. I went on the m-audio website which describes all the features of the two soundcards but it doesnt really mean anything to me. Obviously its important i can have both speakers and headphones connected for Djing in ableton. apart from that i have no idea which is more suitable for me.

Any more help will be much appreciated

thanks

256mb of ram! If I were you I would upgrade my ram to 512mb, but it would very wise to just go directly to a gig of ram.

Anyways, based on what the two offer you can't go wrong. Its just going to come down to wether your going to want a break out box(delta44) or some wires hanging off the back of your computer. Its more conveniant to have a breakout box because you will not have to get behind you computer whenever you need connect or disconect wires. The delta 44 does not have the midi interface but thats not a big deal at all, since a USB or Firewire port can take care of that. I know your going to want a controller. Practically all of them use USB or Firewire connections and have midi jacks on them for linking them to other devices. Like Louz said, a headphone amp will take care of your headphone monitoring. However, I would recommend this over a headphone amp http://www.zzounds.com/item--BEHUB502

Gtrance · Post by **Gtrance** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 3:12 pm

thanks for all the advice. think i will go for the delta 44 then as would prefer to have a breakout box.
Sorry to be a pain but just one more question. do i need a headphone amp or if i dont does it just mean i control volmue in ableton. Suburbanbather recommended i get the Behringer UB502 Eurorack 5 Input Mixer. if i am serious about Djing in Ableton and getting into music production in general is something like this an essential purchase?

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 3:47 pm

Gtrance wrote:thanks for all the advice. think i will go for the delta 44 then as would prefer to have a breakout box.
Sorry to be a pain but just one more question. do i need a headphone amp or if i dont does it just mean i control volmue in ableton. Suburbanbather recommended i get the Behringer UB502 Eurorack 5 Input Mixer. if i am serious about Djing in Ableton and getting into music production in general is something like this an essential purchase?

as long as the behringer has a 'cue' type of button to route 3&4 to your phones it will work.

if not, I'm sure a simple headphone amp would do the job.

louZ · Post by **louZ** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 4:23 pm

Gtrance wrote:thanks for all the advice. think i will go for the delta 44 then as would prefer to have a breakout box.
Sorry to be a pain but just one more question. do i need a headphone amp or if i dont does it just mean i control volmue in ableton. Suburbanbather recommended i get the Behringer UB502 Eurorack 5 Input Mixer. if i am serious about Djing in Ableton and getting into music production in general is something like this an essential purchase?

it's not essential, you can start with the Ableton volume controls. when you want some hands on control later you can get a mixer or headphone amp then.

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 4:35 pm

if he gets a delta he will need something to handle the phones, as stated before. these things break out to 4 rca plugs. Or with a delta & omni breakout box 1/4 inch jacks - and the crappy the headphone outs play all 4 channels at once, which is useless.

a standard DJ mixer would do the job.

but you cant get by with just ableton volume controls and a delta

louZ · Post by **louZ** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 4:42 pm

Angstrom wrote:if he gets a delta he will need something to handle the phones, as stated before. these things break out to 4 rca plugs. Or with a delta & omni breakout box 1/4 inch jacks - and the crappy the headphone outs play all 4 channels at once, which is useless.

a standard DJ mixer would do the job.

but you cant get by with just ableton volume controls and a delta

what are you talking about? the breakout box is just 4 direct outs right?
if you just connect your monitors to direct out 1 & 2 en the headphones to direct out 3 they will be seperate. this is how i do it on the Omni i/o.

however, if you connect the headphone to the headphone out on the Omni i/o and the monitors to the monitor outs the signals will always be mixed. it's the Omni i/o that routes the signals together, not the Delta 44.