ESI Juli@ or M-Audio Audiophile 192 ?

GOOD point, sfinx! I didn’t even think about that.

If you buy two ESI Juli@ cards, I believe their ASIO driver will let you use both cards in synchronous mode. So, €260 and you get 4 analog inputs and outputs, and 2 digital inputs and outputs.

Although, €260 is almost €360 already, and you only have 4 analog inputs and outputs, not 8.

To be honest, I don’t think it can get much cheaper. I would be surprised if you can find an A/D for €130!

I’ll look at a couple of american retail sites and see what I can find.

///Leif

[quote author=”Cixel”]
What about something cheap like this[/quote]

It’s a USB dac.. essentially a sound card. It has a spdif output, not a spdif input, and in fact doesn’t even support 192k — says 24/96 right on the box. Using it as a USB dac will be too slow (latency).

DJ Buik, I don’t think there’s a chance in hell you will find a 192k capable card cheaper than a sound card! Look at this webshop. I checked another shop too, same prices. The only inexpensive one is the $199 behringer, and it’s 48k only. Jesse G raves about his Apogee dac — it’s over $800, it had better make breakfast every morning at that price!

So, if you really must have stereo monitoring, I think the best recommendation is two Juli@’s.

You might want to see if the low latency mode is OK for off air monitoring for you, though. 17ms latency is no slouch — this is equal to the latency you get from an 8500. I can headphone monitor at 17ms latency with no problems. If this works for you, then you don’t need the second card at all, you can just monitor off air.

If you have a snobby guest DJ who complains, they can have the 8ms mono studio feed. You can also buy the second Juli@ later, of course!

WARNING

BBP+Live as a pair, and BBP ASIO, have different and opposite sound card requirements.

If you have two of the same card, for example 2xESI Juli@, you CAN NOT use one card with Live (asio) and the other card with BBP! The asio driver will lock BOTH cards, and there is nothing to do about it.

If you have two different cards (for example 1xESI Juli@, 1xM-Audio Delta AP192), you can use Live (asio) on one card, and BBP an the other card. I know several who use this configuration.

However…
You can NOT use two different cards together with BBP ASIO! When you use ASIO, you only open ONE driver. If the driver uses two cards, then you get two cards. So, to use two separate cards with BBP ASIO, the cards must be of the same type!

So, before you buy the hardware, you need to decide which software you will run.

BBP + Live is $299. BBP ASIO is $299. Same price.

* BBP ASIO can give you low latency on-air. BBP cannot.
* Live has the built in speaker controller. BBP ASIO does not. This is important, because unless you have extremely expensive monitoring speakers and a padded room, you will need parametric eq to get the best audio quality.
* BBP + Live allows you to use different presets for air and dj headphones. BBP ASIO does not. This is important, because if you have ADHD DJs who cannot for the life of them leave the fader alone, you could choose a much lighter preset for the cans/monitors than for on-air, to break the habit.

Like everything in life, there’s pro’s and con’s. Which ones are most important to you?

If anyone’s interested, I’ll make a BBP ASIO + Live for $399 package deal. That way you could have all of the above, at the same time, and you’d have the freedom to split it up and run on two machines if you wanted to.

Best,
///Leif