E-MU Abilities

[stelleg151]

So reading over at DIYAudio as well as some other very respected audio sites, the consensus seems to be that the E-Mu is the best bang for the buck if you are looking for really good quality sound from the PC with onboard DACs.

Now the question is: can it play games with surround sound and movies with DD and DTS?

Havent been able to find definitive answers online, hoping someone might know here.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Is this for just a standard computer application or are you looking for more of a "professional" card with inputs and such?

Which card are you looking at?

What kind of speakers/headphones are you using?

Sorry if you've been over all this stuff already, but maybe this wouldn't be the best option for you. I think the EMU cards are more geared towards professional applications than gaming and DD/DTS playback.

 

[stelleg151]

Im using a soon to be modded T-Amp (Sonic Impact 5066), and plan to eventually get another 2 and put them in all in a 5.25" drive bay to have a sort of cool integrated amp. My speakers are homemade fullrange folded monopole speakers with Fostex FE127E drivers. Its a great and very revealing setup; so revealing that it shows the weakness of my SB Live! I will be eventually upgrading by adding 3 more speakers based on the same driver and integrating a sub, so was hoping to buy a nice card to supplement the "high fidelity" speakers and amp, and give me the option of surround sound movies and games later on. The reason I have been avoiding the X-Fi is because the whole SB series isnt taken too seriously by most of the audiofiles out there.

Also take note that I mostly listen to music, it would just be nice to have these options as well.

I realize its not geared towards home entertainment, but I thought perhaps theres a way to make the E-MU 1212 work as a great deal for an all around hi-fi solution.

EDIT: Im not too optimistic as the site says 'ASIO 2.0 and Stereo WDM drivers'

 

[xenolith]

I've pretty much given up on searching for native ASIO driver support. I just plan on using the ASIO wrapper for kernal API; ASIO4all.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

I know some people have given up on trying to find a jack of all trades cards and have moved to dual soundcard setups. You could get uncompromised music playback from one card and than get another card for better gaming support. Probably wouldn't be the best option for you though considering you're running straight to t-amps and would have to buy some sort of input switch (if not something more elaborate) to get that to work without physically having to change wires.

 

[CSMR]

Originally posted by: stelleg151
So reading over at DIYAudio as well as some other very respected audio sites, the consensus seems to be that the E-Mu is the best bang for the buck if you are looking for really good quality sound from the PC with onboard DACs.

Now the question is: can it play games with surround sound and movies with DD and DTS?

Havent been able to find definitive answers online, hoping someone might know here.

You would need an E-MU 1820, 1820m, 1616, or 1616m to do this as the other cards only have stereo analogue output. With these cards since there are many analogue outputs it must be possible to route multichannel sound to these outputs. You would need software to do the decoding. I can't confirm this for sure as haven't any experience with multichannel sound.

 

[stelleg151]

Originally posted by: CSMR

Originally posted by: stelleg151
So reading over at DIYAudio as well as some other very respected audio sites, the consensus seems to be that the E-Mu is the best bang for the buck if you are looking for really good quality sound from the PC with onboard DACs.

Now the question is: can it play games with surround sound and movies with DD and DTS?

Havent been able to find definitive answers online, hoping someone might know here.

You would need an E-MU 1820, 1820m, 1616, or 1616m to do this as the other cards only have stereo analogue output. With these cards since there are many analogue outputs it must be possible to route multichannel sound to these outputs. You would need software to do the decoding. I can't confirm this for sure as haven't any experience with multichannel sound.

Actually the 1212 has 4 1/4" outputs, which would translate into 7.1 if got w*orking correctly. From what Ive heard finding software decoders of DD and DTS is really difficult because they tend to sell their decoders to make money, thus a publicly available one might not exist.

I know some people have given up on trying to find a jack of all trades cards and have moved to dual soundcard setups. You could get uncompromised music playback from one card and than get another card for better gaming support. Probably wouldn't be the best option for you though considering you're running straight to t-amps and would have to buy some sort of input switch (if not something more elaborate) to get that to work without physically having to change wires.

you hit it on the head. Ive been thinking of using onboard for games if I cant get them to work on my emu, but along with some sort of switch I would also need to go through every program and tell it which sound device to use, which would be extremely lame, if possible at all.

I think Ill try for a while longer and then start looking elsewhere.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: stelleg151

Originally posted by: CSMR

Originally posted by: stelleg151
So reading over at DIYAudio as well as some other very respected audio sites, the consensus seems to be that the E-Mu is the best bang for the buck if you are looking for really good quality sound from the PC with onboard DACs.

Now the question is: can it play games with surround sound and movies with DD and DTS?

Havent been able to find definitive answers online, hoping someone might know here.

You would need an E-MU 1820, 1820m, 1616, or 1616m to do this as the other cards only have stereo analogue output. With these cards since there are many analogue outputs it must be possible to route multichannel sound to these outputs. You would need software to do the decoding. I can't confirm this for sure as haven't any experience with multichannel sound.

Actually the 1212 has 4 1/4" outputs, which would translate into 7.1 if got w*orking correctly. From what Ive heard finding software decoders of DD and DTS is really difficult because they tend to sell their decoders to make money, thus a publicly available one might not exist.

I know some people have given up on trying to find a jack of all trades cards and have moved to dual soundcard setups. You could get uncompromised music playback from one card and than get another card for better gaming support. Probably wouldn't be the best option for you though considering you're running straight to t-amps and would have to buy some sort of input switch (if not something more elaborate) to get that to work without physically having to change wires.

you hit it on the head. Ive been thinking of using onboard for games if I cant get them to work on my emu, but along with some sort of switch I would also need to go through every program and tell it which sound device to use, which would be extremely lame, if possible at all.

I think Ill try for a while longer and then start looking elsewhere.

I've read that it's pretty easy to do dual soundcards in XP but haven't tried it myself. I'm sure these same forums that you've been looking at would be a better resource to find out the pros / cons of setting up something like this.

I guess a lot of this really depends on your budget for this project and the effort you want to put into it heh.

 

[CSMR]

Originally posted by: stelleg151
Actually the 1212 has 4 1/4" outputs, which would translate into 7.1 if got w*orking correctly. From what Ive heard finding software decoders of DD and DTS is really difficult because they tend to sell their decoders to make money, thus a publicly available one might not exist.

That is not correct. There are 4 1/4" jacks, of which two are inputs. Each jack is (balanced) mono. I own this card and the 1820m so I know what I am saying.

you hit it on the head. Ive been thinking of using onboard for games if I cant get them to work on my emu, but along with some sort of switch I would also need to go through every program and tell it which sound device to use, which would be extremely lame, if possible at all.

If you are using the E-MU just for music you could just use windows audio with the gaming card and use ASIO with the E-MU for music.

NB there is a JVC receiver which uses similar technology to the sonic impact but with more channels and more power. It is supposed to be very good. I could find out the model number if you are interested. If you could get multichannel encoded digital audio out of a professional card with stereo output it might solve your problems.

 

[stelleg151]

Thanks for the help guys.

Im actually leaning towards my own custom setup than a seperate reciever, mostly for economic reasons.

Im actually considering just trying out an x-fi, as I think a lot of the bad rep it has comes from its predecessors and enthusiasts who dont want to be mainstream.

Anyways I appriciate the help guys, Im thinking Ill go for an x-fi, and then eventually try out an E-MU when I have a bit of disposable cash.

 

[smthmlk]

There's millions to be made if a company could put together a soundcard with top-shelf DAC's _AND_ a hardware mixer and other basic features (some sort of basic EAX support, OpenAL acceleration [if such a thing exists], etc etc etc). M-Audio has the DACs, but absolutely nothing else to go with them (and I mean NOTHIONG else, not even a cd-in header on the card for analog!) So close, yet so fvcking far. There's millions to be made, I tell you!

 

[Markbnj]

There's millions to be made, I tell you!

I'd like to see that setup too, but I kind of doubt there is millions to be made. Nobody is making money on PC audio these days, which is why the field is stalled. The general market is happy with whatever onboard crap they get from the VAR, the enthusiast market is small, the mid- to -low-end audio market is smaller, and the high-end audio market already has good, and expensive, solutions.

 

[stelleg151]

Yeah all I want is E-MU quality DACs and SQ with really stripped down drivers that allow for basic EAX and DD/DTS.

 

[kitu65]

Hi!

As checking via google, and not so many places to found info about high quality DAC's for laptop and multichannel playback, I finally happend to get into this site..

FYI: E-MU 1616 supports 5.1 (and 7.1 via spdif for two more channels) output via it's analog outputs. More info in 1616's manual page 30. at least one link to that manual media.zzounds.com/media/1616_1.81_EN-78a3a806b4ce0445a54cb5e4e3df837e.pdf

Hope this helps you in a way to good quality playback.