USB or Firewire audio thingie for listening and recording

It's not called an audio card because it is external, right? But I don't know what to call it, so I will just say thingie.

I use my computer for work and making music.

During work I listen to music (on headphones) for hours and hours each day. This is my main music listening time, so I want it to be as pleasurable as possible. For headphones I have Sennheiser HD590s. Not top of the line, but pretty darned good. My sound card is a Xonar DX (a PCI card). It is okay. No complaints really, except it has lousy ASIO drivers and relatively high latency, which makes it bad for recording.

Recording. I make music, mostly with soft synths. Although I am not often actually recording audio, I am playing virtual instruments, and the latency of the sound card determines how much lag there is between when I hit a key and when I hear the note. The Xonar's latency sucks, so I use an older, but more musiciany sound card for making music: an M-Audio Delta-44 (another PCI card). The Delta is attached to another M-Audio device, an OMNI I/O, which is a breakout box with multiple inputs, outputs, and 2 headphone jacks, each with its own volume control.

Lost ya yet? Zzzzz... I know. Nothing more boring than listening to someone else's gear list.

Anyway, the Delta is great, except it picks up the coil whine eminating from my power supply. Yeah, I could replace the power supply, but that is not very fun. Lots of money just to get rid of a little noise.

Much more fun would be to get a different sound "thingie" which would replace both the Delta and the Xonar, while at the same time ensuring that the power supply's coil whine and other computer noises are not picked up by the audio stream.

I have done quite a few hours' research and the general consensus is that the way to go is external (USB or firewire) rather than internal (PCI).

So... what would be a good USB or Firewire "thingie" for recording and listening? It would need at least 2 mono inputs, 2 mono outputs (one to each of my powered speakers), and 1 headphone jack. I would love to have 2 headphone jacks, each with its own volume knob, but that is not a show stopper.

Any suggestions???

 

I'd look into the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2. I'd get the new revision (I have no experience with it but on paper it seems like it would be an improvement) but I'd also try to demo it, or at least try to get it someplace with a pretty lax return policy. I say this because I had some driver issues with the original version of the 2i2 after upgrading to windows 10, which I never got completely solved but working satisfactorily. And now I have similar issues again after the recent windows 10 anniversary update. So, I'd just make sure it's working for you with your system. Maybe the newer drivers they have for the new model are better, or so I would hope.

 

They are called external sound cards or Audio/Midi interfaces.
M-Audio offers a wide selection - take a look.

For music making I still use my M-Audio Transit, a compact size external sound card I bought more than 10 years ago. It is connected to a 2007 Mac Mini via USB. I have had no prolems with it. Of course there are much better ones.

 

I am using Windows 7 (64 bit). Are Focusrite drivers well supported on that OS?

How do recording-oriented interfaces (like a multi-in, multi-out card from Focusrite, RME, MOTU, etc.) compare with the more listening-oriented cards (like the output-only DACs from Schiit, etc.) in terms of listening quality?

 

I ordered a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 (2nd gen). Hopefully it will work well with my PC.

 

Windows 7 drivers work really well.

I've only had budget "listening" interfaces, so I can't speak to that. I can say the scarlett 8i6 sounds very good. I think the guts are the same as yours, just a few more inputs and outputs.

 

It should, I've had the 2i2 second gen for about 2 months now, no issues
Works great for those .25 cent cassette finds

 

Have you tried the windows 10 anniversary update? Is the WASAPI behavior any different? Things got pretty screwy with my first gen 2i2 when I moved from windows 8 to 10, but I managed to get things working-ish by rolling back to an earlier beta firmware. Happened again after the W10 anniversary update, everything went screwy again. Had to test individual firmwares one by one till I found one that worked!

Supposedly they're pushing out a new one for the first gen soon, which might be good considering the last beta is more than a year old. Curious if the new gen has been having similar issues though.

 

Rom, I'm using the FR firmware 1051 on Win 10, was the anni an automatic update? Not sure if I have it
With my old 2i2 on Win10 I had to use the old beta drivers as well
The only issue i've had/have is if I unplug the USB cable, the PC will crash and re-boot
As long as I leave it in I have had no issues with drop-outs etc... been smooth, I however have not tried anything over 96
Cassettes-48, lp's-96