New Turtle Beach Catalina soundcard

Does anyone have the technical specs of the new TB Catalina card? The website does not have it and neither does the .pdf manual. Strange! It apparantly records true 24-bit/96k and has SPDIF in/outs.

 

Wow. Thanks for the heads-up, Grant. I own the Santa Cruz and was thinking whether to replace it if / when I buy the DVD-A authoring software.

 

Yeah, I have the Santa Cruz card too, and I like it, but it doesn't record at 24-bit.

 

Hey Grant--

I've given the materials a good look-see, and I think the 96/24 capability is limited to the SPDIF ins/outs. The card literature never mentions 96/24 in relation to the analog line in.

I'm also skeptical of the card in general, since TB usually gives unusually complete audio specs with their cards. Looks to me the emphasis in this card is on multichannel playback--the owner's guide is all about playback configuration and says next to nothing about recording.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, and I hope I'm wrong, but that's how it looks to me.

 

I've been using the new E-MU 1820 and have done some 96/24 transfers (it also does 192/24). No problems once I sorted some inital issues out. Quality seems to be fine!

 

The big initial attraction about the Catalina, to me anyway, is that it retails for 79.99. TB has a history of being a poor-man's look at a high-end audio solution--certainly true with the Santa Cruz, but apparently not true of the Catalina.

 

See, that's what i'm thinking too.

I don't need the multichannel playback at this time, and my DAT converter quit working, so the digital I/O is of no use to me now.

 

I've heard some bad things about that E-MU card and Windows XP. I'll once again turn my attention to the M-Audio audiophile internal card.

 

I'm using it with XP and Wavelab 4.0 with no issue. The early issues were my own stupidity.

 

Hijack Alert!

I remember back in the Windows 3.1 days, I had a Turtle Beach Multisound card. It cost $800 at the time (which was BIG BUCKS back then - SB16 was king), and it sounded sweet. A very proffessional card based on the Proteus Synth. I used it for MIDI and nothing could touch it.

End of Hijack!

 

The Audiophile 2496 is a good choice. You can sometimes find good deals (around $130-140) if you shop for one on eBay. I'm using the USB version....sweeeeeeet. Think I paid $169 for it. Worth every penny.

Wish I could say the same for the Sound Blaster Audigy. Looked good on paper, but...

 

What turned out to be the problem?

 

On the Turtle Beach site's Sound Card Comparison Chart, the third section on "Hardware Specifications" indicate "Bit Resolution (Codecs) as 16 for the Riviera, 20 for the Santa Cruz and 18 for the Catalina. I assume that's the analog in. The "Bit Resolution (SPDIF Digital)" is 24, 16, 24 respectively.

So I guess that's the answer.

I thought the Santa Cruz only did 18bit recording?

 

I was getting hung up on monitoring in real time. The transfer in was fine. So far so good. (knock on keyboard).

Now I just need DVD-A software

 

Me too. Eitther they made a mistake, or they silently updated it.