One thing: If you're watching out for good sound quality, don't use your internal soundcard. I have an Realtek ALC 850 which only has an fixed output of 48 kHz @ 16 bit, not adjustable. You can check this in Audio-MIDI-configuration. This is problematic because most audio files are sampled at 44.1 kHz. So every sound file has to resampled in realtime, this produces a delay of at least one second if the music starts in VLC, and the sound quality is lower. On videos I even noticed audio dropouts. So it's better to use an external Audio soundcard. But if you're using a 5 Eur USB soundcard with a standard chip you'll get the same problems because the AppleAC97 audio driver seems only to sample in 48 kHz.
I'm not using consumer stuff anymore, using studio quality products only. A good reason for this is the better Mac compatibility, too. So I can recommend the M-Audio Transit USB interface. It's a very small, but powerful interface. It provides audio up to 96 kHz (!) half-duplex, S/PDIF output and input using Mini-Toslink and an additional AC3-Output using a nomal Toslink connector. Input gain allows up to 18 dB amplification, the mic amplifier even up to 26 dB. The USB Transit needs no external power supply and comes with an Mac preferences pane. (screenshot) Some friends of mine have the same interface and are very pleased with it. It replaces the internal device completely, so volume/mute keys on a multimedia keyboard are working. We tested an cheap standard interface, they weren't working with it.
Another thing: Very handy is a little mixer for combining audio outputs. I'm doing some audio editing/processing (the second screenshot shows the audio settings of my M-Audio Firewire soundcard  ) and so I'm using some audio mixers at home. This comes very handy if you have various devices, but only one external input in your Hifi set, or if you're using a 5.1 sourround set only. I'm using a small Behringer Xenyx 1002FX 10+2-channel mixer for my hardware. So I'm combining my Mac, a digital satellite receiver, a laserdisc player and a second computer with this mixer. So I never need to switch and can adjust the devices - which have sometimes a very different audio volume - very easy independendly. A little FX processor for hall, delay, reverb (99 effects total) is inbuilt too, adjustable for every input. Maybe the whole knobs and outputs may frighten some people, but if you're using a mixer for some time you won't miss it anymore.
2 Opteron systems: OSx86 10.5.8, Andy's 9.8.0 kernel, Asus A8N-SLI Premium, Opteron 185 o'clocked @ 2 x 2,95 GHz (2nd system 2.6 GHz), ATI Radeon HD2600XT 256MB Dual-Monitor 2x HP L2035, 4 GB RAM, Griffin FireWave as main audio device, Marvell + nForce LAN, Asus U3S6 USB3/SATA6 card, 5,5 TB harddisk, Firewire 800 card, Apple Remote + eHome IR receiver, 2x Wacom serial graphics tablet, Canon Pixma iP4700, Logitech Internet Navigator wireless keyboard/mouse combination.
My Audio stuff: M-Audio Transit USB (default audio), M-Audio ProFire 610, M-Audio ProFire Lightbridge (34 channels) using Creamware A16 ADAT converter • MIDI: M-Audio Midiman 4x MIDI interface • Behringer Audio Mixers: Xenyx 1002, Xenyx 1002FX, Xenyx 1202FX, Eurorack UB1002FX, Eurorack MX1804FX, Eurorack MX262A • FX devices: Lexicon MPX100 DSP, Behringer DSP-1000 Virtualizer, Behringer MiniFEX 800 DSP, Behringer Multicom Pro MDX4400 compressor • RETRO: MSSIAH midi/sequencer/synthesizer cardridge for the C64 (Dual-SID), Steinberg M.S.I. MIDI Interface for C64
Last edited by naquaada; 03-07-2009 at 02:16 PM.
|