blazar
07-09-05, 12:43 AM
I have previously raved about the sonic performance of the RME-9632 Hammerfall card for music and movies. I have also been wondering about the Lynx series of cards but have been hesitant to plunk down another $1000 on a TwoB that can't do 7.1 or a Lynx Aurora 8 that doesn't have multichannel movie drivers yet... and costs between $2000-3000 with accessories needed to make it work.
I had been reading about the M-audio delta 1010 card for audio and home theater use by others on this board but mostly people have done half baked reviews.
Finally broke down and bought one for the following reasons:
1. I thought it wouldn't have the power-on/off pop through the speakers that most cards suffer from.
I found out I was wrong. This is still present but is mild enough now that it is unlikely to damage the speakers. By using a molex connector 12 volt connector and wiring it to my amplifier's 12 volt trigger I was able to eliminate the power-on pop since the amp has a delay built in. I still get a pop when windows starts or when the power is turned off. Defintely more tolerable though. I am getting a new motherboard and 939 slot amd chip soon so I will see if this improves with a different board. The pop occurs with both my antec phantom and my seasonic super tornado. The RME and LYNX cards all suffer from this problem from my understanding.
2. I thought that now I could fully utilize the microsoft keyboard volume controls to control the master volume for the multichannel setup. Unless I'm an idiot and doing something wrong, there is no obvious way to make this work since I think this volume control only affects kmixer... which m-audio bypasses altogether. The GOOD thing is that the "bass management" volume slider is accessible to assigning a macro and if you are fairly adept at these things you can establish a girder or keyboard shortcut remote setup to control this master volume. WHY this slider doesn't simply hijack the volume keyboard commands is beyond me. stupid really. Even a simple set of HOTKEYS.... if anyone is listening would solve this problem. I understand the Lynx TwoB has sorted this issue out at least.
3. I can confirm that the delta 1010 CANNOT set individual channel volumes despite what the "mixer panel" looks like when you look at the screenshots on their website. This only works when you are doing a 2 channel mix of a multichannel source. The mixer is NOT made to proportionally control the individual volume sliders. Again why this wasn't added to the bass management drivers is stimply stupid. The "bass management" has it's own volume slider that will reduce and raise all channel volumes but again it suffers from not allowing you to use the windows volume controls from the keyboard.
4. The bass management drivers DO allow you to do 6.1, 7.1 and channel delay. Also bass redirection functions exist. These all work reasonably well.
5. There is a decent set of crossover settings for all the speakers. I will warn you however that unless you plan on switching these settings manually for music and for movies, you really need to set the main speakers to not crossover. Otherwise, when you switch to music listening, the subwoofer will still be in use. Depending on the setup that you have, this may be a nuisance for you. Really the ultimate situation would be if your music could bypass the "bass management" situation altogether. This can be done but it is basically a manual process.
My current crossover settings for my B&W 802's and HTM1 center speaker is no crossover on the mains and 80 on the center. The rears are crossed over at 80 as well. In J-rivers media center it lets you attenuate the volume of your music by a fixed number of decibels on all music. This way I was able to "volume match" movies and music so that I don't get blaringly loud music on accident after watching a movie.
This could all be avoided if they could make multiple bass management panels. Each of which could be assigned to a different source program.
The fact is, this is one reason why bass management might be something better left up to the windvd and powerdvd people.... if they would get off their asses and hire someone who knows audio.
6. Relative channel volumes - in short the bass management drivers don't perform this seemingly elementary need. It may not be an issue if your playback software does this but again this should be IN THE DRIVERS... and it's not. Such a simple programming issue it's not even funny.
7. Sound Quality: I can at least say the sound quality is quite good when compared to the RME although I can honestly say I haven't done a A/B comparison. This much I can say... my movie experience is really overall identical. I would need to do some significant testing to see if the RME and Delta 1010 have true audible differences in music. Another article which I don't have the reference for here on AVS compared these two cards and the RME came out well ahead. Take that for what it's worth. The published RME stats are far superior to the Delta 1010. The fact is, I didn't buy this card for the superior sound quality. The reasons to buy this card is the addition of some convenience features. One of the big reasons I can't make a good statement about the relative sound quality is that I moved recently into a new house and previously I was in an apartment. My new room (much larger) has far less ambient noise but is also not dampened at all yet. The RME was used exclusively in my apartment where it sounded great.
In reference to RightMark testing of audio cards, even m-audio admits that their recording quality is not quite as good as other higher end cards. Since rightmark loopback really asses D/A and A/D conversion together, part of the reason the stats look like weaker is the recording quality is weaker, and not due to playback quality (which is what most htpc users care about).
I don't know all the obnoxious audiophile terminology/vocabulary... I do know that 99% of users will be quite satisfied with this card without spending a lot more money.
There is some good news on the horizon though. It does appear that at least the windvd people are listening to the suggestions about audio management since their new version 7 has channel levels and delay built into it. If they added crossover and true bass management options... we could soon be in nirvana. UNfortunately, as I mentioned in another thread, the channel volumes and delay settings don't save... I'm not sure ANYONE changes these settings for each frakin movie. Hopefully they correct this issue.
I foresee that within a couple of years both windvd, powerdvd, and theatertek as well as various entities like nvidia will solve all these silly issues that any $200 sony receiver has no problem with. Once software solves all the moronic convenience issues and bass management issues, then only needs to think about one thing: the sound quality of the card. Something as simple as a multichannel master volume slider should be available in the software itself. Current windvd and powerdvd do not have this capability. I believe the m-audio revolution bass management is a bit better than the delta 1010 but don't quote me on this... I haven't used it personally. Just seen some screenshots of the revo.
I know its been years already and for the most part the soundcard market has stagnated.... but hopefully with patience all will come to pass. The holy grail of high end sound lies still in the hands of the Lynx people with the Aurora 8 if they can release the firewire card for it and the multichannel drivers.
The operative word: patience.
I had been reading about the M-audio delta 1010 card for audio and home theater use by others on this board but mostly people have done half baked reviews.
Finally broke down and bought one for the following reasons:
1. I thought it wouldn't have the power-on/off pop through the speakers that most cards suffer from.
I found out I was wrong. This is still present but is mild enough now that it is unlikely to damage the speakers. By using a molex connector 12 volt connector and wiring it to my amplifier's 12 volt trigger I was able to eliminate the power-on pop since the amp has a delay built in. I still get a pop when windows starts or when the power is turned off. Defintely more tolerable though. I am getting a new motherboard and 939 slot amd chip soon so I will see if this improves with a different board. The pop occurs with both my antec phantom and my seasonic super tornado. The RME and LYNX cards all suffer from this problem from my understanding.
2. I thought that now I could fully utilize the microsoft keyboard volume controls to control the master volume for the multichannel setup. Unless I'm an idiot and doing something wrong, there is no obvious way to make this work since I think this volume control only affects kmixer... which m-audio bypasses altogether. The GOOD thing is that the "bass management" volume slider is accessible to assigning a macro and if you are fairly adept at these things you can establish a girder or keyboard shortcut remote setup to control this master volume. WHY this slider doesn't simply hijack the volume keyboard commands is beyond me. stupid really. Even a simple set of HOTKEYS.... if anyone is listening would solve this problem. I understand the Lynx TwoB has sorted this issue out at least.
3. I can confirm that the delta 1010 CANNOT set individual channel volumes despite what the "mixer panel" looks like when you look at the screenshots on their website. This only works when you are doing a 2 channel mix of a multichannel source. The mixer is NOT made to proportionally control the individual volume sliders. Again why this wasn't added to the bass management drivers is stimply stupid. The "bass management" has it's own volume slider that will reduce and raise all channel volumes but again it suffers from not allowing you to use the windows volume controls from the keyboard.
4. The bass management drivers DO allow you to do 6.1, 7.1 and channel delay. Also bass redirection functions exist. These all work reasonably well.
5. There is a decent set of crossover settings for all the speakers. I will warn you however that unless you plan on switching these settings manually for music and for movies, you really need to set the main speakers to not crossover. Otherwise, when you switch to music listening, the subwoofer will still be in use. Depending on the setup that you have, this may be a nuisance for you. Really the ultimate situation would be if your music could bypass the "bass management" situation altogether. This can be done but it is basically a manual process.
My current crossover settings for my B&W 802's and HTM1 center speaker is no crossover on the mains and 80 on the center. The rears are crossed over at 80 as well. In J-rivers media center it lets you attenuate the volume of your music by a fixed number of decibels on all music. This way I was able to "volume match" movies and music so that I don't get blaringly loud music on accident after watching a movie.
This could all be avoided if they could make multiple bass management panels. Each of which could be assigned to a different source program.
The fact is, this is one reason why bass management might be something better left up to the windvd and powerdvd people.... if they would get off their asses and hire someone who knows audio.
6. Relative channel volumes - in short the bass management drivers don't perform this seemingly elementary need. It may not be an issue if your playback software does this but again this should be IN THE DRIVERS... and it's not. Such a simple programming issue it's not even funny.
7. Sound Quality: I can at least say the sound quality is quite good when compared to the RME although I can honestly say I haven't done a A/B comparison. This much I can say... my movie experience is really overall identical. I would need to do some significant testing to see if the RME and Delta 1010 have true audible differences in music. Another article which I don't have the reference for here on AVS compared these two cards and the RME came out well ahead. Take that for what it's worth. The published RME stats are far superior to the Delta 1010. The fact is, I didn't buy this card for the superior sound quality. The reasons to buy this card is the addition of some convenience features. One of the big reasons I can't make a good statement about the relative sound quality is that I moved recently into a new house and previously I was in an apartment. My new room (much larger) has far less ambient noise but is also not dampened at all yet. The RME was used exclusively in my apartment where it sounded great.
In reference to RightMark testing of audio cards, even m-audio admits that their recording quality is not quite as good as other higher end cards. Since rightmark loopback really asses D/A and A/D conversion together, part of the reason the stats look like weaker is the recording quality is weaker, and not due to playback quality (which is what most htpc users care about).
I don't know all the obnoxious audiophile terminology/vocabulary... I do know that 99% of users will be quite satisfied with this card without spending a lot more money.
There is some good news on the horizon though. It does appear that at least the windvd people are listening to the suggestions about audio management since their new version 7 has channel levels and delay built into it. If they added crossover and true bass management options... we could soon be in nirvana. UNfortunately, as I mentioned in another thread, the channel volumes and delay settings don't save... I'm not sure ANYONE changes these settings for each frakin movie. Hopefully they correct this issue.
I foresee that within a couple of years both windvd, powerdvd, and theatertek as well as various entities like nvidia will solve all these silly issues that any $200 sony receiver has no problem with. Once software solves all the moronic convenience issues and bass management issues, then only needs to think about one thing: the sound quality of the card. Something as simple as a multichannel master volume slider should be available in the software itself. Current windvd and powerdvd do not have this capability. I believe the m-audio revolution bass management is a bit better than the delta 1010 but don't quote me on this... I haven't used it personally. Just seen some screenshots of the revo.
I know its been years already and for the most part the soundcard market has stagnated.... but hopefully with patience all will come to pass. The holy grail of high end sound lies still in the hands of the Lynx people with the Aurora 8 if they can release the firewire card for it and the multichannel drivers.
The operative word: patience.