M AUDIO DELTA 410

Affordable, surround-capable equipment is at last starting to appear, and the latest addition to M Audio's Delta series of soundcards provides eight discrete analogue outputs for £249.

The first soundcard that convinced me that you could record audio inside a PC without compromising on quality was the 20-bit Echo Gina, reviewed way back in SOS December 1997. With only two analogue inputs, it was designed primarily for stereo recording a track at a time, but offered eight separate outputs so that users could patch in various rackmount effects to individual tracks during mixdown. Four years later, computers now have so much processing power available that many musicians don't use outboard effects at all, relying instead on software plug-ins. However, multiple-output cards are once again becoming popular, this time because many musicians are interested in creating surround sound mixes of their music, a process which normally requires at least six discrete output channels.

M Audio have, therefore spotted a gap in their Delta range for a new soundcard. The Delta 410 features two analogue inputs and eight analogue outputs, along with a co-axial S/PDIF digital in and out. To ensure a competitive price, the analogue I/O emerges on flying leads rather than from a breakout box, but still features 24-bit/96kHz converters, zero-latency monitoring, and digital mixing. At £249 it would seem to be a bargain, especially as it comes with the same comprehensive software bundle as its stablemates, which includes both the 24-bit-capable Delta Logic sequencer and Tascam/Nemesys' Gigasampler LE.

Installation of the Delta 410 is simplicity itself. The 25-way D-type connector on its backplate connects to the supplied breakout lead, and while this is only one foot long, each of its 10 leads terminates in a gold-plated in-line phono socket so that you can connect any suitable length of standard phono lead to reach the rest of your gear. Thankfully, some attention has also been paid to making it easier to identify the various leads. The two inputs have grey cables, whereas the eight outputs are black, and each phono socket is a different colour as well as having a moulded channel number. The only other sockets on the backplate are the digital in and out, once again on gold-plated phono sockets, while on the circuit board itself the A-D and D-A converters are all contained in a single AK4529 chip from AKM.

M Audio Delta 410 £249 pros Excellent value for the amount of I/O provided. Suitable for surround mixing. Drivers are fully multi-client capable. All data paths support 24-bit/96kHz audio format. cons Slightly higher than average D-A background noise. You have to close down your audio application before changing latency. summary With two analogue inputs and eight outputs as well as S/PDIF I/O, all capable of multi-client 24-bit/96kHz operation, M Audio's Delta 410 is ideal for any musicians whose aspirations run higher than their budget!

The M Audio Control Panel utility is common to all Delta soundcards, and provides a versatile Monitor Mixer with fader and pan controls which lets you create a mix of all available Wave Output channels, along with any signals present at the hardware inputs. So, in the case of the Delta 410 the Monitor Mixer inputs comprise WavOut1/2 through to WavOut7/8, WavOut S/PDIF, H/W In S/PDIF and H/W In 1/2. The Patchbay/Router then lets you route various signals to each hardware output. You can either play back the normal WAV channels, monitor the hardware input signals with zero latency, or listen to the entire Monitor Mixer output through H/W Out 1/2 and H/W Out S/PDIF, which is ideal for setting up headphone mixes for instance.

Each hardware output has its own software fader providing 18 levels in 0.5dB steps, varying from a nominal -4dBV to below -10dBV, and if you're working in surround you could use these to calibrate your speakers. By the way, a multi-output driver option is also apparently available to use with applications like WinDVD and PowerDVD. This makes surround setup far easier, since it automatically routes the various signals to appropriate hardware outputs without the need to configure them separately.

The Control Panel supports up to four Delta cards, and can start their recordings and playback in perfect sync, but you would have to link their clocks using the S/PDIF connections to keep them permanently locked together. I've described the various other options of the Delta Control Panel in some detail in previous reviews (most recently in SOS April 2001), so won't go over old ground again. Just one new feature caught my eye: an option to 'Disable Control of the Monitor Mixer and Patchbay/Router by Audio Applications', apparently introduced after Cubase VST mistakenly muted some audio channels.

As always, I started with D-A converter listening tests, and found the Delta 410 to be quiet and clean, with fairly low background noise. I could just about hear a low-level background whine at loud listening levels, although this might possibly have been due to my earthing arrangements. In a direct comparison with my Echo Mia, the Delta 410 wasn't as smooth and transparent, having a slight top-end harshness, as well as less precise stereo imaging. Having said that, the Delta 410 features four times as many D-A converters for a similar price, so I expect prospective purchasers will be more than happy with its sound quality.

The Delta Control Panel is common to all Delta soundcards, and provides comprehensive monitor mixing, patching of various signals to the hardware outputs, and numerous hardware settings as shown here.

The ASIO drivers provide eight settings, giving latency values from 28mS down to 8mS, and I managed the lowest of these on my Pentium III 1GHz PC, as I did with the Tassman 2.1 soft synth when using either ASIO or EASI drivers. The GSIF drivers also worked perfectly alongside the ASIO ones in multi-client mode, although I had to raise the ASIO latency to 12mS to run both Cubase 5.1 and GigaStudio 160 simultaneously. The MME and DirectSound drivers both managed 15mS with Pro 52 — just 5mS above the minimum setting — and my only overall niggle with driver performance is that you have to exit an audio application before you can change latency. Thankfully the typical user won't have to do this very often.

If you want plenty of analogue outputs for surround sound, running multiple soft synths, or adding analogue effects to multitrack recordings, the Delta 410 is excellent value for money at just £249. Its audio quality is roughly on a par with most entry-level soundcards designed for musicians, and easily exceeds that of any consumer soundcard. Moreover, all data paths support up to 24-bit/96kHz capability, which once again you won't find on any consumer model.

For those who need more inputs, Terratec's EWS88MT (reviewed in SOS October 1999) is an eight-in/eight-out card of similar audio quality, offering S/PDIF and a single MIDI port, and is now available at a street price of about £320. Another contender is M Audio's own forthcoming Delta 1010-LT. This has a very similar design approach to the Delta 410 using flying leads, and with an identical audio spec, but in an eight-in/eight-out-plus-digital format along with two balanced mic inputs, word clock and MIDI I/O, for a very reasonable £399. Most other cards with eight outputs, such as Echo's Layla 24, the EgoSys WaMi Rack 24, and M Audio's own Delta 1010 are significantly more expensive, largely because of their rackmount format and significantly better audio performance, although Hoontech's DSP24 and ADC/DAC2000 combination (reviewed in SOS July 2001) manages a £340 price point with reasonable audio quality.

Overall, for those who want plenty of analogue outputs but haven't got a lot of money to spend, M Audio's Delta 410 provides good audio quality at a bargain price.

information

£249 including VAT. Midiman +44 (0)871 717 7100. +44 (0)871 717 7101. Click here to email www.midiman.co.uk www.midiman.com

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