SOUND ON SOUND

[Frederick]

Was thinking of buying the Mackie Blackjack for use with XP and 7, but have heard quite a few negative things about latency with XP and the Blackjack.

So, what would people recommend for dual use with XP and 7?. I only need 4 inputs at best, would prefer something made out of steel rather than plastic, quality preamps preferred to huge amounts of channels, zero latency for monitoring etc etc.

What are you using (and are happy with) for XP & 7?.

[Martin Walker]

I would say if possible, ditch XP and go right to windows 7. We have realized significant performance gains from moving to windows 7 with the right hardware, as well as better compatibility with software.

Yep - Windows 7 is the best yet

Out of interest, what specific hardware have you found that offers significant performance gains? Presumably this is because of better written drivers.


Martin

[Exalted Wombat]

No-one....?

Also, what's the difference between pci card + external in/outbox vs firewire/usb external unit alone....

Different ways of connecting to the computer's backbone. PCI is the most direct. Don't worry about whether there's a breakout box or not, that's just for convenience of connection and maybe for a slightly lower noise figure (but this seems to be in practice only a theoretical point).

There's no such thing as Zero Latency monitoring. There's direct loopback of an input signal before it gets into the computer. This is what the Mackie appears to offer. But that's bypassing the place where latency happens, not zeroing it.

[Martin Walker]

Hi EW!

Actually in most modern motherboards PCIe is the most direct, and with Sandy Bridge systems PCI support is now up to the individual motherboard manufacturer to add as Intel have dropped it from their chips, which is a little worrying as far as PCI performance goes - a few motherboards give poor performance from their PCI slots, but only the specialists who have tried plenty of boards really know which are the dodgy ones


Martin

[Exalted Wombat]

Hi EW!

Actually in most modern motherboards PCIe is the most direct,

True. But out of the ones he ASKED about....