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Originally Posted by dasbin Why are you so concerned that the 2068's (which DO measure better than most of the cheap alternatives) are going to have such an abysmal effect on sound quality when so many people are running through mixing desks or preamps or active monitors using TL072's, 4558's, 5532's everywhere? |
Precisely for that reason. Why pile the crap any higher than it has to be? And because A/D conversion has different types of demands than some of these other processors you mention.
And I'm not talking specifically about the 2068 as much as I'm talking very generally about PCI sound cards in general. There just seems to be this prevailing theme towards minimize noise specs, and the choice of opamps seems to reflect those priorities, overall. And I have a theory that it's because it's one of the easiest things to be measured when magazines review them, and because dynamic range is one of the easy published specs for the non-educated consumer to understand when comparing options (how many people walking in to Guitar Center even know what "slew rate" is?).
And another relatively easy thing to digest is converter chips. If it "has the same ones as Pro Tools" then it must be good, right?
So between that and noise specs, that's where the manufacturer puts their money.
From a marketing standpoint, it's pretty sharp. If I were trying to sell a lot of a given product, I would probably do the same. Like you were mentioning, the typical consumer in the market for a $200 card isn't likely to be digging very deeply in to a lot of these things. And to the less discerning ear, I suppose it doesn't make a heckuva' lot of difference in the end.
But to the 1% of us whom it does matter to, I don't see anything wrong with pointing out the possible shortcomings, particularly when there are other options in that price bracket ala Lynx and CardDeluxe, that might not make the same types of compromises ; or at least who don't make them to the same degree.
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