Which ASIO soundcard has the largest # of simultaneous inputs/outputs

[sleepwalker]

I'd like to know which soundcard has the largest # of simultaneous inputs/outputs. A 2408 with a 24i get's you 50 in/out. Anyone know if you can use multiple 24i's for more I/O?

Could I use 3 firefaces for a total of around 100 I/O?

[Slogun]

ASIO or not I don't know, but why not have a look at RMEs MADI-series for up to 192ch I/O simultaneous. The internal mixer is capable of an amazing 8192ch. Wonder if anyone ever grows out of that system

[DrDeltaM]

You can use up to 4 Motu units on one PCI-424 card. That's up to 96 I/O on one PCI card. Theoretically, you should be able to use more then one of those cards to have even more I/O.

You can use 3 Firefaces yes, tho each one is like 28 I/O, so you'd need 4. Not sure if 4 is supported...

[ADKChris]

Originally Posted by sleepwalker

I'd like to know which soundcard has the largest # of simultaneous inputs/outputs. A 2408 with a 24i get's you 50 in/out. Anyone know if you can use multiple 24i's for more I/O?

Could I use 3 firefaces for a total of around 100 I/O?

Hi,
RME offers the most reliable large I/O sound cards. I haven't meet anyone that has got more than 2 MOTU I/O boxes to work reliably lately on either PC or MAC.The Fireface 800 only support 2 units on a FW 800 bus. For large I/O PCI cards are the way to go. Also you system will have to be up for the task of dealing with this much I/O. Not just Hard drive and CPU speed but also ram and PCI bus performance.

These are listed for mono and stereo sense some people look at the I/O the same way you would on a tape machine as Mono I/O. Most newer users tend to think in terms of stereo I/O.

3x RME HDSP 9652 = mono 156 i/o - 78 Stereo I/O
3x RME HDSP MADI PCI card = 384 mono I/O- 192 I/O
2x Fireface 800 = 112 mono I/O - 56 stereo I/O

Hope this helps.

Chris

[wynsmth]

We have 3 Motu boxes on a PCI 424 card (2 2408s & a 1296) on a Mac (G4s & G5s) & have had that configuration for years. Works perfectly.

[drmad69]

Well, you should qualify that question too....

Because, this is what happend to me...

I had a rme9652, very very solid.

Went to lynx aes16. got another aes16. that's 16x2, where as rme is 24x1

so if you do any zero latency monitoring, you are screwed with lynx, they only do 4 channels at once easily. Sure daw latency in's is fine.

so to zlm or not to zlm is the question. and I think in motu land that's a big deal too.. when it comes to those cards, at least it was when I had the original 2408.

My understanding with madi was that it still did zlm accross the entire gambit,
but it was not cost effective really, I could have just got another 9652, which is
what I should have done in my case , all I really needed was a couple more spifs
really. I'd be up 8 channels, but not 192k, or 24 of 96 instead of 32 of 96. weird
counts depending on how you look at rates.

[DrDeltaM]

Originally Posted by ADKChris

3x RME HDSP 9652 = mono 156 i/o - 78 Stereo I/O
3x RME HDSP MADI PCI card = 384 mono I/O- 192 I/O
2x Fireface 800 = 112 mono I/O - 56 stereo I/O

Actually, you need to half these numbers. RME always lists the number of 'channels' rather then the number of outputs or inputs. Any input counts as channel and any output does.
For example: one Fireface has 28 mono inputs and 28 outputs (at up to 48kHz anyway), this is 28 I/O, or in RME language '56 channels'.

[Yannick]

Check the mixpander power packs.
thumbsup

Lots of inputs, lots of DSP power and the most flexible mixer ever.

a quote from the Soundscape website :
"Any number of Mixpanders can be installed in the same host computer, limited only by the number of available PCI slots and IRQ numbers (Mixpander can share an IRQ). For instance, four Mixpanders and four iBox 48-TA could be installed for a total of 192 inputs and outputs to and from the host computer, 128 internal busses and 256 streams to and from Windows applications, with a staggering amount of DSP power."

Don't forget: one mixpander does over 2 GFlops, imagine quadrupling that !

[sleepwalker]

Thanks for the info guys. Lots of options, yet doesn't seem like too many people are doing such large I/O counts. I guess when comptuers are a *little* faster.

[Yannick]

Ehm, the 192 inputs AND outputs are 384 IO channels.
If I understand it correctly, with the MADI version, you even get 4x64 ch IN and 4x64ch out with 4 mixpander cards.

So it seems, you ONLY need two of these to get enough inputs ?

I guess you'll need a pretty fast HD