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Dingo
06-10-2004, 01:36 PM
Does anyone use this combo? How well does it work? How is the sound quality of the converters and the synths/FX etc.? Thanks.

Jesse Skeens
06-10-2004, 07:47 PM
I use it. The converters are great as is the compressor, Vinco. I sold my $3000 dbx 160sl when I got the Vinco, its amazing.

So far I cant get the Wave drivers to work in Saw so I'm using ASIO.

Also there is no latency with Creamware (unless you go through the ASIO drivers). So any synths or effects can be monitered realtime.

Let me know if you have more specific questions.

Jesse

Dingo
06-11-2004, 05:25 AM
How do the converters compare to higher end stuff like apogee et al? Are they in the same league or more like RME or lynx (which I think is pretty close by the way)? How about the rest of the FX? waves quality? UAD quality? TDM quality? Thanks Jesse.

Jesse Skeens
06-11-2004, 05:56 AM
How do the converters compare to higher end stuff like apogee et al? Are they in the same league or more like RME or lynx (which I think is pretty close by the way)? How about the rest of the FX? waves quality? UAD quality? TDM quality? Thanks Jesse.


I have not done direct comparisons to the above converters. I used to own an apogee but its been a while. All I can say is that I am very happy with their sound. I would assume them to be at RME/Lynx quality but havent used those systems.

The effects range from OK to excellent. The compressor Vinco is as good as the UAD and real hardware as I said in my other post. The included effects with the mixer app are decent but I never use them. There is some great 3rd party stuff. Recently someone released the Plate algo from the PCM91, you can find it at SonicTimeworks. The synths are amazing, the best out there for sure. Many of the old vintage ones from CW. 3rd party ones are more diverse and excellent too, John Bowen for one. Theres a great filter too called the Interpole. Sold my Mutator after getting that one.

The fact that it all runs no latency (just from the ad/da 1.5ms total) is great for monitering live. I use an AD8000 connected ADAT to act as a mixer. The routing is very flexible too. You can wire up to 64 ASIO channels in and out of the mixer/effects etc... So its easy to send stuff to and from SawStudio.

Jesse

JonathanT
06-12-2004, 03:11 PM
I'm running a Creamware Powersampler (Luna II) card on one of my SAW computers - sound quality and latency both very good. I'm running at 4ms latency (for 44.1) on an old P3 which is pretty amazing I think. I use the ASIO drivers but in Regular rather than XTC mode - I use XTC mode with Logic Audio but have never got it to work with SAW.

I think Creamware is an underrated company, probably because their marketing has been patchy & they have had financial dificulties along the way, also there is quite a learning curve to some of their products, but they do produce some great stuff.

I missed the vote on Pedro's poll though!

Jonathan

canipus
06-12-2004, 06:46 PM
"I would assume them to be at RME/Lynx quality but havent used those systems".

Unless you're talking about the very top of the line RME products there is absolutely no comparison whatsoever between Lynx and RME. Lynx are in a class of their own - generally compared with convertor products costing between two and three thousand dollars. (Assuming you're talking about convertor quality such SINAD, non linearity error, monotonicity etc.). The only commonality is that both companies use mostly the same chipset. However, the implementation of the conversion design, the handling and routing of power distribution for the analog and digital circuits, PCB layout, shielding and grounding implementations are chalk and cheese. The fact that your ears may not hear a difference is irrelevant. If you run a Fourier analysis on the two companies' products you will see the difference.
The amazing thing about Lynx is that they are able to manufacture and market their products at a price which is about half the cost of the nearest "real" performance competitor.

AudioAstronomer
06-12-2004, 07:12 PM
The fact that your ears may not hear a difference is irrelevant. If you run a Fourier analysis on the two companies' products you will see the difference.

Uh. This is an audio converter, you know, all it does is let me hear things. Perhaps if it were a graphics card Id care what i see coming out of it. Thats not a very convincing arguement for Lynx you know.

It's a bit like saying "the engines in these two cars are TOTALLY different. even though they are completely identical in performance, economy, durability, reliability... this one is a bit shiner".



On that note, most people I know of use RME with external converters. and the majority of RME's "sound card" products only accept digital input.

TotalSonic
06-12-2004, 08:45 PM
"I would assume them to be at RME/Lynx quality but havent used those systems".

Lynx are in a class of their own - generally compared with convertor products costing between two and three thousand dollars. (Assuming you're talking about convertor quality such SINAD, non linearity error, monotonicity etc.). .

Canipus -
I certainly like the system I have a Lynx installed in and think Crystal Semiconductor's chips can often yield better performance than the AKM's found in more commonly in other sound card designs - but when you make the above pronouncement what other adc's and dac's have you directly a/b'd it against? DAD / Lucid / Mytek / Benchmark??

Best regards,
Steve Berson

canipus
06-13-2004, 08:28 AM
The statements I made was accurate - based on measurement and analysis. What i wrote was the chipset is only part of the equation the system implementation is everything. I also stated that you can see the difference on a Fourier analysis. This isn't conjecture its fact. You need a background in semiconductor applications specifically with convertor mixed signal LSI design to realize that no two manufacturers convertor boards are the same. Just change the bypass capacitors for example and you may change SINAD by 3-4dB(V).
This isn't the place for this discussion its off topic but if you study the relevant application notes from the chip companies (and implement the various layouts then run the FFTs), you will gain insight into what I stated.
If you want to discuss this further I'm happy to move the discussion to the industry personnel on the electronic/sci/engineering newsgroups where discussions on convertor design and performance from high speed monotonic convertors for process control applications to the pros and cons of linear versus delta-sigma designs for audio convertors, are not infrequent topics.

TotalSonic
06-13-2004, 08:44 AM
The statements I made was accurate - based on measurement and analysis. What i wrote was the chipset is only part of the equation the system implementation is everything. I also stated that you can see the difference on a Fourier analysis. This isn't conjecture its fact. You need a background in semiconductor applications specifically with convertor mixed signal LSI design to realize that no two manufacturers convertor boards are the same. Just change the bypass capacitors for example and you may change SINAD by 3-4dB(V).
This isn't the place for this discussion its off topic but if you study the relevant application notes from the chip companies (and implement the various layouts then run the FFTs), you will gain insight into what I stated.
If you want to discuss this further I'm happy to move the discussion to the industry personnel on the electronic/sci/engineering newsgroups where discussions on convertor design and performance from high speed monotonic convertors for process control applications to the pros and cons of linear versus delta-sigma designs for audio convertors, are not infrequent topics.


Canipus -
Thanks for the info, much appreciated.

To me the sound of a converter is a subjective matter - we're looking for things to "sound good" - and while specs is cerrtainly a great place to start - because the way specs are generated can be different between manufacturer - and because often specs can not measure every variable - I find ultimately the only way to know what works best for me is to actually listen - hopefully in blind a/b tests set up so that true apples to apples comparisons can be made. So you'll have to forgive me when I feel that statements such as "x converter sounds justs as good as x converter" when they haven't been compared in the same environment using the same test material are inappropriate. That said - I do indeed think that the Lynx 2 converters sound great in the limited time that I've heard them - it's just that I don't know whether I would call them as good as things like Lavry's or Myteks - but I haven't had the luxury of running a test ever- so I was hoping you had. Please do not take personal affront at any of this - I do appreciate the info you have posted.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

canipus
06-13-2004, 10:24 AM
Steven

Absolutely no offence taken - and yes of course it's all about what we hear BUT our ears really are deceiving and vary from day to day :)
BTW recently there were some excellent threads on the Samplitude forum about hearing and listening results. The most interesting was Bob Katz's statement reported on that forum about the same audio files burn't from the same DAW onto the same manufacturer's CD-R blanks, played back on the same equipment - sounding different???
It is fast becoming accepted within the AES that we haven't covered all the measurable bases and that until we really understand the correlation between bits, bytes and analogue audio; and designed the correct scientific tests to monitor the parameters, then we have no real quantifiable "meaningful" data. Meanwhile we have today's measurement techniques such as FFT - and our ears of course - and that is what we have to make do with.

canipus

AudioAstronomer
06-13-2004, 10:33 AM
In my research, not only do the lavry's spec higher than anything else I can possibly find, they also sounded much better than any converter I've ever heard. And I've been through mytek, apogee, benchmark, older rme, grace, presonus, focusrite, behringer, lucid etc... plus plenty of DA in audiophile and consumer playback systems. Lavry still way way better in every regard sonically. Im sure there are other things out there I'm still yet to experience, but If I was going to spend the money today, I feel no more research would be necassary.

and yes, Im going to get some lavry DA soon :) Gotta sort out other things first.

AudioAstronomer
06-13-2004, 10:37 AM
Steven

Absolutely no offence taken - and yes of course it's all about what we hear BUT our ears really are deceiving and vary from day to day :)
BTW recently there were some excellent threads on the Samplitude forum about hearing and listening results. The most interesting was Bob Katz's statement reported on that forum about the same audio files burn't from the same DAW onto the same manufacturer's CD-R blanks, played back on the same equipment - sounding different???
It is fast becoming accepted within the AES that we haven't covered all the measurable bases and that until we really understand the correlation between bits, bytes and analogue audio; and designed the correct scientific tests to monitor the parameters, then we have no real quantifiable "meaningful" data. Meanwhile we have today's measurement techniques such as FFT - and our ears of course - and that is what we have to make do with.

canipus

There are well known problems with cd duplication, even from the same master. Im sure steve could elaborate more.

It's obvious here the problem is different industries not speaking with each other. AE's starting to find out things physicists have known forever, AE's finding out things CS's have known forever. CS's finding out things AE's have known forever etc.... It's a laugh to sit and watch a highly skilled engineer and a highly knowledgable physicist speak, the revalations I've seen shared are down to common sense. People simply follow what their industry says, rather than the laws various functions are naturally governed by.

Perry
06-13-2004, 02:01 PM
There are well known problems with cd duplication, even from the same master. Im sure steve could elaborate more.

It's obvious here the problem is different industries not speaking with each other. AE's starting to find out things physicists have known forever, AE's finding out things CS's have known forever. CS's finding out things AE's have known forever etc.... It's a laugh to sit and watch a highly skilled engineer and a highly knowledgable physicist speak, the revalations I've seen shared are down to common sense. People simply follow what their industry says, rather than the laws various functions are naturally governed by.

Hi Guys,

There's an interesting article here:
http://www.goldenagemusic.se/swe/proaudio/lavry/Lavry%20Engineering%20LavryBlue%20Converter%20Syst em.htm

It seems a lot of these "different" sounding CD's etc may be caused by the jitter of the medium. That makes sense to me at least. Simply checking disks using the software from the Plextor Premium CD Burner can show that jitter can vary form one CD to the next... regardless of the brand. I would think that no two CDR's are identical... kind of like snowflakes ;) (although I've always wondered who checked them all to see!)

Personally... I agree also that actually "listening" is the final judge. Following these scientific methods is fine mind you (and I enjoy reading these things at times) but eventually, following this on through, we'll be examining the molecules (and/or black holes, quarks, and whatever) inherient in the construction of all things material and tyring to explain why one molecule sounds different than the next. ;)

Fun stuff though! :cool:

Perry

Naturally Digital
12-07-2005, 02:05 AM
So far I cant get the Wave drivers to work in Saw so I'm using ASIO.I'm running into this here also. I can get them to play by setting the 24bit WDM-compatible flag but the performance is terrible (dropouts etc). I'm thinking of contacting them to see if they've tried SAWStudio. They certainly have a large base of steinberg users but I'd still expect their wave drivers to be well-written. As far as I can tell, they offer a 16-bit wave and 24-bit wave driver (besides the interleaved one). Neither of these seem to work. I get a "Trouble opening out device..." message.

TotalSonic
12-07-2005, 02:49 AM
Hi Guys,

There's an interesting article here:
http://www.goldenagemusic.se/swe/proaudio/lavry/Lavry%20Engineering%20LavryBlue%20Converter%20Syst em.htm

It seems a lot of these "different" sounding CD's etc may be caused by the jitter of the medium. That makes sense to me at least. Simply checking disks using the software from the Plextor Premium CD Burner can show that jitter can vary form one CD to the next... regardless of the brand. I would think that no two CDR's are identical... kind of like snowflakes ;) (although I've always wondered who checked them all to see!)


It's important to note than that the better DAC's will reclock the signal in order to eliminate the vast majority of jitter - thus eliminating perceivable differences between two data identical CD-R's when they are played.
A must read regarding this subject is at
http://www.prismsound.com/m_r_downloads/cdinvest.pdf

Best regards,
Steve Berson

Ian Alexander
12-07-2005, 06:29 AM
"I would assume them to be at RME/Lynx quality but havent used those systems".

Unless you're talking about the very top of the line RME products there is absolutely no comparison whatsoever between Lynx and RME. Lynx are in a class of their own - generally compared with convertor products costing between two and three thousand dollars. (Assuming you're talking about convertor quality such SINAD, non linearity error, monotonicity etc.). The only commonality is that both companies use mostly the same chipset. However, the implementation of the conversion design, the handling and routing of power distribution for the analog and digital circuits, PCB layout, shielding and grounding implementations are chalk and cheese. The fact that your ears may not hear a difference is irrelevant. If you run a Fourier analysis on the two companies' products you will see the difference.
The amazing thing about Lynx is that they are able to manufacture and market their products at a price which is about half the cost of the nearest "real" performance competitor.

Canipus,

Can you tell us what impact on sound these test results have? Does it add up when mixing many channels? Does it help you take advantage of better monitoring environments? Etc. IOW, how does this translate to something we CAN hear? I don't think that would be OT. [Disclaimer: I use a Lynx daily and have been annoyed with how accurately it records and plays back my outtakes.]

Naturally Digital
12-07-2005, 11:31 AM
I'm running into this here also. I can get them to play by setting the 24bit WDM-compatible flag but the performance is terrible (dropouts etc). I'm thinking of contacting them to see if they've tried SAWStudio. They certainly have a large base of steinberg users but I'd still expect their wave drivers to be well-written. As far as I can tell, they offer a 16-bit wave and 24-bit wave driver (besides the interleaved one). Neither of these seem to work. I get a "Trouble opening out device..." message.Gee, seems it's proving difficult to keep this thread on-topic.:confused: Ah well, always lots of interesting things to chat about I guess!

Naturally Digital
07-26-2006, 11:18 AM
So far I cant get the Wave drivers to work in Saw so I'm using ASIO.Hi Jesse,

Just wondering... Are you using the Creamware card on a dual cpu machine?

I've been working with mine (Luna + Pulsar 1) recently and not only are the wav drivers impossible to use but I'm having problems with the ASIO also. I'm about to pull the cards from this machine and try a new machine with a fresh install. Thinking about putting it in a single cpu machine instead of a dual. I've also got a few modules that don't authorize properly even though they should be included in my Scope 4.0 setup.

I recently used this setup to mix headphones for a band tracking session. I recorded through an RME9652 and mixed the headphones on the Creamware card, in a separate machine (so I wasn't using any wav/asio etc. drivers). I set the RME to pass through the signal when rec is engaged and routed the outputs to the Pulsar card. Worked great this way! I gotta say, the Masterverb (even the default preset) sounds really good.

Anyone upgreaded to 4.5 yet?

AcousticGlue
07-26-2006, 07:32 PM
Come on guys! When audio was recorded back in 1940, it sounded terrible. In the 50s it improved a bit. In the 60s things got cooler. When the Police made "Ghost in the Machine" I thought it sounded great. When I heard Naked Eyes and Spandau Ballet, they sounded great recorded (songs not withstanding). Some bands nowadays make some very crappily mixed albums, some benefit from the tools of mixing and create a palette that make the older (80s-50s) sound like poop. Journey's older recordings and many others from the 70s-80s sound marginally thin compared to stereo-less-compressed mixes of today. Some still do it the compressed to crap way. Forget about Lavrys, Lynx and all that bologna and mix well.

On the other hand some people claim to hear differences in media. Some claim to hear a copied CD sounding different. I think that happened even in old analog days and if there was outdoor concert, which way the wind blows affects the music.

ffarrell
07-27-2006, 05:59 AM
I have 2 of the A16 converters and I like them a lot. I use a house clock so I can't tell you about how the internal clock rates but before the A16 I had Tangos and before that I had AI3 Alesis. The difference from Alesis to Tango was audible but from tango to cream ware was not.

I also have lots of Behringer 8000 and can't hear much difference from those to the A16 in my live zone.

If I were to take all the boxes into my home studio and do a A / B there might be more I could say.

If you were to hear some of my work from all the boxes you could not tell the difference.

IMO!

You make the sound you want to hear with the gear, Not the other way around.

thanks

fvf

Lance
07-27-2006, 11:07 PM
Hi Jesse,

Just wondering... Are you using the Creamware card on a dual cpu machine?

I've been working with mine (Luna + Pulsar 1) recently and not only are the wav drivers impossible to use but I'm having problems with the ASIO also. I'm about to pull the cards from this machine and try a new machine with a fresh install. Thinking about putting it in a single cpu machine instead of a dual. I've also got a few modules that don't authorize properly even though they should be included in my Scope 4.0 setup.

.......

Anyone upgreaded to 4.5 yet?

I use a Scope Project on a dual cpu machine. Once I isolated the card to its own interrupt, I have had no problems with it at all.

Wav and ASIO drivers both work fine although I can't get the latency down with the wav drivers, so I use ASIO in Saw.

I've upgraded to Scope 4.5 and I like it a lot... not much changed with the drivers, but now they added more synths and more processing.

My bottom line assessment is that I love the card because of its routing flexibility and the quality of the plug-ins. However, I haven't heard the A/D converters because I use the AD8000. I do use the D/A converters for playback and they are very clean and punchy, and the resultant mixes translate well on other systems. I say this because when I was using an EMu card with their "professional" DACs, I hated the way that everything sounded on them; too thin with an artificial wispy-ness on the top end.

The only problem with Creamware is their support. It's practically non-existent. You generally have to get help from other users.

HTH

Lance

Naturally Digital
07-28-2006, 07:53 AM
I use a Scope Project on a dual cpu machine. Once I isolated the card to its own interrupt, I have had no problems with it at all.

Wav and ASIO drivers both work fine although I can't get the latency down with the wav drivers, so I use ASIO in Saw.

I've upgraded to Scope 4.5 and I like it a lot... not much changed with the drivers, but now they added more synths and more processing. Lance, Thank you! This is good to know. I'm glad to hear you've got the wav drivers working. I may spring for 4.5 soon myself as I'd like to have the other mixers.

Too bad they don't support DWAVE. :D

Thanks for chiming in!

Jesse Skeens
07-29-2006, 09:56 PM
Hi Jesse,

Just wondering... Are you using the Creamware card on a dual cpu machine?

I've been working with mine (Luna + Pulsar 1) recently and not only are the wav drivers impossible to use but I'm having problems with the ASIO also. I'm about to pull the cards from this machine and try a new machine with a fresh install. Thinking about putting it in a single cpu machine instead of a dual. I've also got a few modules that don't authorize properly even though they should be included in my Scope 4.0 setup.

I recently used this setup to mix headphones for a band tracking session. I recorded through an RME9652 and mixed the headphones on the Creamware card, in a separate machine (so I wasn't using any wav/asio etc. drivers). I set the RME to pass through the signal when rec is engaged and routed the outputs to the Pulsar card. Worked great this way! I gotta say, the Masterverb (even the default preset) sounds really good.

Anyone upgreaded to 4.5 yet?

No not using a dual machine. To be honest I haven't used Saw much recently as most of my mixing work comes in as SX format. Haven't updated to 4.5 yet either.