MARIAN drivers

[vanderblast]

Hello,

Who knows about marian's MME and ASIO drivers with SAW ?

I did not found an other manufactor providing a (relative low cost) card with multi AES/EBU in/out.

[TotalSonic]

For multiple AES i/o with good driver support the Lynx AES 16 is excellent.

http://www.lynxstudio.com/aes16.html

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[ghowardjr]

Here's another alternative.

http://www.rme-audio.com/english/madi/hdspaes32.htm

Thanks,
Gary

[Naturally Digital]

For those who haven't seen the card referred to here, here's the link: http://www.marian.de/en/products/trace_d4

There's also a version with SRC on the inputs for slightly more $.

I have never had direct experience with the Marian cards however my impression is that they should be very good. IIRC many of the SEK'D cards were basically OEM Marian cards and their drivers were certainly decent.

I noticed in the online shop page of their website (near the top) they mention a 4 week return policy. That may be your best way to answer this question...

These cards are not as well known as some of the bigger names in the industry. Hopefully someone with some hands-on experience will chime in.

[vanderblast]

Thanks for your reply

So it's cheaper, and it's SEK'D 's sons, with is a good point. But no user feedback.
If i go for it, i will tell u more.

[safa]

Any experience with SAC running on the new MARIAN PCIe soundcards series (SERAPH) ?

http://www.marian.de/products/seraph_a3 (german language only, yet)

[Bill Park]

On the Samplitude forum there were some complaints a while back about this brand, for what that is worth. When I hear about complaints about gear that interests me, I look deeper to see what the basis is for the complaints. Sometimes they matter to me, sometimes they don't.

[safa]

Since I work as Samplitude user support in my country I have an access to Samp forum too so I will try to look for it myself. Thanks for the hint anyway. I have asked guys from Sampliqoia tech supp and development regarding the Marian brand (Marian was used to produce soundcards branded as SEK`D recently) but the SERAPH series is brand new developed so they have no information about its reliability yet. I will try to get a demo piece and test it since I think it could be nice soundcard to use in SAC rig (3x ADAT IO plus possibility to daisychain one or more similar cards in the future).

[Bill Park]

There is something missing in the cost equation: amortize the cost over time, and it is a lot easier to see the logic in buying a better card with better support. It is hard to beat Lynx or RME, and in terms of cost they are a great value for all that they offer.

Also, why buy a relative no name with no marketing penetration and unknown support? Isn't it worth a few extra dollars to know that you have support, that there are replacement units close buy in case of an emergency, and that the product that you bought will have a long shelf life with continuing support and driver updates?

A similar discussion was running on another board wherein a company with known driver issues was being touted highly by users who have had no problems with the line. And these promoters trounced heavily on anyone with a different point of view. Not two weeks later, someone started to have problems with one of these cards, and is getting no support, and is basically out of business until his issue is solved.

I can tell you that I was using an RME piece for a mission critical recording, and using something of theirs for a backup. I was having trouble with the backup in rehearsals, but I had other options so it was not a big deal. The US distributor got Germany involved and over the weekend they solved my problem. You won't get that kind of response from a company with little market penetration, they just aren't set up for it.

I like to save money as much as the next guy, and who knows, Marian cards may be the wave of the future. But there is more to saving money than the cost of the box itself. Total cost of ownership is important. Lost business, lost sessions, lost clients and lost reputation are pretty expensive ways to save a buck. With no quick support network in place it is almost assured that disaster will strike, Murphy demands it.

[Bill Park]

Since I work as Samplitude user support in my country ...

....and development regarding the Marian brand (Marian was used to produce soundcards branded as SEK`D recently) but the SERAPH series is brand new developed so they have no information about its reliability yet....).

Talk with Sebastian. He's often got a handle on hardware.

I believe that Marian has over the years supplied OEM cards to a few popular companies. That does not mean that they design and support their own cards, or do it as well.

I often suggest that people never buy Version 1.0 of anything, for just the reliability reason. Let the product mature.

If you need 3x ADAT, I have a Frontier Design Group Dakota and Montana, which is 4x ADAT, for sale. I also have the Sierra MIDI unit.

[safa]

Yes, you are absolutely right, Bill. On the other hand I am always happy to try and test something new so maybe this is the reason I am interested in relatively unknow soundcards brand. I stronlgy hope that since the Marian company is German based their support will be ok too, especially considering that the Seraphin series is obviously supposed to be kinda break-trough product for them. Anyway, I hope that I will have a chance to test it soon so I will let you know.

I will ask Sebastian Gabler for his opinion first, though.

[safa]

So I finaly had the chance to test MARIAN SERAPH soundcard (A3 ADAT version) in SAC and it unfortunately does not work. All the config seems to be ok, but no audio is coming in or out. Because in ll the other apps I have it works fine (well, not just fine but excellent) I wrote email to Bob asking him on his opinion. Here you have the behaviour description:


(...) I failed to make it working. All the setup and routing works flawlessly, but no way to get sound. Later I figured out that next to "ASIO protocol" item in menu is shown message "Unrecognized data format" which likely is the culprit. Could you describe for me what this means? I have tested the Seraph card with dozen of other software apps (DAWs and sound modules) and all of them work with the soundcard normaly.
Here you have quoted Bob`s reply:


Safa, Their driver uses a format I did not support since I have found very few soundcards that use it. The ASIO driver protocol can use many different internal formats for the data and I chose to support the most popular ones I found during my testing of various soundcards. I have noted the format that this driver wants and was looking into adding it to the code, but so far I have not finished the implementation. It is something I will try to move near the top of my list of things todo... but unfortunately other items have taken priority. Bob LSo... thats how it is now. Lets hope that in the future will SAC support even this kind of drivers because apart from SAC issue the SERAPH card works flawlessly and considering its MuliCard support its very interesting card for my rig.

[cgrafx]

My technology crystal ball says I wouldn't get too attached to this sort of interface technology. All of it will eventually be replaced with audio over ethernet. Although not quite ready for prime time (although there are working examples), its coming.