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princealfie

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Mar 7, 2006
2,517
1
Salt Lake City UT
Are there any good Mac sound cards for a PCI slot? I know about the M-audio but I am looking for some awesome sound quality for audiophile. And I am picky about sound in case you want to know that.

Audiophile sound cards please? And no gaming cards, I don't care for bass. I want accurate sound to the tee.
 

pm7300

macrumors newbie
Aug 25, 2006
24
7
PCI soundcard

Hi
I know it's slightly unbelievable, but I'm still home recording and editing with an old Emagic Audiowerk8 2nd generation chip, 18 bit/50Khz fitted in a PCI slot in my Powermac G4 dual 1,42 Mac OS X 10.4.8
The driver was not for version newer than 10.2, but it works flawlessy!
I bought it some years ago with Logic Audio 4 under OS9, but it is still working well with Logic Express.
The system deals with this card as it was native, ans sound preferences
can address the in/out perfectly, despite Emagic told me the card was made for OS9, and no support for OS X. Of course there are now better sound cards
but I saved my money!
Rob:apple:
 

Killyp

macrumors 68040
Jun 14, 2006
3,859
7
How serious are you looking at editing? There are some great cards and chips ranging from anywhere between £150 and several thousand...
 

Sesshi

macrumors G3
Jun 3, 2006
8,113
1
One Nation Under Gordon
Firewire is a better bet in my opinion - it means you can recycle the soundcard regardless of an upgrade. If you buy a PCI card and your already superannuated PCI-slotted Mac dies and you decide to move to a Mac Pro or a laptop that's it, time for new card. With a Firewire interface you don't have that concern, and as an audio carrying medium Firewire (400 or 800, especially if you're more or less always in 44.1/16-bit stereo) is good. I recommend the RME Fireface - and despite the unnecessary number of IO's for a non-pro I'd recommend the 800 over the 400. Word clock, multiple routing possibilities, excellent DAC performance, stable driver performance, blah blah. If that's a bit rich, the Presonus Firebox is worth a look.
 
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