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Old 03-17-2011, 04:56 AM   #1
peacock_suit
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Default Delta 44/66 vs Audiophile 2496 for Midi latency

I am in desperate need of a sound card and I am looking at these teo cards second hand which will for me be a massive step up!

Basically my main concern is latency because I play V drums and want to jam with my VST's. I have a crappy usb sound card from Berhinger and cannot get below 8ms latency.

I have a 2.2ghz Althlon machine with 2gb of ram dedicated which is a dedicated DAW.

I will be recording demo's for my band so maybe the extra inputs on the delta with its breakout box could come in handy. Basically it will come down to what's going cheap on ebay.

I just need to know if one will be better than the other for latency.

any suggestion would be greatly received.

Cheers!
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Old 03-17-2011, 05:21 AM   #2
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Obviously not your spec but I get 6.7mS with a delta 192 on 256 samples 24bit @44.1KHz on a Intel Core2 @ 1.86Ghz.
Before I put the card in I got about 35-45mS with Asio4all using the onboard HiDef audio chipset.
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Old 03-17-2011, 05:25 AM   #3
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I'm using an Audiophile 192 as well but the thing to remember is, the 44/66 and the 2496 and the 192 all use the same delta drivers. Latency is nice and low and very stable. If the number of outputs is enough for you then one of those cards will be just fine.
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Old 03-17-2011, 05:36 AM   #4
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i can get down to 128 buffer @ 44khz on a delta 66, i5 system on windows 7 - as long as i don't run too many plugins.
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Old 03-17-2011, 06:34 AM   #5
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Rossh and dub300, what does that equate to in ms?
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Old 03-17-2011, 09:22 AM   #6
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I have a Delta 44. Core 2 Duo 6600, 2 gigs RAM, XP. At SR 44.1, 16 bits I can easily use an ASIO buffer of 64 & get latency about 1.5 to 2 ms. That should be good enough fer ya! However, adding a bunch of VSTi's & CPU hungry FX (amp sims,etc.) it doesn't take long before I start jacking up the buffer. So you need to keep that in mind.

Yes, the drivers are the same for all the Delta series, AP 2496, and AFAIK all the MAudio pci cards. IIRC the main difference between the Deltas and 2496 is # of ins/ outs and the 2496 has a little better S/N. A nice feature is the cards can be ganged up to 3 units. So with 3 2496's for example you would have 6 ins/ outs.
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Old 03-17-2011, 11:24 AM   #7
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With a Delta 66 Windows 7 x64 and an i7 950 I get 2.0ms/2.4ms with Reaper at 64 samples. using the M-Audio drivers.
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Old 03-17-2011, 12:15 PM   #8
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Delta 66 with latest driver on a Q6600 quad cpu and v4 alphas of Reaper I get to .8 ms at 64 samples. I think the motherboard is the biggest factor in this tho.
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Old 03-17-2011, 02:33 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by peacock_suit View Post
Rossh and dub300, what does that equate to in ms?
I record everything 44100/24bit wav. Reaper reports 128 samples and latency of 3.8/3.5ms. I think that's 7.3ms round trip.

Question to all: I'm sure I've read that we humans can't hear latency under 11ms. True or false?
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Old 03-17-2011, 02:56 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lucian View Post
Delta 66 with latest driver on a Q6600 quad cpu and v4 alphas of Reaper I get to .8 ms at 64 samples. I think the motherboard is the biggest factor in this tho.
0.8ms ?

I don't think that's possible within the current level of hardware.


I have a Gigabyte X58 UDR3 with an i7 950 but my previous board was an Asus P5 with a Quad and I got exactly the same latency with that board.

How are you measuring this?

TIA
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Old 03-17-2011, 02:57 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rossh View Post
I record everything 44100/24bit wav. Reaper reports 128 samples and latency of 3.8/3.5ms. I think that's 7.3ms round trip.

Question to all: I'm sure I've read that we humans can't hear latency under 11ms. True or false?
I can't hear it, but I can "feel it" when playing keyboards.
It "feels" mushy to my fingers when the latency is over 10 msec or so (total).
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Old 03-17-2011, 06:30 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by steveo42 View Post
I can't hear it, but I can "feel it" when playing keyboards.
It "feels" mushy to my fingers when the latency is over 10 msec or so (total).
dont have that problem...it takes my old brain 250mS to xmit the cmd to my fingers to go down, then another 250mS for my fingers to hit the keys... my excuse for not being able to play faster then
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Old 03-17-2011, 07:43 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by steveo42 View Post
I can't hear it, but I can "feel it" when playing keyboards.
It "feels" mushy to my fingers when the latency is over 10 msec or so (total).
Ya anything 10 and under I'm okay with.
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Old 03-17-2011, 08:18 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lucian View Post
Delta 66 with latest driver on a Q6600 quad cpu and v4 alphas of Reaper I get to .8 ms at 64 samples. I think the motherboard is the biggest factor in this tho.
I'm coming around tonight to steal your PC...
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Old 03-18-2011, 01:06 PM   #15
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I'm coming around tonight to steal your PC...
Me too!!
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Old 03-18-2011, 03:31 PM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rossh View Post
Question to all: I'm sure I've read that we humans can't hear latency under 11ms. True or false?
Here's what I wrote about that a while ago (which is not necessarily "the truth" (tm)):

---snip---

The old statement that the (untrained) ear can't distinguish two sonic events less than 20ms (the numbers vary a bit with the Dow-Jones) apart may be (YMMV) true but this has nothing to do with the things musicians are talking about, yet it's being repeated over and over again in context with "latency". Since we are musicians, our involvement in sonic events is not only hearing them and our ears/brains are trained much better than the average Joe's.

10ms is for example the range in which "microtiming" (a.k.a. "groove") happens, "laid back snare" is such a thing that is in the range ~10ms late and that is controlled by the (pro/weapon grade) drummer's brain.

This probably means that the complex brain->motor function->sound+mechanical instrument response->ear->brain loop (or at least parts of it) has a temporal resolution of at least 10ms for some musicians (except guitar players of which most have a horrible timing ). But even if you are not Sly&Robbie or a drummer at all and you've just read the word "timing" for the first time:

When we talk about latency issues here, it's mostly the latency between triggering/creating a sound and the acoustic response. Often a direct mechanical response is involved as well and that explains why drummers, singers and all other acoustic instrument players are particularly affected by latency as low as 10ms: They all and even electric guitar players get the immediate mechanical response from their instrument and so they note the delay in the monitoring signal, meaning the brain can detect delays between mechanical and acoustic response >10ms easily. That this data is coming from 2 different "sensoric circuits" (which interestingly have their own "latency times"), which may help developing this "resolution".

That's why they prefer round-trip latencies below 10ms, around 10ms you start perceiving mechanical and acoustic response as 2 separate events indeed. Many guitar players even dislike the ~5ms latency of a cheap standalone amp modeler pedal as "somehow indirect".

IMHO AFAIK IIRC kthxbai the "20ms" thing can explain a lot of things but it has nothing to do with the perception of latency.

---snip----
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Old 03-18-2011, 05:33 PM   #17
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Thanks Ollie

That certainly throws a better light on it all. My own experience is that when it gets down to 10ms or less that the delay is pretty much inperceptible. Whether playing electric guitar or midi keyboard, the delay is a non-issue.

Cheers!
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Old 03-18-2011, 06:31 PM   #18
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As a consequence, the often cited distance equivalent (11ft distance for 10ms) needs to be put in proper relation as well - you don't want to be farther apart from any sound source in RL either, not only if that's your instrument's speaker and I strongly believe that'ts why bad or missing monitoring can mess up a band's performance and self-perception big time. If you put the drummer and the bassman 30ft apart, they will become enemies for life. There is a reason why orchestras have a guy waving about in front of them.
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Old 03-18-2011, 07:33 PM   #19
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Yes, a typo 1.8 ms haha. I can play at 12 ms but it does take focus and then usually some snap to grid adjustments is involved afterward.
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Old 03-19-2011, 01:20 AM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ollie View Post
Here's what I wrote about that a while ago (which is not necessarily "the truth" (tm)):

---snip---

The old statement that the (untrained) ear can't distinguish two sonic events less than 20ms (the numbers vary a bit with the Dow-Jones) apart may be (YMMV) true but this has nothing to do with the things musicians are talking about, yet it's being repeated over and over again in context with "latency". Since we are musicians, our involvement in sonic events is not only hearing them and our ears/brains are trained much better than the average Joe's.

10ms is for example the range in which "microtiming" (a.k.a. "groove") happens, "laid back snare" is such a thing that is in the range ~10ms late and that is controlled by the (pro/weapon grade) drummer's brain.

This probably means that the complex brain->motor function->sound+mechanical instrument response->ear->brain loop (or at least parts of it) has a temporal resolution of at least 10ms for some musicians (except guitar players of which most have a horrible timing ). But even if you are not Sly&Robbie or a drummer at all and you've just read the word "timing" for the first time:

When we talk about latency issues here, it's mostly the latency between triggering/creating a sound and the acoustic response. Often a direct mechanical response is involved as well and that explains why drummers, singers and all other acoustic instrument players are particularly affected by latency as low as 10ms: They all and even electric guitar players get the immediate mechanical response from their instrument and so they note the delay in the monitoring signal, meaning the brain can detect delays between mechanical and acoustic response >10ms easily. That this data is coming from 2 different "sensoric circuits" (which interestingly have their own "latency times"), which may help developing this "resolution".

That's why they prefer round-trip latencies below 10ms, around 10ms you start perceiving mechanical and acoustic response as 2 separate events indeed. Many guitar players even dislike the ~5ms latency of a cheap standalone amp modeler pedal as "somehow indirect".

IMHO AFAIK IIRC kthxbai the "20ms" thing can explain a lot of things but it has nothing to do with the perception of latency.

---snip----
This might explain how "the average Joe" responds to the grove of a song!

Grayson
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