Marian MARC 2 Pro

24-bit/96kHz PC Audio Card with Balanced Analogue I/O & Digital S/PDIF or AES/EBU I/O

Plug into the future of Desktop Music and Sound. Now, recording digital audio with 24-bit/96kHz resolution is no longer the exclusive domain of high-end pro studios. The MARC family of Pro Audio cards set a new standard for digital audio performance at these amazingly affordable prices. All of the MARC range of Pro Audio Cards give the sonic clarity and audio headroom required for the most demanding recording sessions so don't limit yourself to transitional, 20-bit technology -- get ready today for the future of high-resolution audio and DVD with 24-bit recording.

The MARC 2 PRO is a fully featured 4 Channel 24-bit/96kHz PCI audio card giving a great solution for a wide variety of broadcast, pro audio and music applications including: SONAR, Cubase, Nuendo, Logic Audio, Cool Edit Pro , Sound Forge, Wavelab, Samplitude, GigaStudio, Reason, Live and many more.

The MARC 2 PRO has 2 channels of 24-bit/96kHz balanced Analogue I/O on XLR's, and 2 channels of 24-bit/96kHz Digital S/PDIF I/O (on RCA or optical connectors) or AES/EBU (XLR's) plus a Wordclock input providing connectivity to a whole world of digital and analogue devices.

All the MARC cards have multi-client drivers with extremely low latencies (down to 2 ms at 96kHz) with ASIO, GSIF and DirectSound, making them especially suitable for time critical applications, such as Soft synth and Samplers like GigaStudio, Reason, Halion etc.

MARC 2 PRO hardware is ready for the next generation ASIO-IN-HARDWARE feature. This will enable direct access to the cards memory giving even better performance using any ASIO recording software including Cubase, Cubase SX, Wavelab 4, Nuendo, Ableton Live etc. This feature will be available fully functional with future driver updates.

Features

• 4 in, 4 out 24-bit/96kHz full-duplex (simultaneous record and playback) audio interface on a half-size PCI card
• 2 balanced analogue input and outputs via XLR's
• 2 digital S/PDIF input and output (via RCA or optical connectors) or AES/EBU (via XLR's) giving loss-less Bit-for-bit digital transfer to or from your MiniDisc, DAT, digital CD player, digital desk, pro digital equipment etc.
• Record and playback at up to 24-bit/96 kHz on all inputs and outputs (analogue and digital)
• Zero Latency Monitoring
• Wordclock input
• Internal connection for Digital CD Input
• Sync up to any 4 MARC cards (MARC 2 PRO, MARC 4, MARC 8 etc.) to a single sample clock for more I/Os and flexibility
• PCI Interface
• Windows 95, 98, ME, NT 4.0, 2000, XP, GSIF (GigaSampler format for low-latency sampling), DirectSound and ASIO 2 drivers
• Next generation ASIO-IN-HARDWARE
• Includes Samplitude Project 5.9 multi-track hard disk recording software

Technical Specs

Digital Ports

• 24-bit
• 96kHz : Sample Rates 32 kHz - 96 kHz
• S/PDIF: Optical (TOS Link) and RCA (copy protection is ignored)
• AES/EBU: XLR
• Digital audio CD connector
  

Analogue Ports

• 24-bit
• 96kHz : Sample Rates 11 kHz - 96 kHz
• XLR connectors
• Output with low impedance (can also be used for connecting headphones)
• A-D convertors - 24-bit 64x oversampling
• D-A convertors - 24-bit 128x oversampling
• The signal-to-noise ratio approx. A/D 104 dB (A) and D/A 114dB (A).
• THD+N: 0.005%.
• Frequency response: 44.1 kHz: 20 Hz to 20.000 Hz
• Frequency response: 96 kHz: 20 Hz up to 40.000 Hz
• Input signal level can be adjusted between -40 dB and +18 dB.
• Output level can be reduced to -60 dB.

Drivers

• Windows 95, 98, ME, NT 4.0, 2000, XP, GSIF (GigaSampler/Studio format for low-latency sampling), DirectSound and ASIO 2 drivers (Mac drivers coming very soon

System Requirements

• Windows 95, 98, NT4.0, 2000, ME, or XP
• Pentium III 500Mhz - (96kHz operation) or Pentium II 400 - (48kHz operation)
• 128 MB of PC100 RAM - (96kHz operation) or 64 MB of SDRAM - (48kHz operation)
• UDMA EIDE or ATA 33/66 HDD
• Other requirements are dependant upon the software you are using. Please refer to the respective manual.