Nolly
May 29, 2009

Rating: 9/10

I purchased this to replace an E-MU 0404 PCI card for use in a Vista 64 system. The E-mu just wasnt playing ball, drivers not loading at start up lock-ups etc etc.
Not really in need of lots of in\'s and out\'s this seemed to fit the bill and i have to say i love it!
The sound quality to my surprise really out shines the 0404, sounding tighter on the lows and brighter on the highs, my mixes sound superb also latency within Ableton my DAW of choice is great, again better than the 0404.
Drivers installed fine, although do install the drivers FIRST then insert the card. I did it the other way against the include instructions!

Idiocratease
May 13, 2009

Rating: 7/10

I tried this card out to replace my Marian Marc 2 card, due to the fact that the M-audio card supports XP and Vista, whereas my current Marian card only supports XP.

Is use the sound card in a Media PC which is linked to pretty good HiFi; I use the SPDIF only (for interested people http://www.youtube.com/user/idiocratease?gl=GB&hl=en-GB)

The card installed smoothly as did the software. The interface is simple and clean.

Whilst I\'m sure this is a good card in the general sense, the quality of the SPDIF was not on the same level as the Marian Marc 2 Card. This is a very subtle thing I suspect relating to clock accuacy, leading to slighy more jitter in the M-Audio card, but I lost some of the glitter and dynamic range with this card.

So I returned this card. But as I say, I\'m sure it\'s a pretty good card.

Martin W.
June 2, 2008

Rating: 9/10

I decided to buy this product on the strength of the reviews and compatibility with my set up.

I had some initial problems after installing the card. First off it was causing IRQ conflicts and every now and then made my PC crash and give me the blue screen. Digging deep into the hardware settings showed no conflicts - contradicting what the blue screen told me.

I spent hours trying to find out why this was happening and it seemed lots of people had the same problem but no resolution. I decided to uninstall the card and try a different PCI slot. This stopped the blue screen but caused a conflict that stopped some USB ports working...

I then thought that maybe the driver bundled with the card wasn't up to date and compatible with my set-up. I found a more recent driver on the M-Audio site (the driver with the card is from October '04). The one I downloaded is from 2007. I also updated my BIOS and chipset drivers to make sure I was at optimum performance and now, a week later I have had no problems - touch wood.

I have just started using this sound card with my Oxygen 8 v2 controller. There is no latency what-so-ever. If there is, it is not noticeable from a natural hearing stance. It is so much more impressive than my previous sound card which caused a delay of about 0.5-1 second. Impossible to work with if you are playing along with something!

So the card drops a point for not being instantly 'workable' from the box.

John Grimshaw
February 2, 2008

Rating: 10/10

I have had many soundcards in the past, and this one beats them all. Dead easy to install and 1st class drivers. I recomennd this card, and for the price you can't go wrong. Amazing A+++

Rochey
January 16, 2008

Rating: 9/10

I bought this sound card for two reasons: firstly, I was using the soundcard that came with my PC, and midi latency was ridicuous; and secondly, I needed a soundcard that would allow me to use ProTools M-Powered.

It arrived the next day from Dolphin, a very quick delivery indeed. Out of the box, I opened the quick-start guide which was pretty straightforward installation instructions. However, it contained references to a full product manual, which was no-where to be seen, but was pretty easily downloaded from the M-Audio website.

Once slotted in, I installed the driver CD that came in the box, everything seemed fine. Until, that is, I started Pro-Tools: no M-audio interface could be detected. It took me a while of internet searching to work out the problem: I needed to install the more up-to-date drivers from the M-Audio website which, once done, resolved the problem and pro-tools worked fine.

The difference in audio playback was just amazing, and midi latency down to an indistinguishable-from-zero level.

So I would thoroughly recommend this soundcard, with the minor caveat that you shouldn't assume everything you need to install it will be in the box!

Joseph Campbell-Dawson
December 2, 2006

Rating: 9/10

I recently bought this when my old Emu 0404 took a beating while moving house, and astonished is the only word.
The main thing I remember when installing the Emu was the amount of hassle it caused - i had to mix and match hardware until I came up with something that worked (I've checked on this at my local sound control, and apparently the 0404 is known for this :(!!!!! )
However setting up the Audiophile 192 was so simple I almost felt as though I was doing something wrong! - the drivers installed easily and painlessly, requiring only a reboot to finish the install.
One thing to note is that while I run one partition for Audio Apps, another is dedicated to gaming, and I have a Creative SB Audigy2 for that (EAX etc..) - these have NO problems being installed together - I even tried switching cards on the fly in a single partition and no problems.....trying to do this with the emu would probably have taken a while.....and hurt.
Moving on, I use Tannoy Reveal 5A's as near monitors so I wasnt expecting too much of a noticable difference in sound quality, so when I played a couple of reference tracks, stuff that I knew would really test it, I was very interested in the fact that the low and high ends just seemed that little bit crisper.
Moving on to DAW's, I like the feature that allows you to lock the sample rate in place - forcing cubase or logic to take its cue from the sound card as to what rate to use for new recordings - this saves time!!!
Again, loading up vst's and playing them was a joy - latency dropped to 2ms with this card, and I havent even tweaked it yet!!! With orchestral intruments the card shone again, the high end sparkling and instruments responding so well due to the lack of latency.
The control software does score a few negative points - simply because you often have to navigate through the tabs a couple of times before you find what you want - its very scattered with no clear indication of sections, and strangely the software itself looked far better presented on a mac.
The bundled software was a little dissapointing - with bundles sometimes now including dozens of items, it was dismaying to see that just a lite version of Ableton's renowned Live product was included, and no VST's for cubase users like myself!
The ability to use it as an M - powered device must be a blessing for some, as most m-powered hardware is external and quite often tends to get in the way (bad memories of the first M-Box!)

In conclusion, this is a rock solid card that, while it wont break the bank, will provide excellent quality for whatever application you wish to put it to, and will make you grin like a madman while you're testing it. Have Fun.