Internal Imac Card Or External, Is it worth spending my money??? Options

[joe_banana]

Hey,

is it worth spending my money on an M-Audio FireWire 410 for recording on an iMac G5??
Or is the internal soundcard just at good?


/Joe the Dane

[rickenbacker]

I may be missing something here, but there's no point setting your software to record at 24-bit if the iMac only captures at 16-bit. I can't see anything on the Apple tech spec sheet that suggests the iMac natively supports 24-bit audio recording, but I could be wrong.

If you set your sequencer to record at 24-bit but you're only capturing the audio at 16-bit at source, you don't get 8 extra bits of information free - you just get much bigger files to fiil up your hard drive.

Listen to what the man said: PreSonus Firebox. Great little box and about £250, which is cheap for the quality it offers. They also have another box just out called the Inspire 1394. Similar quality, but no knobs to control things with - it's all done in software.

That said, you can certainly use the preamps on your mixer and record via the line-in on your iMac for 16-bit "CD-quality". You'd be happier with a dedicated interface, for sure, but this method involves no money changing hands at all.