External sound cards as stand-alone ?

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

<arg_@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1106576972.237258.240860@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com
> Hello,
>
> I plan to buy an external soundcard for my laptop and I am thinking of
> the m-audio firewire audiophile.
> I have one basic question though; can it be used as stand-alone also
> (for instance as external DAC to a CD player) or it has to be
> controlled by the laptop

AFAIK, almost all external audio interfaces including the one you mentin
must be controlled by some external host. Firewire is interestng, bcause at
some level it is a peer network. In contrast USB is generally thought to be
a host/client network. While its tough to make a peer network out of a
host/client network, the reverse can be doable - even easy.

Therefore, devices on a Firewire network can still conform to the
host/client model. As a rule audio interfaces are clients, not hosts and not
peers.

Also, the basic concept of using an external DAC with a CD player is not the
best idea. Better to get a good modern optical disc player that has very
good converters of its own. Might set you back $50-100! ;-)

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

arg_@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> I plan to buy an external soundcard for my laptop and I am thinking of
> the m-audio firewire audiophile.
> I have one basic question though; can it be used as stand-alone also
> (for instance as external DAC to a CD player) or it has to be
> controlled by the laptop

Dunno on the M-Audio, but the RME Multiface and Fireface can both do this. They will function not only as an ADC and DAC, but will preserve I/O routing and headphone matrix settings as well. They do need to have continuous external power (AC for the Fireface, DC for the Multiface) in order to preserve the config.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

metric halo uln2
has boot state and 9 snapshots which allow it to be used as a stand
alone interface

dale

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Sven wrote:
> Kurt Albershardt wrote:
>
>> Dunno on the M-Audio, but the RME Multiface and Fireface can both do
>> this. They will function not only as an ADC and DAC, but will
>> preserve I/O routing and headphone matrix settings as well. They do
>> need to have continuous external power (AC for the Fireface, DC for
>> the Multiface) in order to preserve the config.
>
>
> Fireface800 does NOT need to have continuous power to preserve
> settings... You can save settings (with the driver GUI in your computer)
> into it's internal memory and keep these there without any power. Then
> you just switch it on as standalone and the settings are there.

Cool, thanks for the update. Wish it had DC power input, though...