Concerning Hercules Audio

I have worked with Guillemot, owner of the Hercules Brand. I was the Technical Support Audio Technician for about 6 months. During that time, I got to help people setup their now-defunct ISIS sound cards. The problem with this is that they have no clue as to what they're doing.

Guillemot scammed my government into paying salaries for them. They hired me on the premise that the government were paying my salary, then after 6 months, the subsidy ended, and so did my job. I was never made permanent, and was always a temp, so when they laid me off, they invoked a bogus reason, like "you have a blatant lack of initiative". Initiative? I have to wait for phone calls!

Today, I have no beef against them: I ahve them to thank for getting me this really great job as Energy Efficiency Expert in one of the biggest companies in the world. So THIS IS NOT PERSONAL.

As far as their technical knowledge, well, they're french. That means they're about a year late: M-Audio, Aardvark Audio and a lot of other companies have already come out with USB2.0 alternative to Firewire. Cards that, although they don't have a bunch of inputs, have REAL quality.

When Guillemot put out their old ISIS card in '98, it was apparently top-notch stuff. Main problem: compatibility. Windows 95 OSR2 or 98 were the only version that were supported. 98SE and ME weren't properly done, drivers were never reissued, and then when W2K came out, they "software layering wasn't proper for the architecture of the card". Oh well... so much for that 500$. They subsequently dropped all support. I tried to get source code or schematics for the card itself so I could help out a friend developing a cool driver for Linux support, but no one even bothered responding to my emails.

Plus, the ISIS was a 16-bit, 48KHz capable card - or so they said. The card could actually do 24-Bit, 96KHz. The problem was that they had no software developers who knew how to program the compatible chips and drivers, so they bought a cheap chipset and they had it locked down to a lower defnition. We all got shafted by them.

So now, this new 16/12 card? No way. For that price, I'll go out, buy myself an Aardvark card any day, and at least I'll know that Aardvark Audio will offer support. Hercules is stuck in politics, scandals, money problems and scamming customers. They won't offer you support: they don't HAVE support of their own.

My advice: don't even bother with this sound card. Read about Guillemot out there, before making an 800$ mistake. Guillemot try to appeal to the masses with low prices and nice presentation. But would you buy software from the bargain bin? I sure wouldn't.