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#4413 - 09/09/02 07:39 PM What a waste of money!
Equalizer Offline
Member

Registered: 02/12/01
Posts: 525
Loc: Scotland
Over the years I've spent a fair few bob on music gear. Most of my purchases have been made after lots of research and generally speaking I've been left happy with what I've bought.

To date my worst ever purchase was a Les Paul Classic which cost a whopping £1,200 (over $1600!)- although it looked great, the frets buzzed and it didn't sound as good as my friend's guitar which was about one sixth of the price.

BUT the was in a past life. Since getting into synths I have to tell you, the biggest waste of money I feel I ever spent, was on an expensive pro audio sound card. I'll not give the name cos I'm not out to have a go at any particular company or card.

The point is... I was getting along quite happily with my mega cheap SB value card and I was making some good sounds with it. Since getting this new card, the recording process has become much more complicated PLUS I've been forced into buying expensive additional extras that I didn't need with my cheaper soundcard (eg- a mixer with a built in pre amp). Not only that, but I now need to buy monitors cos the (large and pefectly functional) speakers I've been using happily for years are no longer any good with the new card (cos when I plug the speaker jack into the output of my new card, the sound only comes out of one speaker instead of two, so I need to suddenly invest in a stereo speaker system with 2 jacks instead of one. If all of this wasn't enough, my hard drive has became cluttered loads of unwanted wav files since getting the new card (the reasons are slightly difficult to explain, but it centres around the fact that my new card can't play Cubase AND record from Sound Forge at the same time, whereas my old (cheap) card could. This means that when I record I have to do it from Cubase only, and as you know, in Cubase every single take you do is saved whether you like it or not)

FINALLY, to top it all off... I can't even notice any great difference in sound quality with the two cards. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure statically my expensive card is much better in terms of bit rate and all that stuff, but when it comes to listening to a song I've made on a CD player... there's not any noticable difference at all! Please don't slag my ears- I know they work fine.

Incidentally, when I was burning songs on my old card, nobody EVER complained about the sound quality.

Anyway, that's it. I'm through. Sorry for dragging on with this, but I just had to get it off my chest.

PS- Elvis and the Beatles never used fancy sound cards, and nobody seems to be complaining about that, do they?
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David

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#4414 - 09/09/02 07:50 PM Re: What a waste of money!
tekminus Offline
Member

Registered: 04/20/00
Posts: 1287
Poor you.

-tek

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#4415 - 09/09/02 11:09 PM Re: What a waste of money!
Cloakboy Offline
Member

Registered: 01/23/99
Posts: 523
Loc: Racine, Wisconsin USA
Sounds like you have too much money and not enough of a clue as to what you're doing.

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#4416 - 09/10/02 10:03 AM Re: What a waste of money!
Leon Offline
Member

Registered: 04/14/99
Posts: 585
Loc: British Columbia
ouch.....Low Blow Cloakboy!!
...but funny....
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...L

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#4417 - 09/10/02 03:40 PM Re: What a waste of money!
rattley Offline
Member

Registered: 11/14/99
Posts: 832
Loc: Punta Gorda Florida USA
Here's my 2 cents worth...............

I have always held the the opinion that the average person who has ever listened to any of my "songs" is NOT a professional audiophile. The equipment they are listening to these songs with is NOT state of the art either. I have never found it cost effective to have mega dollar monitor speakers, soundcards, and special equipment to make good tunes. I wouldn't enjoy my modest MIDI studio any more with these high dollar toys...........I would probably just get frustrated, like you, getting all this stuff to work right. Just because one has a million dollar setup doesn't mean their music is any better. "You can't buy real musical genius!"

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#4418 - 09/13/02 05:05 AM Re: What a waste of money!
Equalizer Offline
Member

Registered: 02/12/01
Posts: 525
Loc: Scotland
Well said Rattley
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David

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#4419 - 09/13/02 10:42 AM Re: What a waste of money!
tekminus Offline
Member

Registered: 04/20/00
Posts: 1287
So, Eq, what exactly is stopping you from going back? Also, you bought a complete mixer because you need a mic pre-amp? Heheh.

You could sell your stuff and cut your losses ..and what Cloakboy said.

-tek

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#4420 - 09/14/02 02:13 PM Re: What a waste of money!
Equalizer Offline
Member

Registered: 02/12/01
Posts: 525
Loc: Scotland
[QUOTE]Originally posted by tekminus:
[B]So, Eq, what exactly is stopping you from going back? Also, you bought a complete mixer because you need a mic pre-amp? Heheh.

You could sell your stuff and cut your losses ..and what Cloakboy said.


I did lots of research and a very honest and clued up guy from the local music shop revealed to me that I could buy a brand new 10 track mixer for around the same price as a mic pre-amp. It does everything a pre amp does and more.

Right now I'm chopping and changing between the two cards, but selling is out of the question.
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David

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#4421 - 09/14/02 05:43 PM Re: What a waste of money!
Cloakboy Offline
Member

Registered: 01/23/99
Posts: 523
Loc: Racine, Wisconsin USA
You can get a mic preamp for between $50 and $100. Unless you got the mixing board for that price range, you were taken for a ride.

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#4422 - 09/15/02 03:58 AM Re: What a waste of money!
Equalizer Offline
Member

Registered: 02/12/01
Posts: 525
Loc: Scotland
I got the mixing board for £80. You can indeed get cheap pre amps, but according to all sources, there is a noticable difference between a cheapo pre amp and a non cheapo. The pre amps that I was thinking of getting were made by companies like midiman and if you check out the prices you'll find that they're more or less the same price as my Beringer mixer was.

Anyway, who cares? I really just started this topic off to register an opinion about how I feel I've been misled by mass hype into buying something that I really didn't need- an expensive pro audio sound card.

I'm gonna let this topic die off now, as I don't really have much more to offer, (except maybe a few wranglings about the price of pre amps, which doesn't really interest me right now).

I've said my main point that I wanted to get across, and I'm quite happy for this thread to die out and reside in the archives for a while.

If people wanna take on board what I've said before buying an expensive sound card, then great. If not, then who caresss? - not me.

Thanks for the contributions!
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David

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