I'm an Aussie myself. I have the nice advantage that I have friends in California who ship me out a big box of stuff sometimes... But I picked up a 2496 for $100 shipped to here, though I sold that locally once I discovered I needed more ports (for a profit no less... To give you an idea how ludicrous local prices are) - bought a Delta 1010LT instead. DJDeals.com will ship you a 2496, Delta 44 or Delta 66 for less than half what you'd pay at Allans if you don't need many ports (remember though '4 ports' means 4 *mono* ports) or you can try your luck getting an Ebay vendor to ship internationally on a Delta 1010LT (my pick for the hot one of the batch, though it does look like a mutagenic squid hanging out the back of your PC). Some of them will ship for about fifty bucks. Sounds like a lot until you realise you're getting over a $300 discount on the price of the card.
The reason DJ gear is so insanely expensive in Australia is because one import company (Electric Factory) has exclusive importer deals with most of the equipment brands (Numark, Stanton, M-Audio, Roland, Korg, Tascam, Hardcase, Ortofon...) and they're complete, utter assholes. Their customer service and service generally is non-existent - I had them try to brush off a support guy from the biggest DJ equipment chain in Australia looking for parts for a Numark turntable. Took him half an hour and five people trying to get rid of him before they grudgingly gave him a quote on a replacement tonearm weight - at five or six times the price that a *third-party vendor* in the USA will charge you. They seem to put about a 100-200% markup ontop what most importers will usually put on products, massively exploiting their monopoly, and they're assholes to boot. One importer being a leech is the reason audio gear (and DJ brands especially) are so ludicrously expensive in Autralia. Oh well, Ebay exists for a reason. :) ~Y On 12/20/07, ADOFMS Admin, SteveOC <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Thanks Poor Yorick, thats excellent advice. > > I wouldnt voluntary spend money on a creative card - especially when > these little $10 no brand 5.1 cards seem to work so well. Their driver > support has always been shoddy, and I wasnt aware that the ca106 was > just a bin blob. Not good. > > But do I keep hearing good things about M-Audio cards in particular .. > and that they have very awesome linux support. The Delta 1010 is a > silly price in Australia - will have to shop around, or maybe order one > in from across the border. > > Anyone want to buy an Audigy LS .. going cheap ? :) > > Thanks > > Poor Yorick wrote: > > Hey there, I have the same card (Audigy LS) sitting around here > > somewhere, I used to use it for DJing/Mixxx and hated it so utterly I > > layed out $150 on an M-Audio Delta 1010. :) > > > > The CA106 driver is a binary blob from Creative that doesn't support > > many features correctly and is generally pretty shoddy. Creative sucks > > in open-source, and even their closed-source Windows drivers are > > buggy, terribly written, slow, and they don't support them so that > > you'll buy their latest card to stop the bugs. My old Soundblaster 5.1 > > Platinum had a bug in the final driver version that would leave EAX > > effects running after they were activated (the driver's EAX cleanup > > was bugged) - Creative will never fix it, but that's cool because I > > don't use it any more, and I'm never buying another Creative card. > > > > The LS won't work in duplex mode in JACK unless you try something no > > one else has (CA106 driver flaw), and the latency is high (though > > that's true of any consumer card). The pops and crackles you're > > getting with ALSA are probably a problem with your Mixxx latency > > slider or your frequencies between Mixxx/alsamixer. Don't quote me on > > this but I think I ran the LS at 44100 because I was totally unable to > > get 48k to work properly. The card theoretically supports 96k but from > > what I understand it pretty much just downsamples everything to > > 44100/48k anyway. > > > > I liked the LS because I paid $30, and it made sound and it sounded a > > world better than my onboard. It's not a bad card until you try to do > > anything that isn't straight-up one-stereo-out playing stuff. > > > > Don't bother with a real-time kernel. Real-time processing is not > > really what it sounds like - its more to do with guaranteeing a > > 'done-by' time than super-low-latency - and while it will be lower > > latency and a touch faster than a stock kernel, the extra bother > > (especially for a budget consumer card like the LS) will just break > > your spirit. Try the low-latency kernel distributed with Ubuntu Studio > > or one of the Gentoo low-latency patchsets if you want to push the LS > > as far as it will go. Or do yourself a huge favour and buy an M-Audio > > card or a Maya. :) > > > > ~Yorick > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft > > Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2005. > > http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ > > _______________________________________________ > > Mixxx-devel mailing list > > [email protected] > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mixxx-devel > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2005. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ Mixxx-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mixxx-devel
