Hammerfall vs. E-MU

[RahCola]

Which one i should buy, the hammerfall HDSP 9632 or E-MU 1820M?

[dR-Green]

Never heard of Hammerfall HDSP 9632, own an E-MU 1820M. Voting would be misleading because its not a fair comparison. I'd just be voting for the one I went for (although I can recommend it, how it compares is a different matter).

The emu is excellent for sending sounds to and from any sound source, and connecting external devices only takes seconds to get the sound going to the right place. The Tf Pro preamps sound nice too. But like I said, I don't know how they compare.

But I'm happy with my emu purchase, it should be lasting me a couple of years, unless it breaks down

[clootie]

The Hammerfall is in a different price league altogether to the Emu.

Sure, the 9632 "may look" like a full spec'ed & packed card on the surface at £350 but its far from that imo. To turn it into a proper analogue Multi I/O requires you to buy additional PCI boards that connect directly into the the 9632, these boards cost a bare minimum of £100+ each for the 4 Out, another £100+ for the 4 In (the 8 versions are £150+ each, you need both if you want 8 I/O).

In a card like the 9632 Id personally want analogue Multi I/O's. (which takes the price to roughly £600 for a 4 I/O & £700 for the 8 I/O)


Which is quite a serious investment for a s/card...

[RahCola]

ok.... but how about the sound?

[sach]

Ive been researching this for a while now and every one i speak to from a professional recording background runs the RME.
Ive seen a few comparison charts and RME seems to have the lowest noise floor and smallest jitter rate.

[digital cave]

If you are planning to use 96 or 192 kHz sampling rate, RME is better choice. EMU is realy good value for money, but according to our testing, with some kind of software emulation for higher freq. range.