linuxaudio.org

On Wed, 2006-04-05 at 19:56 -0400, Dave Robillard wrote:

quoted text
> Agreed.  "We" don't need a bunch of useless consumer cruft on a card.

> However channels are good, don't downplay channels :).  This thing

> should have as many channels as possible.  Obviously there is a physical

> limit to how many you can cram in physically, but that's what lightpipe

> is for.  There's many 8x8 rackmount preamps out there you could hook up

> (including a nice and cheap one from Behringer)

>

> Frankly I think 60+ channels is completely unrealistic (otherwise one

> would probably exist), but what do I know.  If it's possible, hell yes

> put them in there.

>

> FWIW, my ideal audio interface _requires_:

>

> * As many channels as possible

> * At least 1 ADAT Lightpipe in/out

> * Clock sync

> * Balanced everything

> * Real 19" rackmount breakout box

> * Good low latency operation (in Linux w/ Jack) 

I think after reading the comments in this thread that you may have a

hard time finding a niche.  There are already devices on the market with

good GPL drivers that do all this - the appeal of the open graphics

project was that there were no good graphics cards with GPL drivers.
That leaves the options of competing on price/quality with the likes of

RME and M-Audio, or a DSP device, which although I think it's a cool

idea, there's a lot of resistance to it.  I don't think your feature set

is necessarily "consumer stuff", it's just that most such devices to

date (Creative) have kind of been crap.
Lately however Creative/EMU's DSP cards have been getting great reviews

(X-Fi, EMU 1212M, etc) - they seem to have fixed a lot of the common

complaints about the SBLive! based devices (crappy codecs, horrible

resampling).  And they are still damn cheap ($200-300 tops IIRC) but

have no Linux drivers.  This might be an area to investigate, but I

suspect you would need years of development to produce a device of that

quality for anywhere near Creative's price point.
Lee