All user reviews for the Aardvark Direct Pro 24/96

I paid 500 bucks at Musicians Friend.

The preamp is great. It has phantom power which is a plus. There is very little latency with my cheap midi keyboard. This unit works well with Cubase and Fuity Loops, I never used it with anything else. Records great.

It's a bit pricey and doesn't have an effects send. Aardark is out of business now so you can't get a warranty or tech support. But the drivers are easy to find on the net.

The PCI card is shielded and seems rock solid. The breakout box is a little light and seems flimsy (some of the parts are plastic), but I have knocked it off of my desk several times and it has had no ill effect on the unit so far.

This is a great unit and has dropped in price since they went out of business, I recommend picking one up on ebay form a reputable source...like I said there is no longer a warranty, but I've never needed mine.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Purchased in January 2003 after a lengthy read and reread the opinions of this site and compared the equivalent products.

4 I / O jack 6.35
S on a monitor RCA
headphone jack
MIDI IN and OUT
1 S / PDIF
A set volume of output
DSP
Comes with Cakewalk Pro Audio 9

my configuration:
P4
abit motherboard BE7
512 of ram
80GB hard drive
Windows XP Pro
Cubase SX

I put 9sur this point, I have loved I / O XLR

UTILIZATION

Installation without problème.On branch, we put the drivers, it turns!
A small downside to the manual in English only, but well, frankly I do not know anything about Mao and I hardly needed the manual and illustrated for the most franchouillard of us.
Everything is clear in the control panel.

GETTING STARTED

Until now (6 months) no plants. Drivers who hold the road, apparently not many updates on the site of AARDVARK (1 in 6 months), but why change a winning team, especially the main drivers are provided : ASIO, MME, GSIF.
Level latency in cubase SX around 10 ms, but not down with the sizes of buffers, I have not tested it yet, I'm still on the original settings, which suits me for now.

In enristrement audio, I had fun with 15aine tracks, a few see several effects on each, no problem 44.1Khz/24bits.
converters are very good and the preamps are very good to see good enough. (better than analog table of prehistory)
DSP side, I find the compressor means (not ask the impossible to the digital) and the reverb is correct if we can not afford to 3000F in an analog device.
Anoter that the DSP is in bypass when you are 24/96Khz
routing I / O modular proficient at will
The control panel gives access to a complete mix of inputs, outputs and backs play with and to see clip.
Some will regret the abscence of word clock.

OVERALL OPINION

I have now for six months.
I love that simplicity and 1 / 4 of rak external sober and robust quality.
She has everything I wanted without superflux and value for money which I think is good in this range.
Only small shadows in the picture, then, the absence of world clok (which I could not help) and choice of I / O jack only.
I can not make conparatif with other cards, but unless they find me a card with the same characteristics, the same qualitée and a significant price difference I do not change it.