M-AUDIO Flying Cow

[mmadd29]

I saw that Behringer SRC2496, at $129 great price, but I believe in you get what you pay for......I just wonder if it is something that could be used for a couple years...then upgrade...I like the standard 19" rack size.....and at that price, I could get a preamp since they run about $100....and still be in the cheap range....which means I can spend $$ on other stuff.

[Sanjay]

 

Ahhh - JB3 - yes you will truncate the last bits...4 bits for the 20 bit/8 bits for 24

Does it sound bad...not really. You'd have to have an A/B to hear the difference - and even then, its subtle.

Keep in mind the AD-20 outputs 20bit and many tapers use that and are find with the truncation of 4 bits.

Correct me if i'm wrong but i think the SBM-1 does this as well.  Seems to not be a big deal.

So the 20 bit flying calf should be ok for jb3.

[dnsacks]

surprised that nobody's suggested a digimodded edirol ua-5, a TON of folks use these with Jb3s -- the ua-5 provides a mic preamp, phantom power and an a>d convertor at a really attractive pricepoint.

[Brian Skalinder]

surprised that nobody's suggested a digimodded edirol ua-5, a TON of folks use these with Jb3s -- the ua-5 provides a mic preamp, phantom power and an a>d convertor at a really attractive pricepoint.

What he said.  IMO nothing comes close in terms of price / performance / feature set.

[Kyle]

Ahhh - JB3 - yes you will truncate the last bits...4 bits for the 20 bit/8 bits for 24

Does it sound bad...not really. You'd have to have an A/B to hear the difference - and even then, its subtle.

Keep in mind the AD-20 outputs 20bit and many tapers use that and are find with the truncation of 4 bits.

Correct me if i'm wrong but i think the SBM-1 does this as well.  Seems to not be a big deal.

The SBM-1 outputs at 16bits. Super Bit-Mapping is Sony's dithering protocol (think Apogee's UV22)

[(((KB)))]

Are there any issues with using a Flying Calf with a JB3, I'm a little confussed on the 24bit, I thought the JB3 will toss out the last 8bits, or am I nuts 
I suppose I could you a mic preamp after to adjust gain.

I've used a Flying Calf 20bit a-d for about 3 years or so with a mixer/pre in front of it... totally solid unit, accurate meters, never previously had a problem with it. Unfortunately for me, it died recently (my bad... the AC cable broke and didn't realize it until it was too late) otherwise, I'd still be using it. M-Audio said they were going to repair my Flying Calf for about 50 bucks so that's what I will probably do when time permits.
I don't think the lossed 8-bits is a big deal. My only complaint is that it's Coax out only. You have to use a m-audio CO2 or Hosa ODL-276 box to convert the Coax to optical for the NJB3. There is a posted recording of mine on archive.org if you want to hear it paired up with the Co2>NJB3 running 16/44.1: turbine2006-02-03
http://www.archive.org/audio/etree-details-db.php?id=33893

I almost bought a used Flying Cow to replace the Calf, but then noticed it's AC only (the Flying Calf is DC9v). Since I usually use portable power sources it's pretty much useless for me. For you, this might be a inexpensive solution since you always use AC.

Hope I've been helpful,

-Kevin