Gadget Labs Wave/8:24 PCI Soundcard For The PC

[waltertore]

hi all: anybody know about these and what they are worth today? I am currently using a delta 1010 soundcard with 5 - electroharmonix 12AY7 mic preamps. I am also running windows xp. Thanks. Walter
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug99/a ... ?print=yes

[chris harris]

they're probably not worth much because of the fact that they were discontinued years ago. they were pretty decent for the money in the late 90s. the converters were actually on the pci card, rather than the breakout box. so, there is the potential for noise coming from inside the tower.

they're probably not any nicer than your delta 1010. I definitely wouldn't expect them to be an upgrade. And, I wouldn't pay much for one at all.

[Jay Reynolds]

Are you using WinXP? Because I don't think xp drivers were ever written for any of the Gadget Labs hardware.
+1 on sticking with the 1010.

[jv]

Actually, there is an XP driver available and it works quite well. After the company went out of business, some guy wrote an XP driver (and I think he got some help from a former employee of gadgetlabs). There are still a lot of people out there using them, even though the company went out of business around 2001 (as I recall). You can find more info or ask questions at www.gadgetlabs.org. I've been using one for years, first under windows 98 and now under XP and it works great. I actually found another one cheap, so I have it as a backup or I may eventually put 2 in my system for 16 channels. As for what they're worth, probably under $100.

[Jay Reynolds]

Actually, there is an XP driver available and it works quite well. After the company went out of business, some guy wrote an XP driver (and I think he got some help from a former employee of gadgetlabs).

Thanks for the info!

[RedCrownStudios]

I used to own one and can honestly say in my own opinion that they are crap. That was the first multichannel sound card I ever bought, around 8 years ago.

I only had it for a year before upgrading to 2 delta 1010's and I have to tell you the delta 1010's blow it out of the water in terms of sonic clarity.

I recently (3 months ago) opened up some old sessions from around the time period of when I owned the 8:28 and they sounded terrible. At the time, I couldn't hear it because I had really low end monitors but listening back now on a pair of Mackie 828s I can hear all kinds of noise in the tracks (when no instruments are playing) Plus, the tracks were really "thin" sounding, with no body.

I ended up giving my gadget labs 8:28 away some time ago to a friend.

I would avoid them.

Good luck!

[waltertore]

thanks for the replies! A local guy is selling a couple and I thought maybe they were something special. Walter

[ubertar]

Actually, there is an XP driver available and it works quite well. After the company went out of business, some guy wrote an XP driver (and I think he got some help from a former employee of gadgetlabs). There are still a lot of people out there using them, even though the company went out of business around 2001 (as I recall). You can find more info or ask questions at www.gadgetlabs.org. I've been using one for years, first under windows 98 and now under XP and it works great. I actually found another one cheap, so I have it as a backup or I may eventually put 2 in my system for 16 channels. As for what they're worth, probably under $100.

I'll second all of that. I have an 8/24 and a 4/96. I like 'em. I run them on XP.

[ubertar]

I recently (3 months ago) opened up some old sessions from around the time period of when I owned the 8:28 and they sounded terrible.

If these sessions were from 8 years ago, how much can you attribute the difference to the sound card? Was your other gear of the same quality then? How about your recording skills?

[jv]

I recently (3 months ago) opened up some old sessions from around the time period of when I owned the 8:28 and they sounded terrible.

If these sessions were from 8 years ago, how much can you attribute the difference to the sound card? Was your other gear of the same quality then? How about your recording skills?

I was wondering the same thing myself. One of the first things I did when I got my 8/24 was to record 8 channels with nothing connected to the inputs to see if there was any noise generated from the computer, since I was skeptical about the A/D being on the PCI card. All 8 channels were dead quiet.

[RedCrownStudios]

Yep, those are fair enough questions. In fairness I am using a better pre nowadays, and although I have some better mics, some of the ones used were the same ones used back then.

Although my other equipment is better and obviously I have grown in my skills, the biggest thing i really noticed was just the overall signal to noise ratio.

For those of you using that card successfully, all I can say is that its either probably either one of the following,

1) You guys are listening to playback on sub $1000 speakers and the speakers cant faithfully reveal all of the noise (which was my monitor situation back then)

or

2) I just simply got a bad card. Its always possible, not just with gadget labs, but with any manufacturer, sometimes a bad one just gets thru.

[RedCrownStudios]

P.S. -

I do want to make it clear that great things can be done with sub $1000 speakers, its just been something I have noticed, that once you break the $1000+ barrier with speakers (weather mackie, event, genelec, atom, etc) that there seems to be a graduated difference in definition of clarity.

In no am I putting down what can be done with any level of equipment.