ESI or M-AUDIO

Hi all,

I'm planning to buy new sound card. The choice (thanks to my low budget) has fallen on two: ESI Juli@ or M-AUDIO Audiophile 192.


I'm doing with Finale 2008 and GPO at the time but planning to attach midi keyboard to record performance trough MIDI lively and to record voices, various effects etc.

Can someone who have experience with this or similar sound cards please help me to choose?

EDIT:
I'm looking to buy and MIDI controller keyboard. What You say about M-AUDIO Oxygen 61 USB MIDI Controller. I suppose it works fine with Audiophile 192?

first of all, with pretty much all the 'newer' midi-keystations you don't necessarily need to use midi, it comes with a usb-cable which also works like a charm. m-audio keystations are very good indeed, go get one.

when you buy the m-audio card, you can run protools m-powered, if that's a plus or not depends on your daw-needs, but i'd say, you don't need it. the m-audio card is ok and reliable and i reckon the same goes for the ESI card, although i haven't heard of it before.

except for the brand name, these cards are pretty identical (as you might have already found out yourself), only the ESI offers you both balanced and unbalanced I/O which is probably useless to you.

you should check these reviews out to help you make your choice:
M Audio Audiophile 192
Meet Juli@, the new Sound Device from ESI - Product Reviews and Overviews - Home Recording Studio Help

Hey Robert.

thanks for the comment. I think I've already decided to buy M audio both sound card and key station. I just need someone to clarify that this "will do the job" for me.

thank you again!

good luck with it.

Anyone else with experience with M-audio?