M4400 Sound-card replacement

I thought the M4400 had even a generic sound-card until I ran Symphobia on it! Boy, did I have a laugh!

So pretty much I hear some people have been hooking up external sound-cards to theirs, but to me, that sort defeats the purpose of the portability of a laptop so...

What better sound cards can be swapped into the M4400? Or is that even possible?

 

You could really just Google this ...

Anyway, there are probably not many internal soundcard choices, but the M4400 has a myriad of ports, so you could choose USB (maybe even E-SATA), PCMCIA, or Expresscard soundcards. I think Expresscard ones tend to provide decent performance for their size, such as the Creative Labs etc. (http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=209&subcategory=669&product=17988)

Of course shop around to find out what suits your needs.

 

Stuff like Symphobia is never gonna run well on internal soundcards. For that you'll need at least a decent ASIO equipped card and afaik they dont come in an internal variant. I'd look at the Echo Indigo range if i were you, they come in expresscard and pcmcia types. Very good audio quality and cheap. All the creative stuff is nice for simple music listening and movies but not for production.

 

Thanks LPTP-LVR, I don't know about production things, so I'm learnt something new. Every day's a school day ...

 

Thanks guys, I hope you understand that I'm completely blank on sound cards since I got Symphobia thinking that it would simplify my little foray into creating my own compositions!

I appreciate the input, LPTP, were you referring to one of these?
http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.co...247018&src=3WFRWXX&ZYXSEM=0&CAWELAID=26020314

I have never needed to make use of express card slots before so please excuse me if that is different. About the Indigos, I want the 'IO', and not the 'DJ', correct? Also, aren't there slightly cheaper alternatives to echo? I was thinking something lower than $100 for a sound card...

 

Any internal sound cards for laptops (including ExpressCard and whatnot) will be pretty crap. If you want audiophile-grade stuff, you can get a good USB DAC... But you'll then also need an amp, which will have to be powered. I haven't investigated this, but something like a USB DAC + small USB-powered amp (i.e., one DAC-amp device that's powered by 2 USB ports) might potentially be an option, but I doubt there are any (good) manufacturers of that yet. There are also battery-powered USB DAC/amps out there, but they're probably above $100.

 

The one you found is the PC CARD version (PCMCIA or Cardbus card)
As long as you'll be using it on the M4400 you're fine because it has both PCMCIA (on the right-hand side) and pci-express (newer card type, on the left-hand side)
Most newer laptops don't have the PCMCIA card anymore but i see the pci-express version (Echo Indigo IOx) is a lot more expensive.
If i were you i'd look for a deal on ebay or something. If you buy a cheaper card now you'll probably find yourself wanting to upgrade soon anyway, effectively wasting the money you spent on the first card. The thing is that you'll need good ASIO drivers providing low latency monitoring of what you're playing. Especially if you have a keyboard hooked up you'll want the delay between hitting a key and hearing the sound to be as short as possible. for me anything form 20ms is audible and annoying enough to throw me off my timing sometimes. With the Indigo you'll probably get around 4ms which is perfect, you can keep it extremely low if you're not running like 18 track with vsti's and effects and such at 96khz

and no....i don't have an interest in Echo

 

Why do you think expresscard or pcmcia is never good? I have an E-mu 1616m PCMCIA card that runs @ 192khz....doesn't get much higher than that. It does come with an expansion box which gives you DSP effects and mastering grade AD/DA converters (same as in the focusrite stuff and the protools digi interfaces) The small card doesn't give all connection options but it does give the high quality....comes at a price though.

 

cheapest i found....by far, and less than $100

http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.co...layback-Card-?sku=247018&src=3WMS3FR&ZYXSEM=0

 

haha, so we DID find the same one

Thanks for the thorough expanation LP.

edit: I've decided to go with the indigo!