Worth buying???

[mbenken]

planning on buying a new soundcard for an athlon system on via chipset.
as far as i have read this forum there are users that just love the ews and some that feel its not that good of a card.
i am planning on using it for some sampling, hd-recording and for sequencing (electro).
i could get a ews64xl and a micowave for about $350. woth it, or this there a better card right now for my needs?
any help would be greatly appreciated

mirko

[Arnoud de Jong]

Hi,
It's rather difficult to give you good advice here. The EWS64XL + MicroWave (=XXL)defenitely is a good buy for that money if you are prepared to invest a lot of time in learning to get hands on it. But you should also take the following things into consideration:
- This year Terratec is releasing a whole range of new cards. They are mainly targeted at harddisk recording. So you should read:
* Our editorial in the EWSoundZine part of www.ews64.com
* The posting in this Discussion Forum dated February 16, called 'New card from Terratec'. This card is still under developement, so the information might be not 100% accurate. It's from a press release issued at the NAMM, but Terratec says this was only to give an impression about 'The EWS Concept'.

I think for sampling you still depend on the EWS64XL. The opinions about quality and ease of use vary from one user to another. One thing is sure: you have to invest a lot of time to get the results you want. At the other hand there are some very good cd's with samples for the EWS (like the one from Sonic Planet). It all depends on the amount of money you can spend. I think you could buy the EWS64XXL for the time being, and later upgrade to EWS-concept cards, combined with an external sampler. I myself don't use the sampling option of the EWS very much, so maybe someone else can give you some more detailed information about that topic.
Good luck,
Arnoud.
PS: if you browse the www.ews64.com you might get the impression that there are a lot of problems with the EWS, but that is biased: it's an independent support site, so it's a 'resevoir' of all past/present problems and solutions

[mbenken]

thanks a lot arnoud,
the reason i asked that question was that i already read most of the formum and the editorial, and that there were quite a bit of problems and drawbacks with the ews64 described.
i think i'll give it a try

[Arnoud de Jong]

Then you better start making room in your pocket calendar
Enjoy!
Arnoud.