Hey there, I'm not sure if anyone knows the answer to this, but I'm desperate. My radio station got hit by lightening and our audioscience audio-out card was fried, but we do not have the $1600 necessary to buy a new one.

What I need, to get my radio station back up and running, is an audio card with balanced outputs that supports linux...does anyone know of any or know of a resource where I could find them?

We have been told to check out Echo MIA's for a price-range/feature ballpark, but those cards do not seem to support linux.

please help; We risk FCC fines as well as losing listeners for every moment we are off the air!

http://www.google.com/linux

Unfortunately I don't know enough about those types of sound cards to give a definite answer. Search a few card names and see if they're compatible. Good luck in your search.

thanks for your reply, I did already try that but didn't find much. Eventually, the alsa website (http://www.alsa-project.org) came back online and I was able to check for the echo mia card type and confirm that does in fact work on linux as far as it seems. I would suggest, for future searchers who might find this thread, to try finding the card you want first, and then checking the alsa-project's soundcard database to see if it is supported.

I have just ordered the card and will be testing it once it comes in.

Awesome. Glad you got it figured out.

Post how it goes with the Echo Mia card once it comes in. I have one just like it and I have been trying to find some Linux drivers for it.

Thanks!

well...I haven't had much luck yet; As it turns out, the echo-mia driver is only in alsa 1.0.9, which isn't in many distributions yet (here is a list: http://distrowatch.com/search.php?pk....0.9#pkgsearch). I had to attempt to compile the drivers myself, which I gave up on trying to do in ubuntu after some sort of dependency-induced hell; I wiped the HD and reinstalled gentoo (which I'm much more familiar with) and got a lot farther (I actually got alsa 1.0.9 working without any hassle at all), but for some reason the module still isn't showing up properly. I've got a few more tricks up my sleeve to try, but then I'm out of ideas; I'll keep you posted.

Out of curiosity, what distribution are you running?

I was just wondering why you need balanced output.

Yeah, I know that you probably want to interface with a pro radio console, but have you thought about trying an unbalanced output soundcard, then using an inexpensive mixer, or, even cheaper, a couple of direct boxes to balance the output between the output of the snd card and the input of wherever you need your audio to go?

I know this doesn't really answer your question, but it gives you alternatives.

- semi-retired sound engineer
(hakukani is hawaiian for 'weaver of sound')

I am running Fedora Core 4. I just got into Linux and am trying to transfer all the functionality of my Windows system over to Linux. Included in this is my Echo Mia card. I use it as part of my recording setup (audio technica condenser mic, art preamp, eq, and cool edit pro). I will keep searching for solutions to the driver problem as well and let you know if I find anything.

Thanks!

no luck yet, but I haven't had much time to work with it. Does anybody know who i can contact about alsa drivers? There's a chance I've stumbled upon a bug...

To answer your question, hakukani, I already have the audio card purchased, and it was recommended to me by our radio technician (who has influence on whether or not we can order a part from the powers that be (ie, what he agrees to is what our station will spend money on and nothing else)). So we have what we have...besides, I'd like to think if I have a card that's noted as supported, I can get it to work properly... Ideally, I'd like to go back to our audioscience card (because they write/release the drivers for linux themselves), but we just don't have the funds for that now.

...still searching for a way to get this to work... until then, our radio station is operating at a sub-par level.

Just to update... I have now gotten my mia-midi card to work!

I fixed the modules problem by switching to a 2.6.12 series kernel (I was using a 2.6.11, though I don't know what the big difference is as I was using alsa modules not included with the kernel). snd-mia modprobed find, and it should be noted that I had to use "echomixer" and not alsamixer to unmute the cards -- that was a little roadblock I discovered along the way. I'm still having a few troubles getting the device node created automatically, but I think that's more of a udev problem and I'm sure I'll get that sorted out within the day.

Hope this helps someone.

Jackson

The Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 LT from newegg.com is very cheap. Just use the optical output and an optical to balance output converter. This will provide isolation between the audio equipment and the computer. The Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 or Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 LT works as well or sounds as well as the Lynx Studio Technology LynxTwo.

BTW, optical is the best way to protect a device from very, very high voltage.