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Disadvantages
~ nothing's perfect !
Deficiencies of the EWS64 XL:
- The signal to noise ratio isn't quite up to that of 'professional' sound cards. Depending on your PC's hardware, the best values are just under 90 dB/A.
- Both digital outs of the EWS64 always embed the audio stream with the SCMS Copybit 'protection' scheme.
This can cause trouble with MD and DAT recorders that refuse to record digital signals with the SCMS Copybit code.
Note: Fortunately, the digital input of the EWS64 is able to record digital signals even if SCMS Copybit is present. - Due to limitations of the ISA bus (1MB/sec in PC´s with a PCI bus) the EWS64XL is only able to play either 7 stereo tracks or 12 mono tracks at the same time. By contrast, the throughput for a PCI card can be up to 100MB/sec.
- The headphone output is very noisy. It is recommended to use an external mixer or amplifier for professional monitoring.
- The virtual MIDI ports, unfortunately, aren't multi-client. Should this be required, use a third party utility, like Hubi's MIDI loopback device.
- The effect section of the EWS64 (especially reverb and chorus) are only of average quality. I recommend using high quality VST or DirectX plugins instead.
- The EWS64 is quite complicated. With experience, however, it's wealth of features and creative possibilities become apparent.
- Configuration in Cubase can be problematic, often taking a lot of time - the patience of many EWS64
users gives out at this point.
You'll find help on my page - Cubase set-up. - The sound card's original control panel is a little confusing. A very good alternative is available in Uwe Kindler´s EWS64 proMix and EWS64 XproMix for W2000. These tools offer a good overview and comfortable control of the EWS64 (see Links)
- In my experience, the EWS64 has compatibility problems with the Nemesys GigaStudio 2. Nemesys Gigasampler v1.61 runs with the EWS64 only (via EWS64 Codec).
- The EWS64XL makes a lot of demands on a PC's resources. A full installation needs 3 interrupts, 2 DMAs and several address ranges.
- For the EWS64, a motherboard with at least one ISA slot is necessary. Unfortunately, modern boards no
longer have ISA slots..
At my page Micro PC for the EWS64 is detailed information on how to get around this. - The ES64 S isn't as good as the EWS64 L/XL/XXL: Please read chapter Introduction EWS64 / EWS64 S for further information.
- Under Windows 2000/XP the card only fully works in standard PC mode. With ACPI mode not being available, the main disadvantage is that auto shutdown isn't possible.
C/O 2002-2012: Werner Ogrodnik (Cologne, Germany)