Lexicon Omega USB audio interface

[jukingeo]

Hello all,

I am looking into purchasing an ALSA compliant audio interface for my machine. At first I was thinking about an internal PCI sound card (which I may still do), but I have always been interested in the Lexicon Omega. Low and behold on the ALSA site, it says it is supported!

So I am curious if anyone has had experience with the Lexicon Omega and if they can document their results here.

Thank You,

Geo

[mindlessbabel]

It's what I'm currently using. Works like a charm. I basicly record 2 tracks simutainously, one mic input and one line input. Haven't had a chance to use all 4 channels at once, yet.

[studio32]

I choose for a maudio audiophile 2496 cause I think it will be 'always' supported on linux. And as a preamp I bought a m-audio dmp3 and that works great.

I like this better then those all in one devices. I think the quality is better, and it's more easy to upgrade the hardware, cause if you want to have a better preamp later, you don't need the preamp of the lexicon anymore.

And I think in this way I've a better support on linux, there can come a time that the lexicon isn't supported anymore on linux very well, the same happened with the tascam Us 22 or something...

[jukingeo]

I choose for a maudio audiophile 2496 cause I think it will be 'always' supported on linux. And as a preamp I bought a m-audio dmp3 and that works great.

I like this better then those all in one devices. I think the quality is better, and it's more easy to upgrade the hardware, cause if you want to have a better preamp later, you don't need the preamp of the lexicon anymore.

And I think in this way I've a better support on linux, there can come a time that the lexicon isn't supported anymore on linux very well, the same happened with the tascam Us 22 or something...

Agreed,

Since I created this post, I was very unsure about the Lexicon Omega, and there seems to be mixed reviews on it. Some love it, others couldn't get it to work.

I went with an Echo Mona, which had more ins/outs than the Omega and it is more of an "industrial" unit. I bought it on the information I got on the ALSA website and supposedly the device was supported. However, the Echo Mona proved to be a disaster. I NEVER got it to work in ANY Linux distribution. What is more, I was for a short time in contact with the ALSA developer for the driver. I would go several days between emails and he didn't have a solution for me. So what good is that if even the developer couldn't or rather didn't want to help me out. Needless to say I put the Echo Mona right back up on Ebay and sold it last week.

Totally fed up with my sound problems now, I decided to give it one more go. I settled on the M-Audio Delta 44 sound device. It is very stripped down, it only has 4 line ins and 4 line outs (all balanced). There are no pre-amps, no meters, no midi, no word clock, no SPDIF. I thought I would regret the purchase, but this audio card was like sprinkling magic pixie dust on my computer. All of a sudden everything worked WITHOUT a single ounce of system configuration.

I have a triple boot system in which I am booting to Windows XP, Ubuntu Studio, and Puppy. In addition, I have Dynebolic on a boot to directory (Dynebolic doesn't need a hard drive partition for set up) and I am also testing OpenSUSE 11.0 off the live disk. EVERYTHING has sound.

Jack never worked better.

Sure the in/outs are a shortcoming, but I always could get a stand alone pre-amp and I already have a Midisport 4x4 which I intend to use for Midi I/O.

Do I regret going with such a simple audio interface? Absolutely not! In fact if my hindsight was 20/20, I wouldn't have wasted 4 months on system configurations with "unsuitable" sound cards and went with the Delta 44 right off the bat.

I am hoping down the road that Linux does get better USB support. But it does seem that something is being done with firewire in regards to FFADO. So I am keeping an eye on that. My machine has firewire as well. But for now, the Delta 44 is working wonders.

Geo