[PlanetCCRMA] would a cardbus to PCI adapter allow laptops to use linux-approved PCI audio cards (Delta66)

[Niels Mayer]

i'm really beginning to get used to my new (used) M-audio Delta 66 & the
joys of envy24control (love easy routing/patching of spdif I/O to my ancient
but still wonderful Finalizer and M2000). I'm also getting used to
the stability and latency vs firewire and usb solutions...

In the future, I'd like to build a laptop solution using the same "proven"
technology, I'm wondering whether these would allow a PCI audio card w/
a laptop

*(1)
http://cgi.ebay.com/Magma-Chassis-CardBus-to-PCI-Expansion-w-PCMCIA-2-Slot_W0QQitemZ120532361972QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item1c1049e2f4#ht_3361wt_1167
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/330878-REG/Magma_CB364NE_3_Slot_CardBus_to_PCI.html

<http://cgi.ebay.com/Magma-Chassis-CardBus-to-PCI-Expansion-w-PCMCIA-2-Slot_W0QQitemZ120532361972QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item1c1049e2f4#ht_3361wt_1167>*(2)
http://www.team-solutions.com/Products/ISAPCI/PCIExp/1SlotCardBus.htm or
http://www.team-solutions.com/Products/ISAPCI/PCIExp/2SlotCardBus.htm
(looks like the OEM for magma given the look of:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/276169-REG/Magma_CB1F_1_Slot_Cardbus_to_Full_Length.html)

These PCI enclosures would house one or two M-Audio Delta-series cards,
which are now availble dirt-cheap on ebay, now that everybody's using their
laptops and usb/firewire.

Seems like a used magma cardbus->pci box holding a pair of used delta 66's
would be a cost-effective alternative to a firewire or RME cardbus solution,
while potentially offering decent noise and sound && w/o resorting to
further external boxes to distance the analog system from the computer (e.g.
external a/d's and d/a's driven by spdif or toslink). In addition to the
Delta 66 snd 44, I'm sure any properly "ground separated" balanced analog
I/o builtin to a pci card would perform equivalently well, e.g. ESI Juli@ or
Maya44.

The question is does the cardbus->pci box still allow the PCI audio card to
work with the stock linux snd-ice1712 and envy24control?

Theoretically, since Cardbus is the same as the PCI bus, one would expect
compatibility:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_card#CardBus

> CardBus are PCMCIA 5.0 or later (JEIDA 4.2 or later) 32-bit PCMCIA devices,
> introduced in 1995 and present in laptops from late 1997 onward. CardBus is
> effectively a 32-bit, 33 MHz PCI </wiki/Peripheral_Component_Interconnect> bus
> in the PC Card form factor. CardBus supports bus mastering</wiki/Bus_mastering>,
> which allows a controller on the bus to talk to other devices or memory
> without going through the CPU </wiki/Central_processing_unit>. Many
> chipsets, such as those that support Wi-Fi </wiki/Wi-Fi>, are available
> for both PCI and CardBus.


Niels
http://nielsmayer.com

PS: is this also an issue on w/ the M-Audio delta 44/66's when ganged
together via envy24control w/ digital sync??
http://www.jrigg.co.uk/linuxaudio/ice1712multi.html

PPS: Another non-FW/USB option is RME's "face" solution with their
propprietary cardbus card; but those are as expensive, if not more
expensive, than buying a new magma chassis and a new pci card*. Also, due to
rarity, chances are they won't be as heavily discounted as a used
pci-enclosure && used delta 66's, and your paying for that expensive Xylinx
FPGA instead of  mass-produced silicon like
http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/audio/controllers/envy24/  to basically
get the same feature set as envy24control:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Jul03/articles/rmehammerfall.asp*
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