Soundcard...?

[ZackParrish]

It depends on how the studio is setup. For a person just recording single tracks for vocals I doubt they would need anything faster than USB2.0, but for someone like me, where everything I do with audio pushes my PC to it's limits, the faster something is, the better. It just depends on the scenario for why someone would need more. Luckily for my sake though, I use an internal card and don't rely much on USB ports outside of random license keys and a MIDI controller, but if I was to use an external audio device for multi-track recordings, I'd definitely go with 3.0 over 2.0.

[AxemRed]

Of course USB 3.0 is better than 2.0, I'm just questioning in what practical situation bandwidth limitations of USB 2.0 would be relevant (theoretical throughput = 340 channels 44.1KHz 16-bit stereo).

[ZackParrish]

Just depends on the studio I suppose. I don't work with anything less than 96khz and 32bit unless limited by the hardware, but nothing I own has any problems with it. Might be overkill though.

[ZackParrish]

I ran the numbers for 480Mbits/second and there is no way you can transfer that many channels at that sample rate and bit depth.

60mb/sec(what it really is when converted to bytes),

1 second of 44.1khz 16bit Mono = Roughly 5.3mb

For 340 channels of mono audio data, that would be 1802mb. There's no way.

[AxemRed]

480 Mbit/s = 480,000,000 bit/s
44.1KHz 16-bit stereo has a data rate of: 44100Hz * 16bit * 2 = 1,411,200 bit/s
480,000,000 / 1,411,200 = 340.136

[ZackParrish]

I concur, it appears my programmer friend gave me the wrong approximation on the audio portion of that. That's what I get for taking someone's word over looking it up myself. ;D He thought I meant a minute of audio instead of a second....and was referencing bits instead of bytes...

My apologies. Still, even with the theoretical throughput ... I have a hard time believing USB can handle that much transfer... but I suppose other factors might impact it... like the devices used. :p

[Joshua1207]

If you're recording singing/voice acting it might be worth investing in an audio interface since those basically act as your soundcard when in use. Buy an interface + a microphone and you should be good to go