Hearing Twice (was Re: Second Sight....)

[irsman@drift.winternet.com (Ian Schmidt)]

In article <6MAY199509494522@vax2.concordia.ca>,
Mitchell Spector <spector@vax2.concordia.ca> wrote:

>	And of course 16-bit sound resolution would make those patches
>sound even better (we're currently limited to 8-bit sound with the 
>Ensoniq 5503). This is just a pipe dream, but what would to take to
>clean things up in this area...some sort of new stereo card that could
>patch-in and enhance the current built-in sound chip, or would you have 
>to abandon it and basically add an Ensoniq 5505 w/ 1MB DOC-RAM on a slot 
>card? 

Have you heard an Ensoniq 5506-based item lately?  Ensoniq's ASR-10 sounds
as good as a CD.  You simply won't get that out of a computer (PC, Mac, or
GS) due to the switching power supply.  Nonetheless, it would be a neat hack,
and I'd consider buying one if someone made it.  You'd certainly want
to bypass the existing 5503, lest you forsake ROM3 compatibility.  The board
should also have SIMMs for a DOCRAM capacity of at least 4 megabytes (on pro
synthesizers these days less than 8 is considered amature, but call me
amature :), and good-quality DACs and output filters (ideally programable
filters, but I'd settle for fixed).  (yes, on the 5506 the DAC is not 
built into the chip, you supply it yourself).  Some kind of decent coprocessor
would be good too; Ensoniq sells a 5506 companion chip called Odie which is
basically a 68000 and some support hardware which would be ideal for such a 
board.

--
Ian Schmidt - irsman@drift.winternet.com - Self-proclaimed sound/music pimp
    "Where would I be without IBM?" - P. Robb, Information Society