Lexicon Core 2

Like some other reviewers here, I bought this box at a massively-reduced price in a clearout sale. I later sold the MP-100 board I got with it for more than I'd paid for the whole package, so financially, I can't really complain!

Wish the breakout box was rackmountable, mine keeps falling out of the back of my rack!

Installing is a horrible pain, even if you have a "recommended" spec PC. It gives you a hint of how fragile this board's configuration is - it's not a robust process. I think it took me a couple of attempts to get it properly settled in with my Cubase VST setup.

Since then, it's been fine. Just don't fiddle with it!

By sheer dumb luck, my Compaq PII-400 happened to have the "recommended" Intel 440BX chipset so I've never experienced any clicks, pops or glitches.

I really can't fault it, especially for the price I paid. Lovely dbx limiting means I worry much less about clipping during recordings. The D-to-A's are excellent too - although balanced I/O would have been appreciated to make the most of them.

Well, by definition, you're gonna have to be running Win98 to use this card. For me, that means my audio PC is firewalled off from the internet, and basically kept as a snapshot of about 1999. If you're old-skool like me and don't use any plugins/softsynths and all that stuff, it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Believe me, it IS ABSOLUTELY possible to run a reliable Win98 box. You've just got to keep it simple, and forget your 21st-century performance expectations.

Once you've got this card up and running on a suitable PC, you basically need to set your configuration in stone. For that reason, I can only give it a 5 - it's a thing of fragile beauty.

Everything that can be said about Lexicon's support for this product, HAS been said.

Basically, they messed this one up. People can jump up and down about it, but nothing's going to change it. I do feel for people who paid full retail, expecting a long support life for this though.

As I mentioned above, I'm an "old-skool" user - I basically use Cubase VST as a MIDI sequencer with a 16-track recorder attached. I don't use softsynths or even effects plugins so my Pentium II-400 doesn't get thrashed, and 256Mb of RAM is more than sufficient.

For my needs, this card has been great. I fully intend to keep it around for many years yet - using the ADAT I/O with a Yamaha digital mixer for example.

Would I buy it again, no, absolutely not. I'd probably get a nice rackmounted something-or-other from the Echo range, and use it with a much more modern PC. But it's worked for me, which is why I'll give it a 6.

I think I got this thing 2002 or so from Guitar Center for about 25 bucks since it was discontinued and they were blowing it out, so no harm done there.
Not exactly plug and play...be prepared for hours of serious messin'. Or Maybe you're lucky and it just works the first time. I have it on an old Celeron 566 MHz machine, 320M of RAM, (obviously running Win98SE), I've worked out all the kinks and the computer is used only as a recorder using CEP2 and Wavelab. Totally stable, and you can bet I'm not changing anything on it anymore... I recorded a couple of projects with this system ; definitely had to adapt to only 4x inputs, but happy with the results. Recently upgraded to a used Echo Layla 24 for 175.00 and a used 2GHz machine for 75.00. Not sure what I'm going to do with the Lexicon now, maybe give it to some kids to experiment with.. I'd definitely keep it if reliable XP driver were available.

Once/if you get it working properly, it sounds great IMO. A/D conversion (while no Rosetta), is totally acceptable. I've had no issues with noise. I leave the DBX tape saturation/compression on all 4 inputs. Don't have the reverb card, so no comment on that. I've bounced ADAT tracks via lightpipe to CEP2 for editing, worked great. Again, once you've achieved some degree of stability, it does what it should.

I think I can depend on it, I cut a record with it over a year without issues, but there is no way I would do any hardware or software upgrades at this point, too afraid it'd screw it up...

Never attempted to contact Lexicon, I already know their answer to the XP driver question...
Also, since I got the thing for next to nothing, I'm still ahead. I do have the drivers for MAC and an old dual 500MHz G4 laying around, maybe I'll try that sometime. But again, only supports OS9 not OSX, so kinda the same deal with Win98 vs XP

I play Americana/Country/Honkytonk (telecaster) coming up on 20 years, and for about 10 years made a living at it, also have a degree in audio recording from a major university. I usually tackle only one album project per year (kids and day job now), usually engineering/producing in a commercial facility. I have tons of mics, pres, vintage tube consoles, etc and plenty of experience with most of the gear you come across. This was the first card of this type I've owned. I'd have to give it a 10 for value, c'mon it was 25.00! If I had to pay full pop for it I'd be a different story, more like a 5. If "lost or stolen", the thieves are welcome to it....

Yes Lexicon let us down. Great card, great sound. I had 2 channels on tape simulation setting and loved the warm sound it would capture. Now it's in a box in a shelf somewhere. No drivers for windows XP, what a shame. I felt I was left behind from Lexicon with it's lack of consideration for old costumers like us. They decided not to develop drivers for anything above windows 98. I will never buy a Lexicon product again.

I loved this card worked great on win98

good

reliable till you change to XP, then it does not work!

I have called em and they said they will not be making XP drivers...
What a waste! I spent 500$ for this when it came out. I think I deserve some &@%#*@ XP drivers!

Great on win 98, Trash on XP. I HATE WIN98, MAKE SOME XP DRIVERS! PLZ!

Well..1st of all, I have it installed on a AMD system.
Specs: AMD 900 Mhz overclocked to 1.2 Ghz
Abit KT7A- RAID version 1.2 with latest BIOS with VIA chipsets
Via Chipset drivers
All Windows Versions OS's (win95-winme, yeah have a multi OS setup)
3dfx Voodoo 3 3500 TV
Yamaha SW1000XG Soundcard
Terratec EWSXL Soundcard
Advansys SCSI Card
Netgear FA310TX Network Interface Card
Well, the card is not hard to setup, what will happen is that it will ASSUME you have your programs installed on your C: partition as default. Other than that, you can go into the registry and just point the card to the partition that your OS is installed on for the software to work properly.
Once set up, it is pretty darn easy to use. And yes...it is sharing its IRQ.

Well..it sounds pretty clean to me, and the FX are very very good. Not like the Core32's PC90 reverbs of course, but still useful.

AHsnt giving me any problems. The only way yuor ever going to encounter problems is with Windows itself (dirty registry, corrupted files and so on)
Im a pretty good tech at this, and Ive always installed the minimun drivers needed for everything and always updated WINDOWS OS'S FIRST!!!
So, you may feel to back up and install everything from scratch and one piece at a time into your computer.
Too bad Lexicon hasnt any WIN2k/XP drivers for it. What a shame!
Anyone know how to program, or port or is it recompile the existing drivers to use in 2K and XP??

Who cares,...its a discontinued product and they were never 100% behind it. Same thing they did with the Lexicon Studio.
Never supported the newer versions of Windows.

Well...because I am a tech,...and I know most people are not and the fact that Ive had NO trouble in seting this up in my AMD system. I will probably say for a tech type guy I'd give it a 8 overall.
AS a non tech guy, and for all the confusion and troouble you may get,...a 6 sounds respectful considering the money you can buy this for. Very cheap, including the FX addin card.
Pity the lack of updated and newer drivers,..the damn fools.

Once the drivers and card are installed, the core 2's interface is quite intuitive. Changing peramiters like input and monitering levels is simple as can be. The user interface is probably one of the system's best qualities. However, one must first install the card and get the drivers to work. This is not a task for the faint of heart! One must be persistant, but admit defeat if it comes to that. The Core 2 is NOT COMPADABLE WITH AMD PROCESSERS, and Lexicon has offered no remedy since they discontinued the product several years ago.

Sound quality is excelent. The system offers 24-bit sound quality, but i am happy recording at 16-bit. in general, one would be hard pressed to tell a difference. Lexicon integrated a circut on the input chanels to emulate a "tube sound". These can be switched on or off with switches on the card itself. However, the use of an external preamp is advisable. I have recorded both with and without a tube preamp (with the tube emulation swiched on in both cases) and there is a major difference in the "warmth" of the sound. Lexicon was nice enough to let the user decide about the tube sound.

In general, my Core 2 has proved to be reliable. My computer is a piece of trash, so the system crashes quite often even after numerous hardrive reformats and replacements. I don't believe the Core 2 is at fault, because the computer was finiky before i installed the card. In my experience, if you (the user) takes the time to read reviews like these, and check the Lexicon Core 2 database, all the magor problems can be avoided. If you don't check and go ahead with an AMD processor or try and use with Windows XP the system will give no end of trouble. Use common sence.

Customer suport is minimal since the product was discontinued. This can be a royal pain, but there is enough information on the Lexicon web site to just scrape by. REMEMBER, LEXICON HAS OFFERED NO DRIVER UPDATES SINCE THE PRODUCT WAS DISCONTINUED SEVERAL YEARS AGO.

I record all my band's music, my own music and, more recently have begun recording for other people. The instruments i have recorded with the Core 2 range from strings and group vocals, to rock drumsets and high spl guitar cabinets. I record to Cakewalk where i also edit and mix.
If the unit were lost or stolen, i would probably buy it again, if only because of a lack of funds. In my experience, the unit has worked real well for me. The thing i really like about the system is that it is expandible. You can plug in an adat and a s/pdif unit to get an aditional 9 chanels for a total of 13. I have found this feature particularly useful for recording drums.
I wanted to tear the little thing's circuts off one by one for the first month or so while i was wading through all the driver and amd issues, but now that that is three years behind me, i am a happy camper. For the price, i haven't really found a better system. Don't loose heart, it's worth the extra grey hairs... in the long run.

I can't get it to work on a P4 with an Intel MB. Windows 98 SE. Jacked around forever trying to get a free IRQ. Now it's got one but I downloaded the 2.21 drivers and still can't get the LexPanel. No audio in Cool Edit. I even uninstalled CE 2000 and installed the one that came with the card. Been on this for 2 days.

I wouldn't know.

Not really.

hehehehe. Reading the other comments on this board has pretty much told me I'm on my own.

I wish I could get it to work.

I recorded 7 tracks simultaneously with a Behringer ADA-8000 hooked up to Core2's optical. I use a Windows 98, and a Pentium II @400mhz 512megs of ram on an old ATX SOYO SY-6B+ motherboard. My hard drive is under 7200rpm and 10megs or less. Noticed some sluggishness on my stereo mix downs but hope to see improvement by using dual hard drives at 7200rpm @40-120megs. A freind reccommmends Seagate Barraccuda because their supposed to be quiet. I'm recording @ 16 bit with Cool edit Pro's "teaser" version (it only let's you do 10 tracks and no effects, but I'm able to adjust volume and pan my stereo mix downs). I'm keeping it simple so as not to tax the CPU. I use a 16bit video card and the motherboard has no onboard video.

I haven't tried it at 24 bit yet. 16 bit is fine for what we need. I record with my friends live every Saturday night in my Living room-two electric guitars, bass, vocal, and drums. I burn CD's for everyone.

It's fine. I thought about rack mounting the computer and getting a flat screen monitor to pack it around, But for now I'll use a stereo mini-disc recorder for that.

Extremely wimpy and lame. So lame that if and when I upgrade I will not go with Lexicon again. I don't care how good Lexicon Core 32 is. I'll find another brand.

Most people don't have 1000 or 2000 dollars to spend in one chunk. So you have to buy in pieces, and buy cheap, and buy as smart as you can. The first machine which someone gave me was an old AMD tower @ 333mhz which didn't work. So I had to build a new machine. It was a pain but a good learning experience. I may get an MP-100 card to see how that works. I would like to add is, EQ, compression, and reverb but not sure the machine can handle it. My friend says I can go through the Behringer's 8 outs and do it conventionally. Lot's of things to try still. Generally, though I don't like to get to caught up in engineering. I just want to play the Blues.

very easy to get a good sound. put it in the motherboard, switch on, load the drivers and go. make sure you read the manual. dont use via chipsets, make sure it isnt sharing an irq and use 2 hard drives: one for the os and one to record on.

follow these rules and its great.

also why are so many people whining about win 98. if you set up a fast machine with it, (correctly) it can and does outshine the bloated, security flaw ridden, rush job that is known as XP.

pro quality

yep

there is none

but give them a break eh? it looks like most of the reviewers expect the earth. i know it should not be necessary to know the intricate working of a computer, but this card was one of the first of its type and i suspect it wasnt designed for mainstream users but people who built studios with a fair degree of knowledge.

the average joe and the above average joe shouldnt buy it at any price. for the few that remain it is a wonderful bargain.

get a mic preamp

For All: Have you tried installing the drivers in Windows 2000 under Windows 98 compatibility mode? It may work. I installed a program that was only supposed to work in windows 98 this way and works perfectly.....

Lexicon has failed as an audio company. I bought a Core2 card 2-3 years ago when I was using Windows 98. I had purchased a Gina20 in 1998. As of today, I can run my Gina20 on my XP system, but I cannot use my Core2 card. This sucks! Lexicon should be sued for their lack of support for such an important product. I give Lexicon a 0 rating for customer service, customer support and customer relations.

It has been some time since I have used my Core2. The reason I bought it was to transfer ADAT fiber optics data to my DAW. It worked ok on Win98, worse on Millenium and NOT on XP. Sad, Sad, SaIT DOESN'T TAKE MUCH TO CREATE A DRIVER FOR XP!d.

Reliability of Lexicon is "0"... IT DOESN'T TAKE MUCH TO CREATE A DRIVER FOR XP!

Bad, bad, bad. How dare they continue to make any audio products. IT DOESN'T TAKE MUCH TO CREATE A DRIVER FOR XP!

Zero. IT DOESN'T TAKE MUCH TO CREATE A DRIVER FOR XP!

This card is nice; Clean user interface and useful, intuitive features. However, it is not easy to use now, sinec LEXI-"CON artists" DO NOT SUPPORT OPERATING SYSTEMS PAST WINDOWS 98!!!

Sound quality is, in the parlance of our times, "tight." Totally worth the money I paid for it, if I COULD FIND UPDATED DRIVERS!!!

This had never been an issue. Well, with the card that is; as far as Lexicon's reliability is concerned, I wouldn't count on them for ANYTHING, seeing as how they DON'T SUPPORT THEIR OWN HARDWARE.

Short of stooping to strings of expletives, I have no words foul enough to describe my customer "support" experience with Lexicon.

If you get this thing used, for a good price (less than $100) and you don't mind running it under Windows 98, then use it. It is a powerful music making tool, and has certainly helped me record a lot of music over the past few years. But please, PLEASE, don't buy anything new from the Lexi-CON ARTISTS; working musicians everywhere should help to put these scamming scheisters into the ground. END TRANSMISSION

This card was a pain to get working at first. I had problem getting it configured right. I orginally had it on a Shuttle motherboad and I had problems with noise. I think it was the VIA chips on that board. I am now using it with an ASUS P4P800 Deluxe mother board (Intel support chips)and P4 2.4 Ghz processor. Works great this way if you are willing to use only windows 98SE.

It sounds great to me.

Don't know about this. It's never broken.

I'd never buy anything from Lexicon again. I find it hard to believe they can survive as a company and screw the customer base. I am not a software designer and don't know how hard it would be to write new drivers for Windows XP or 2000, but it seems like the smart thing to do, would be to make the customers you already have, happy.

Great card, terrible company! I'll give Lexicon a zero.

Hi, Pimpster here giving an update on the now legendarily crap supported Lexicon Core 2 sound card. I thought I would offer my suggetion on how I got my card to finally work with a pentium 4 PC running windows 98SE. Many people have had probelms with this setup.

You must only use windows 98 or 98SE

I use an AGP graphics card which can be bought cheap from ebay

I disabled the USB ports momenterily in the systems dialog box while using the card.

The card now runs perfectly with no glitches or erratic playback. It's working fine with Cubase SX which is what I use the card with, even though Steinberg claim you can only run SX with the latest versions of windows, this is not all true.

I hope this helps anyone who feel they have been let down by such a supposedly reputable company. Lexicon we bow down to you!!

Pimpster

Getting a good souns out of this is depending on what sort of system you run it on. I had it working great with a PIII, WIN98SE with a display card on the pci buss and it worked fine, even though lexicon reccommend using a AGP chipset.. Now i've got a P4 with an agp display card and it's crap!!!. If you do get it working it's easy as pie to use.

the sound quality is amazing. It has the same ad-da converters as found on the highly priced M-audio 1010 (#400), so go figure. What would you do considering the price?

It sucks hard boiled eggs when not working. There's only one way to know. Nuy the product and test it yourself. If you don't like "try" and resell it...if you can!

The customer support did get back to me from the u.s. site. the uk site weren't that helpful. The uk lexi people were quite abrupt with their support. The u.s. people helped me by reccommending hardware for the cpmputer and the best way to configure. which still didn't work, but at least they tried.

I like the card when it works. When it doesn't it's crap (and most of the time it doesn't.) All it takes is for lexicon to employ a freelance programmer to update the drivers and that would be it. Everyone happy, and lexicon get to keep their high reputations they've had for so long. They've got to realise that, okay, they are good at the fx end of the spectrum, but, nowadays people are moving more and more to hard-disk recording, and they could do themselves a favour by updating the drivers for these cards (core 2 & 32) and they will be praised not just by normal people, Bbut, I should think from proffesionals alike who will use their products for hard-disk recordibg. Come on lexicon think what you're missing out on...look at m-audio and how good they are doind. Not to mention digidesign, motu etc, etc. Get on the bandwagon before it's too late and everythings gone software and you're still trying to flog the good old fx lexicon used to be kbnown for!!!

About the use is easy and if you were enough smart to know that the original drivers doesnt work, bingo. I like the card, but is a shit that you have hardware jumpers, and i need sometimes to reinstall the drivers to have no problems with cracks. And some programs like Windows media dont work with the card

The only good thing i found in this card

Really no, i dont feel that is a profesional sound card, and Lexicon showed in their answers that this was a kind of "mistake" from the company

With the support answer i think is enough to see how piss off i feel...
"Well, you can stay with the old OS and use the Lexicon card or upgrade
your OS and get new hardware. There hasn't been anymore development on
the card since it was discontinued a couple years ago. Thank You

John Lexicon Professional Technical Support"

4 in and 8 outs without a headphones jack, without MIDI and with some many troubles. No help from the support, and so less software with the card makes me think that this card is really not profesional and taht was a mistake to buy it. I have it since 2 years and i am tired about, cause no way to upgrade my OS. if I would live in the UK i would use the box, where says win 95, 95 or later, to start some legal action

I used this card on PII system: no problems
I changed to Via Chipset: crackles

a lot of talk to customer support, it was no use

sound quality was superb. DBX compression is great.

only on PII and PIII intel chipsets is it rock steady.
Anything else, amd, via, is not working

the most crappy customer support ever. The tech people on the phone were okay, but discontinuing a card like this is really crap. Interesting fact: I signed a non disclosure with Lexicon, but what the heck, let them sue me if they dare: I got a refund from Lexicon one year ago. I send them my card, and they sent me a lexicon mpx500 reverb unit as a compensation. So, if a lawsuit against me is started, I need you guys to back me up on this. But I just thought you had a right to know. So, how should I rate this support? It still is crap they do not support their own inventions. Let's say a 9 for how they hanlded my case and a 1 for not updating drivers.

well....I just bought one back (second hand) for 75$ to use it on a second, on a second, portable, system with a bx chipset and win 98 and cubase 5.1.... sound quality is okay, and it makes a cheap highend recorder. It will be a audio-only PC. That's what this card can do. But don't expect more guys (and girls).

I actually had to go out and buy an older PII computer to make it work. It was, as far as I'm concerned, completely incompatible with my HP pavilion.

Once I got it working, it was great. Virtually noise free, and the mp100 daughter board provides excellent quality reverb. Use of the reverb, however, is likely to result in a system crash (Windows 98 SE). Still, I've got to give it a 10 based on the sound quality alone.

I would use it to record a gig without backup--now that is. It took me several months of tweaking windows before it became stable. I'll give it a 5 due to the difficulty in making it a stable system.

Support for this product was poor, before it was a "legacy" device. Now support is non-existent, and I have not been able to find a way anywhere to make it work with windows XP, which I have been forced to switch over to due to some software that I need to run.

This board is tough to rate. Some problems that should be mentioned are: It's only a 4 track recorder, unless you buy an 8 track ADAT converter. It's no longer supported, so forget about windows XP. The optional mp100 daughter board seems to cause system crashes occasionally.

On the positive side, once you get it working, it is virtually noise free, and the reverb unit is awesome. If anyone knows how to make it work with XP, I'd love to hear about it.

WISH I KNEW , IVE BEEN SEARCHING FOR THE CORE2 V2 12 EXE BUT TO NO AVAIL...IM HOPING SOMEONE WILL EMAIL ME THE EXE AS A ZIP....ALSO IM RUNNING 98...ITS QUITE A STABLE PLATFORM TO ME...AND IS COMPATIBLE WITH MOST MUSIC APPLICATIONS....EMAIL ZELBASS@AOL.COM... MAYBE IVE GOT SOMETHING TOULL NEED AS WELL.....IM LOADED.....

WITHOUT V2 12 EXE ILL NEVER KNOW.....HOPING SOMEONE WHO HAS THERE CORE IN A CORNER COLLECTING WEBS WILL EMAIL THE EXE...SETUP FOR PC WINDOWS 98...THANKS A BUNCH AND FEEL FREE TO ASK FOR ANY EXE.S OR DATA YOU MAY NEED...

HELP I WANT TO HEAR THE CORE...........BAD TO THE BONE WITHOUT A CORE,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,HHHHEEELLLLPPPP SOMEONE HEAR MY PLEAS..

THE REVIEWS SAYS IT ALL.......NOTTA SUPPORT ...I MEAN AT LEAST IF THERES NO NEW UPGRADES FOR OTHER OP SYSTEMS AT LEAST LEAVE A DOWNLOAD FOR US WIN 98 LOVERS......

IM A ALL AROUND HARDWARE SOFTWARE MIDI, AUDIO TYPE OF GUY AND WHAT I DISLIKE MOST IS BEING FORCED TO UPGRADE TO UNPROVEN AND TESTED PLATFORMS, SPENDING GLOBS OF MONEY AND BEING LEFT IN THE COLD WHEN SUPPORT ISSUES ARISE....LEXICON HAS BEEN GIVEN A CHANCE AND FAILED...EVEN OLD AKAI STILL HAS SUPPORT SITES.....HELP ME...IVE BEEN CONNED IN A LEX

No problems with the card... Win98 is another issue. The sound is excellent - not that it comes thru on MP3 but listen to some of the productions on Rude On The Rhines MP3 site http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/467/rude_on_the_rhine.html

Clean as clean can be - I have no problems with the sound of this old card

The card is solid... mind you I have a machine dedicated to the Core2, Cakewalk and CoolEdit - nothing else. But why have anything else the machine is a PII 350Mhz with 400M RAM... I've layered up to 52 tracks... oh there are some sub-mixes but geeeezzzzzzz. This thing is Brillant

Have not had the pleasure. However, I've read some gripes re Lexicon not supporting the card anymore. The way I see it Lexicon is a business... why would they support products FOR EVER... welcome to the disposal computer age. As for me the Lexicon returned on my investment on it years ago.

Prog Rock and Jazz Fusion - the card is great. It just works and works and works and works.

Keep your system clean kids and learn how to use regedit and msconfig (course that's outdated now)

Setup for us was a breeze, but of course we had to compromise our setup by using Win 98, and we had to disable the USB driver that was sharing IRQ 5 with the card. If you have trouble with the card working erratically or crashing, make sure it's not sharing an IRQ! And also, this card _WILL_ WORK ON ATHLON SYSTEMS! As much as Lexicon says that it won't, it will work just fine if you are not using a VIA chipset. I use a Duron 750 with an ECS mainboard (SiS chipset)

Sound quality is very good, although since this card is a good 6 years old already, there are better interfaces out there. We also have a Tascam US-428, and I find the converters on it to be a little better - but I still am satisfied with the Lexicon.

We use the piece for a webcast, where stability is extremely important. So far, we've done 3 two-hour radio shows using it, and it's been solid. Then again, the ONLY things on that system are Win98 (modded with 98lite), Winamp, Shoutcast DSP, and Sound Forge. Keep it simple if you need the stability... And don't breathe too heavily, or Win98 might crash :)

Overall, Harman International is usually OK when it comes to product support... But I know that everyone else who has requested support or drivers for newer OSes has been told "buy another card". That's pathetic, as this is a pro audio interface, and not a $20 sound card.

Overall, this thing is great if you're willing to bend over for Lexicon and run Win98. If you're not running 98, you might as well forget about it, cause it's a total vegetable otherwise. I love the card because we got it for free from a friend who couldn't get it to work... If you can score one for under $100, it's worth it.

Ease of use with this thing is like a crapshoot. You gotta just hope you get lucky, because troubleshooting this thing is a nightmare, and you are pretty much on your own because the manual stinks.

If you get this thing to work, I mean really work for you i.e. no clicks or stammers, it sounds really awesome! I really like having the dBx limiting on the A/D inputs, as it prevents digital nastiness while recording, and it is really very transparent.

This thing literally worked for me without issues once, for about a year, on a P3 PC that I had, and it was awesome! Then I upgraded my computer so that I could get more processing power (P4, new motherboard, still Win98SE cuz no support for XP), and everything went to hell! Now it won't work correctly on the new system, and I can't even get it to work at all on my old system. What a bummer!

There is one woman at this company who really knows her stuff, and she's excellent at troubleshooting! Trouble is, she's not in the first line of support people (who don't know squat), and it's pretty obvious that the company is trying to forget they ever made this product, so usually you just get the cold shoulder.

Loved the card, and I lament the day I decided to mess with the system that it was working on. I will never again buy a product that a company has decided to stop supporting. Very frustrating!

It is an amazing sound card if you have win98 good sound easy to use

superb

nope it has no XP support

usual lack of support
bought it loved it upgraded to XP - you know the rest
I fonrd there american developer in charge of driver a very nice chap but he explained it was out of his hands nothing he could do
CANT SOMEONE OUT THERE WRITE A DRIVER FOR IT THEMSELVES I WILL PAY FOR THE DRIVER IF I HAVE TO........
It is so unfair of lexicon to treat customers like this they are arrogant and completely out of order... One very unhappy UK customer

I will never by from them again

The system is excellent on Windows 98 and 98 is a pathetic Operating System.

I am outraged that they will not suppot this product on XP. Everyone has to upgrade to XP - it is the only way forward and it is the most stable OS Microsoft has ever released - excellent, but Lexicon refusing to develop the drivers is unbelievable and outrageous.

I agree - we should band toegether and sue Lexicon. That is 200 UK pounds just poured down the drain. They should refund everyones cash.

I phoned them from the UK and the support guy said "well its just tough - buy another card" I have now abandoned it - it is in a box somewhere with all my patch cables and old bits and pieces.

Can't even sell it secondhand - who would want to build their studio around constantly crashing Windows 98?

I have been searching the web hoping to find someone out there who has written new drivers for it but to no avail.

I have an MPX1 - okay - its a great unit but I want to bin it because of the lousy company Lexicon (who screw their customers) has their name on it.

I rated this product as very difficult to use - well - can't use it :(

It was not noisy at all.

Reliability is a joke - you can't rely on Lexicon that's for sure.

The Tech support guy told me to buy another card !!!

Don't buy one - don't even buy one cheap - you will regret it.

Forget about XP drivers. They have abandoned support for this card. I have been bitching to them for a year about XP and GSIF, and they simply have no intentions. It's an orphan, and that's that.

They do have a new driver they haven't published, that makes it cakewalk wavepipe compatible. You can write support if you need it.
Now cakewalk is ASIO compliant, however.

Too bad, I love the board; the Lexi-reverb is outstanding, the Dbx soft-knee on the front end is a great feature, but someday I will have to give it up becuase it has no future. How about a petition?

I would rate this very high, except it's a dead end.

The system is very easy to install and use. Just read the manual and make sure you understand the system requirements! I don't think some of the reviewers read the packet properly. I have never had a problem with core 2 and have built several reliable systems with them

As good as is required for what I do. I'm using a DBX channel strip with spdif connection into the card.

Never had a problem.

Never needed it

I'm a producer so I deal with many styles of music and the Core2 always delivers. I like the fact breakout box uses jack ins/outs and has spdif in/out. Its an older card these days so you can pick them up cheap if you hunt around, I got mine with the mp100 fx add on free. I think when choosing a soundcard you need to spend time looking at the options. I dont care what operating system Im running, I care about making music, DONT loose sight of that.

The setup was a bit confusing but I figured it out and got it to work.

When the card does what its supposed to do, its not too bad. My only issue with the card is that it puts glitches in some recordings.

This is the main deal with the Core2. I'm using a PC with an 800 MHZ Duron processor, and they seem to recommend the intel stuff. It works with my duron setup but produces glitches when used with Sound Forge, Vegas, and Cakewalk 9. I can't even leave it recording 30-40 mins while my bands records our set without it having glitches on the recording. The glitches sound like rapid fire snare drums and others are just missing split seconds of sound. I think if I change over to an Intel box it might work alot better. Another issue with it when I went optical digital with a lightpipe from a sony mini-disc unit to the Core2 and there was problems with a clicking noise coming through. Also, Why doesn't it have midi support?

I e-mailed them when I was trying to set it up and they did call me back (which is more than I can say for a few other companies tech support dept). They told me what I was doing wrong and about the disabling of the USB ports. I really wish they get some drivers for Windows 2000, because 98 is too unstable to do any kind of serious multi-track recording. I am an advanced user with a tech degree and use 2000 and NT 4 on a regular basis and I'm used to the reliablity of that platform. I wonder what Lexicon's problem is? I'm glad that I didn't spend that much on the Core2, like some of the other prices people paid that posted here.

I used it to record and edit our CD, and the glitches in the audio on some of it made recording even tougher having to re-record some of the tracks that had glitches. It does work and I think with the right PC and having it configured right, it might be useful. I feel sorry for the people who are not computer savy.

Great sounding card, when it works. Now getting it to work can be a nightmare. Windows XP or 2000??? Forget about it. THEY DONT MAKE DRIVERS FOR IT!!!! ypical thin manual.

Excellent sound! Very transparent. Great feature is the ADAT digital in / out. I connect my ADAT to the card and transfer all 8 channels at once from tape to the computer (and back).

Once you have it working providing you don't make any computer hardware changes - works great. Be ready for lots of work if you upgrade the PC

Please - THERE IS NO SUPPORT.
If someone from Lexicon ever reads this - I WILL GLADDLY PAY FOR WINDOWS 2000/XP DRIVERS!!!!!!!! Don't turn your back on us. I buy lots of pro gear too and WONT buy any Lexicon products anymore - change my mind about this!

Bottom line, great card - if they'd update the drivers!!!!!!!
PLEASE LEXICON I BEG YOU!
I'm forced to rate a 10 card a 2 due to support and lack of drivers!

How hard is it to use a sound card. Plug it in and install it and it works.. That don't say that it worked everytime i needed it to. It certainly don't work on Windows XP so i dont even use it anymore. To be honest with you, i will never buy another Lexicon product again because they did'nt make drivers for XP. That's outlandish. Make a product, and stick everyone that bought it on 98 for the rest of our lives. MAKE DRIVERS FOR XP AND MAKE FRIENDS WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS YOU RETARDS!

sounded ok, nothing out of the ordinary.

There are no drivers for XP, therefore its unreliable.. Besides that, even when i had it working on 98 i had trouble with it.

Honestly, they are rude and not even worth trying to talk to. I can't even describe how worthless they are, and they really dont care. That's the saddest part of it all.

The card was ok, a toy for learning audio. Im mad because Lexicon has no respect for their customers whatsoever. How do you make a product for computers (the fastest growing manmade item on this planet) and not make drivers to keep up with the computers? How hard is it to make drivers? Please tell me how much you would have to pay someone to sit there for you and create a driver for xp for this card. I MUST know why you are not making a driver!

I bought the card a pair of years ago. As soon as I mounted it on my PII computer it started to work flawlessly. Then, after a year or so I decided to upgrade my system and go on the Athlon route... there started all the troubles.

On the Pentium II it had no noise. It worked great with whatever software I used. On the Athlon with Via Chipsets you basically Can't Use The Card. Clicks and Pops everywere.

I read somewhere here that the ADC and DCA are on the board. FALSE. They are on the breakout box. Just open it and you'll see.

On an old machine you can depend on it easily. You can go as far as a PIII machine. On PIV there is the same Via Chipset problem that is present on Athlons, therefore there are the same problems. If you have a motherboard without Via chipsets you are set.

NO CUSTOMER SUPPORT. I wrote them (I am in Italy) and all they were able to tell me is 'GET BACK TO PENTIUMS, NOT ATHLON, SINCE THEY ARE UNRELIABLE MACHINES'. Then, a pair of months later they put this 'good' information on their site. When I bought it there was no note on compatibility issues with K7 processors. (Now I know the compatibility issue is because the Motorola chipset has problems with Via chipsets, and it is present on almost all 24bit semi-pro and pro audioware, but I came to know this thing on the MOTU and ECHO internet pages, not on Lexicon's).

I still love the sound of my Core2, but I had to change my motherboard with one with AMD761 chipset innit. I have tried on an A7A asus motherboard (Ali chipset) without problems. On PIV motherboards with Rimms there are no problems, but on PIV with VIA 266, VIA333 and VIA400 chipsets there are Noise problems.
Used it with an adat (toslink, 8in/8out) without a single problem.
The DBX compressors sound really good. I have recorded almost anything on it without problems.

With Win98SE - no problem. I have MP100 board too...In general everything is clear.

In comparison with my second card SB Live!, Core2 is 1-2 levels up. Even 16-bit recording sounds excellent on my NS-10M studio monitors. Beautiful DBX TypeIV compressors/limiters.
Cons: No balanced Ins/Outs

Not good drivers for DX applications - VXD(buffer) errors, bad latency, Cakewalk/Sonar problems...seldom stutters or dropouts, etc. In VST land - it seems to be better.

Not XP even WDM drivers??? Athlon problems??? Discontinued too soon??? What a shame!!!

For my work Core2 is good enough but I expected more from Lexicon, especially about it's support.

it's very easy to hook up and use, the manual was decent

Mackie 24 channel, Korg Karma, Crate K80XL, Fender strat, Fender P bass, sennheiser MD421, AKG C3000's, SM58's, etc. Distortion could be better. Overall, not proffessional but decent.

No reliability, every time I unplug my computer or add a non-music program to my computer, it stops working and I have to find out why each time.

electronica with my synth mostly, but I add guitar, bass and vocals. If it were stolen or lost, I would buy something different mainly because of the dependablility. I love the fact that you just turn on your computer and start making music.

it worked fairly easily, on my win 98 machine

i think it sounds good. not completely amazing, but definately usable.

lexicon, please listen. develop xp drivers and then charge me a nominal fee. i'm sure enough people own the card and win xp,and would be willing to fork over a small amount of cash to make it worth your while. and then it can go from a pr debacle to a win for your company.

The ease of use was mediocre, documentation was somewhat lacking.

Never had much of a problem with sound quality, but its obviously not high-end.

Not very reliable at all. I have had to play with switching PCI slots, uninstallation and reinstallation pains, etc...

I will never buy another Lexicon product. Their customer support is rude and unresponsive. No drivers for XP? You're kidding right? No? Source code? I guess my $$ go elsewhere from now on.

The card is very fickle about the motherboard you put it in, what other cards are in the PCI bus, and even which slot it is placed in. I've had the card for nearly a year and just got it working properly. And don't expect much help from their support department...

Once I got it working, it sounds quite good -- usually. The ADCs are on the card, not in the breakout box, so it can pick up noise from EM source inside the computer (yes, that means everything in the computer). They are also only 48kHz ADCs (not really a problem if you're only goind to audio CD format).

There is absolutely NO WAY I would rely on this thing. It's a nifty low-budget recording toy, nothing more.

As I said earlier, I've had it for a year and just got it working properly. Support helped me get sound into/out of the thing (by telling me to disable my USB bus), but it still sounded like crap. And they couldn't (or wouldn't) do much to help me.

If you need professional recording equipment that must work flawlessly every time, this card ain't for you. If you don't like spending many hours tinkering with your computer without any help, this card ain't for you either. If you just want a decent recording card, you don't have much money to spend, you never plan to upgrade your operating system (they discontinued this card, ya know), and you've got some pretty badass hardware, buy this card.

Once you go through the effort to set this card up right, and make sure the IRQs aren't sharing with anything else, the only thing restricting ease of use is the high PCI latency. That and you have to reboot and remove the Core2 in order to switch DBX "compression".

I don't have the MP100 daughtercard but the sound quality is vastly superior to MOTU and SBLive IMO. Even MP3s sound very nice and detailed, yet musical detail.

It's reliable once setup, but it can make a computer crash more often than if he card isn't in there.

Absolute shit. They couldn't care who they are ruipping off. I think the Core2 owners should sue Lexicon either for purchase price refunded or for 2K / XP drivers. They ripped-us off at a time when all oterh comanies have drivers for the 2K / XP Oss. They won't release the source code and yet they won't tell us who the driver developers are either.

Lexicon really fucked us on that one. They played-up the ADAT compatability and sound quality, while abusing their customers with very tricky-to-install drivers and no upgrades. Lexicon claims that on one hand, the card's been discontinued for 2 years, but 2.13 drivers are coming out to enable Wave Pipe accelleration in Cakewalk.

Just from the standpoint of Lexicon's shitty, slow, expensive, hypocritical support ~ I'll file my share of a lawsuit if anyone else wants to get the ball rolling. They fucked us and they ought to pay.

always worked flawlessly with win 98

super quiet

here's the big problem. lexicon is going to leave thousands of customers out to dry, because they are not going to update the drivers for win 2000 or win xp.since almost all computers come with xp these days, this is no way to run product support.my card is garbage with my new computer now

great card. too bad i have to throw it away