Sound Card Reviews

[kozikowski]

Line up my Intel Mac Mini, my old G4 PowerBook, and my new MacBook Pro. That's six.

ROLL FOR RECORD!

[woman's voice] SPEED!
[man's voice] SPEED!
[kid's voice] SPEED!

SOUND MARKER! [claps hands together]

Koz

[kozikowski]

M-AUDIO DELTA 1010LT

Actual, real user, multi-track success story.

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=12138#p47611

Koz

[mdudley]

I have recently set up my Audacity and the recording has worked well. However, I am experiencing a deep hum in the background, Is this a soundcard issue, or an adjustment in Audacity that I can simply make? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[kozikowski]

<<<Any help would be appreciated.>>>

Unless you're reviewing a sound card, you need to repost this in the help forum under your computer type (Windows/Mac/Linux) and version of Audacity.

After you do that, come back and kill this post with the little [X] to the right. The regular help elves will be delighted to address your problem.
Thanx,

Koz

[chris@huning.co.uk]

I've just started using this with my laptop (Windows Vista) to record streamed audio, and it seems to work very well (especially once I had read the manual! together with a very helpful post on this forum).

When exporting as MP3s, I put the quality up to 256 - at first I thought it sounded a bit tinny, but then put a proper pair of headphones into my iPod, and it sounded great

[waxcylinder]

Edirol UK confirms that the UA-1EX is now superseded by the Edirol Cakewalk UA-1G.

They tell me that the UA-1G has broadly the same functionality as the older UA-1EX but with some increased functionaliy: a larger more ergonomic gain control, and a specific guitar input for example. See this link: http://www.ediroleurope.com/product_ove ... =408611E99

If anybody has experience of using the UA-1G with Audacity we would love to hear feedback from you.

Thanks,
WC

[billw58]

Basically a UCA-202 with the input switchable between line and phono, plus a phono ground lug.

Ins and outs:
switchable stereo RCA line/phono inputs
phono ground lug
stereo RCA line outputs
stereo mini-jack headphone output with volume control

Computer connection:
USB 1.1
16 bit
32, 44.1 and 48 kHz

Pros
Initial listening tests comparing transcribed LPs to their CD versions suggest that the phono pre-amp is accurate.
No apparent power supply noise although the unit uses the power supplied by the USB port.

Cons
Self-noise is higher than a stand-alone analog phono pre-amp, but still below typical vinyl surface noise.
No input volume control (on Mac, possibly on other platforms too), but volume is low enough that clipping is unlikely to occur. Recorded level in Audacity (again, on Mac) is typically -10 dB.

-- Bill

[Gale Andrews]

i bought a soundcard from "trust" today. The 5.1 External Surround Sound Card SC-5500p
(510EX 5.1 Sound Expert External USB). Works very good with audacity. Is very cheap, no drivers needed!

Note added by Gale Andrews: This card is also an inexpensive way of adding "stereo mix" ability to computers where the built-in sound device does not support this. I found drivers were needed on Windows Vista and 7 to get stereo mix ability. I also found the Windows 7 driver does not install correctly on Windows 7 X64, but the Vista driver does and works well.

[bgravato]

Asus Xonar Essence STX
124 dB SNR / Headphone Amp PCIe card for Audiophiles!
Ins and outs:
Inputs: 1x 6.30mm jack (Shared by Line-In/Mic-In)
Outputs: 2x RCA jack (Front R / Front L); 1x 6.30mm jack (Headphone out); 1x High-bandwidth Coaxial/TOS-Link combo port supports 192KHz/24bit
Pros:
- really good and amazingly quiet headphone output
- very good shielding and high-quality components
- works in linux (still WIP)
- 3 selectable impedance ranges for the headphone's output (up to 600 ohm)
- easily exchangeable opamps (but I can't find a good reason to do it)
Cons:[/quote]
- shared mic-in / line-in (I'd rather have two separate inputs)
- at the time of this writing, some features still not supported in the linux driver yet (for example: can't select if the input is line-in or mic-in)

If you'd like to use your high-end headphones to listen to music from you computer this is _THE_ soundcard!
Works fine in Audacity both for recording (could only test in windows due to linux driver limitations) and for playback (tested in linux and windows)

Highly recommended!

[bgravato]

ART USB Dual Pre
Dual-mic preamp which can be used as external usb soundcard too.
Ins and outs:
Inputs: 2x XLR / 1/4-inch TRS Combi jack balanced/unbalanced
Outputs: 2x 1/4-inch TRS; 1x 1/8-inch TRS headphone
Pros:
- no drivers needed, works out-of-the-box in Linux (Debian, running kernel 2.6.32), Windows (XP Pro) and MacOS-X (Snow Leopard)
- can be powered from usb, external power supply or 9V battery (or a combination of all these)
- rather small size compared to what it has to offer
- headphones monitor output can be used to play sound from the computer through USB.
- very low noise for the price tag
- can provide phantom power to the mics
Cons:
- if I find one I'll update this post (some ppl complain about the size of the 9V battery pocket, I haven't tried it so can't complain about it...)

Works fine in Audacity (1.3.11-beta) for both recording and playback in Linux, MacOS-X and Windows (tested in all of the 3 OS's).

Highly recommended![/quote]