DACs and preamps

[Soundwave]

I'm a bit confused about DACs. Will a good preamp do pretty much the same thing as a DAC ? Didn't want to buy one (just for recording tapes / records) if I don't need it. Pardon my ignorance and thanks for any help......System: P4 with M-Audio card. Computer stays off line running Win98se. Old external audio gear: Sansui Integrated amp, Hitachi preamp and Harman Kardon tape deck.
I wonder why they don't call normalization, volume eq. Makes more sense to me.

[steve]

"DAC" is the abbreviation for "Digital to Analogue Converter".
There is a DAC (and an Analogue to Digital Converter) built into your sound card. For the purpose of for recording tapes / records the M-Audio sound card will probably be sufficiently good for reasonable quality recordings.

[Soundwave]

Thank you Steve

[kozikowski]

I wonder why they don't call normalization, volume eq. Makes more sense to me.

Equalization is its own tool, so that's one strike.

Normalize and Amplify are not "Special Effects" even though they're listed under Effects. They're simple volume changes like what you can do with the slider on your iPod. What most people want is Volume Management -- make only the low parts louder. That's college-level data management and very special, indeed.

So presenting "Volume Equalization" as a tool wouldn't tell you anything.

Koz