Sound card recommendation

[JEAGoodman]

Hi,

My husband is a radio producer. I'm about go get him a new desktop computer: Win 7, 64bit, 4G Ram. I want to get him a professional quality sound card so that he can use Audacity and record directly into the computer with good quality. I've seen the Wiki on getting good sound, but I'm still not sure what cards are good.

Can you make recommendations? Internal vs. External? Manufacturer? Things to look for?

Thank you!

J

[steve]

There's some information here: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=9477
The best choice of sound card largely depends on what he will be recording and budget.

The best version of Audacity is currently 1.3.12, but it is due to be superseded very soon (probably next week) by Audacity 1.3.13.

I'll move this topic to the "Recording Equipment" section.

[bgravato]

Like Steve said, it depends a lot on the needs... What will he be recording? From what equipment? How will he connect it to the sound card? Does he need a line input only? Mic input too? Does he already have any equipment that he will using, such as a mixer/mixing desk/mic preamp/etc... Will he need to record many simultaneous tracks?

Will it be handy if he can take it with him and connect to different computers? Will he be doing some outdoors recordings using a laptop? Does size matters?

Without all this infos it's impossible to give any recommendation.

If you can please tell us more about the show and what equipment he already has (mics, mixers, preamps, etc). And budget of course also relevant.