Re: [ARSCLIST] Beginner's question RE: digital recordings

[Edward Falk <falk@xxxxxxxxx>]

Lisa NnNnNn wrote:
> Hello David,
>
> That is a very good point about having a higher quality sound card; 
> until now, the card that I've been using was just the stock card that 
> came with my laptop.  I'm guessing that when the time comes, I will be 
> doing this work on one of the museum's PC's, and I'm guessing that 
> whatever kind of soundcards those have, they would probably be even 
> worse.  Can you recommend a decent quality sound card that I should add 
> to my list when I'm writing up my budget?

I'd be very interested in the answer to that question myself.

I've heard good things about the M-Audio products, but I don't know if 
they make one that will connect to a laptop.  I'm currently using a 
low-end Edirol USB box.  It only does 44.1/16, so it's not exactly what 
you'd call high end, but for the 30-year-old tapes I'm working with, 
it's more than sufficient.

A few criteria:  You want the A-D conversion to happen outside the 
computer, to avoid electrical noise.  This means some sort of box on the 
end of a cable.  I've heard that cheaper audio cards have only a single 
A-D converter which first samples one channel, then the other, back and 
forth.  This is undesirable because it puts the two channels half a 
sample out of phase with each -- think of a slightly bad azimuth adjustment.

	-ed falk