I spent $10 on Trademe for a no-name brand USB audio device. It uses a Tenx usb headset chipset and works with Ubuntu 7.10. It works. The microphone preamp is good enough. The speaker output is pretty bad, but fine for speech (its intended application).
I have tested a Creative USB sound card (cannot remember which model) and it also worked under Linux. It cost about $75 or so. High-end sound cards are called 'audio interfaces', and googling for 'usb audio interface linux' will get you what you need. You can expect to pay $250 or more for one made by (in no order) M-Audio, Mackie, Lexicon, Roland, Boss, Tascam, etc. At the higher end, you get very high quality microphone preamp with 48V phantom power. I have tested a Lexicon Lambda and an Edirol UA-25, and they both worked with Linux, but no longer have access to them. I currently use a cheap Audio Technica stereo microphone, a home-made microphone preamplifier, a Sony minidisc recorder, and a Behringer UCA202 USB audio interface, plugged variously into Audacity under Ubuntu 7.10. The Behringer UCA202 is line-level only, hence the need for the external mic preamp. Build quality is plasticy, but is uses a Texas Instruments/Burr-Brown USB chip with good specs. It cost about $70 brand-new on Trademe. Stephen Christopher Sawtell wrote: > Greetings CLUGgers, > > Can anybody suggest a microphone amp and adc box, possibly with some > other software, which will allow me to use my somewhat superior, if > old, electret stereo microphone into a USB socket and thence into > Audacity? > > (Thank goodness I can mention an application which runs on Linux thus > being On Topic) > > Many thanks. > > ======================================================================= This email, including any attachments, is only for the intended addressee. It is subject to copyright, is confidential and may be the subject of legal or other privilege, none of which is waived or lost by reason of this transmission. If the receiver is not the intended addressee, please accept our apologies, notify us by return, delete all copies and perform no other act on the email. Unfortunately, we cannot warrant that the email has not been altered or corrupted during transmission. =======================================================================
