>From my SoundBlaster / CL experience: SoundBlasters range from good to excellent *output.* I am not an authority, but I would be willing to bet that Creative is in fact focusing their development force on exactly that--output. As recently as the SB Live X-Gamer, input was still little more than an afterthought. As Mr. Thompson accurately pointed out, the Line In inputs on Sound Blasters typically have zero headroom and, in my experience, very poor linearity (i.e. the sampling circuitry imposes very unnatural compression on the signal), and a pretty sorry signal-to-noise ratio.
For an input source of consumer-grade audio tape, I doubt you'd want to shell out big bucks for a high-quality input card.. However, if later you might want to record live input (for example, an instrument or good-quality microphone), you might want to consider something along the lines of Mackie's Spike (the Spike in particular has a street price of around $400.. probably excessive, but there are doubtlessly lower-end products that perform adequately for less expense). There's MY $0.02.. To be taken with the understanding that I am an aspiring recording artist and as such have unusually high demands of a digital recording system. (-: Cheers, ~Brian ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2004 7:59 AM Subject: Re: [TriLUG] Transferring audio cassettes to CDs with Linux > >Anything 'Sound Blaster' is also evil. The line-in on SBs cant seem to > >handle enough of a signal to get a decent recording without distorting, > >or just failing altogether. I've destroyed a handful of SBs over the > >years trying to do home studio stuff. Even if you do manage to get a > >loud enough signal, the noise will be terrible. If these recordings are > >important to you, I'd definitely recommend a much better sound card. > > Does that include the newer products from Creative Labs? > > > > > -- > TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug > TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ > TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/ > TriLUG PGP Keyring : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc > -- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/ TriLUG PGP Keyring : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc
