[linux-audio-user] Hardware recommendations for recording under kernel 2.6/Alsa

[Tim Orford]

On Sun, Aug 22, 2004 at 04:51:22PM +1000, Jason White wrote:
> My main interest at present is in making archival recordings of
> material that I originally recorded on audio cassette. My system
> currently contains a C-Media CM8738 controller as part of the Asus
> system board, which is recognized by Alsa. I assume that for quality
> results I will need better sound hardware. I asked this question of a
> local user's group last year and was informed that the M-Audio Delta
> 66 is of high quality and has good Alsa support. It was further suggested
> that one of the USB A/D converters could be useful as it would also
> work on a laptop.
> 
> Taking into account price, performance and driver support, what
> options do you think I should consider?

just to offer a slightly different approach to the good advice you
have already been given....

how important is the quality? Whilst usually not, cassettes are
capable of extremely good quality (except for noise). And in many
ways digital signal degredation is orthoganal to analogue tape
degradations. Personally i have many unique high quality recordings
on cassette.

if quality is important, one thing you could do would be to borrow
an external A/D convertor and feed that in to the perfectly good digital
in on the CMI8738 (i dont actually know if your board supports that).


cheers
-- 
Tim Orford