[LAU] which laptop?

[Frank Wales]

Arnold Krille wrote:
> Am Dienstag, 27. Mai 2008 schrieb Peter O'Doherty:
>> Am I a typical spoiled Mac user then who assumes that the laptop
>> comes with a soundcard and it's simply a matter of plugging speakers
>> into the headphone slot? It seems I'm too naive.
> 
> Did you ever listen to the quality coming out of laptop-soundcards?
> 
> Even if the maker is using good parts (which would be a very rare case), the 
> fact that its builtin and on the same board as everything else accounts for 
> bad audio-quality. There is just no way to get the shielding right inside of 
> a notebook. Unless you use a shielded card in the pcmcia/pccard-slot.

What Arnold said.  I've had a few different notebooks, and none have
had what I'd call good audio output.  They're all fine for watching
YouTube videos or playing games or Skyping, but incredibly annoying
for any kind of mixing work.  Obvious little background ticking,
low-level hum, and other pollution of the output signal (and it's not
a Linux-specific problem -- the same noise appears when using approved
drivers under a vendor-supplied version of Windows).

I'm currently thinking of trying one of these out:
   http://www.maudio.co.uk/products/en_gb/Transit-main.html

They're cheap enough to consider as part of the necessary equipment
for serious work on the go, I think, but not quite at the "I'll buy one
just to see if it works at all" level.

Does anyone here have experience with it (or similar modestly priced
little USB outboard cards)?  I'm particularly interested to know if
such a card would in any way push the use of rosegarden+jack+timidity
on an Asus Eee from close-but-no-cigar to the point of usability.
-- 
Frank Wales [frank at limov.com]