Analog-to-Digital Audio:

[Les Mikesell]

Dean S. Messing wrote:
> Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
>> Tim wrote:
>>> Patrick O'Callaghan:
>>>>> Turntables are also available. Ironically, a lot of these actually
>>>>> come with Audacity even though they're marketed for Windows.
>>> Mikkel L. Ellertson:
>>>> For example:
>>>> http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=3DTTUSB-PB-R&cpc=3DSCH
>>> I'd be very surprised if any of those plastic turntables were anything
>>> but utter crap.  But then they're aimed at the MP3/iPod users, where
>>> audio quality is the least thing on their mind...
>> Considering the quality of the analog to digital converter most
>> people are going to be using, it probably would not be much better
>> using a quality turntable, cartridge, and preamp. The A to D
>> converter in the sound cards of most computers is not that great.
>> (Good enough for mp3, but that is about it.)
> 
> What sound cards (that have Linux drivers) would you recommand for
> very high fidelity stereo digitising?  I have two purposes.  One is a new
> interest in audio work.
> 
> Another is a project in which I need to digitise and analyse two
> related analogue waveforms.  Low noise, good linearity, flat
> freq. response down to 5 Hz, sampling rate of (at least)
> 192 Ksamples/sec are my initial specifications.  The flat response is only
> a "want".  I can calibrate out any deviations if they are not severe
> (like being at -60dB at 5 Hz :-).
> 

You probably want to start here: 
http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/ for anything resembling 
professional audio On Linux.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com