OT- External Sound Cards

[odinn7]

Here I go with my stupid computer questions again but I know this is the right place to find the information I seek.

My father is looking to record old records and tapes onto his computer and burn to CDs but he doesn't have a sound card with inputs. He is about 7 hours away from me so I will be of no help getting and installing an internal sound card with what he needs so I am thinking perhaps there is a USB external he could use. I do know that there are USB external cards out there but are there any that will allow recording of analog equipment to the pc? Does anyone out there know of any of these or better yet, have any experience with one that you could recommend? I'm looking to help him out with something that's fairly simple for him to use (he's somewhat technologically challenged) and any help I could get here would be greatly appreciated.

[Menard]

Here is a page of some external sound cards on Amazon.com if you want to check out information and feedback. I have seen some of these devices at Wal-mart and OfficeMax, but I have never tried them. If he has a stereo mic input, he can get a converter at Radio Shack that will allow him to connect a pair of RCA inputs to a mini-plug jack, although I don't know what kind of quality that will offer compared to the external card.

[odinn7]

Thanks Menard. I was hoping to get a few more responses from all the knowledgeable people here but you did give me a place to start.
I appreciate it.

[ulthar]

I can ramble for hours on CPU's, mainboards and this OS vs that OS, but, to paraphrase  Lt. Col. Nathan R. Jessup,

I can't speak intelligently about the features of external sound cards.



Post Edited (06-03-05 09:07)

[Mr Hockstatter]

Does he have a 1/8" microphone input?  You could probably find a dual 1/4" RCA to single 1/8" adapter, then get something like Audacity (free download) to convert it to whatever kind of file he needs.  It would only be mono, but sometimes the more mature people don't care much about that.

And if it doesn't work (which it probably wouldn't), you're only out a few bucks.  I use a 1/4" to 1/8" adapter on my guitar and plug that into the microphone input on my computer and record it with Audacity, and it works just fine.  I imagine you could just plug a casette deck into one of those things with similar results.  I assume the output level is about the same.

Oh well, interesting project.  If worse comes to worse maybe you could just sign up for Napster and see if he could find all his music there.

[AndyC]

When you say it doesn't have inputs, do you mean a pair of RCA jacks, as you would find on a home stereo?

Unless his motherboard is really old, it should have the built-in 1/8" speaker, microphone and line-in jacks. All of these are stereo, and accept a stereo plug similar to that on a set of headphones. An adapter will allow a turntable or tape deck to be connected to the line-in jack without any card necessary. For records and tapes, that should be good enough.

[odinn7]

AndyC,
He has a HP system that is very similar to the one that I was using. If it's like the one I was using as far as jacks are concerned, then he has speaker jacks and a microphone jack but no inputs other than that. I have seen sound cards with the RCA style input jacks on them and that's really what I'm looking for in an external sound card.