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PCi-E or USB sound card?

E

evanesce

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 19, 2011
Messages
190
I need to record from line in to broadcast to shoutcast, however... I was told I should get a separate / dedicated sound card for this... which is better, which is recommended, I'm looking to spend no more than let's say $30 or so..

I have a $5 usb "nugget" from china that turns an analog headset into a USB headset, with mic and volume ports. Would this be sufficient?
 
That chinese usb one is most likely way worse than your onboard audio.

I would think the onboard audio would be fine for recording as long as it doesn't have issues with picking up electrical noise from the system.
 
One of my "other" problems is I have Hackintosh set up on this computer, and the integrated line-in is not working correctly. I can see the audio in the signal meter of the line in, but nothing actually gets recorded or broadcasted. I'm sure it's just an incompatibility issue.

Worst case scenario, still looking for sound card recommendations. The other problem is that my motherboard has no PCI slots, only PCI-e
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but putting a 3rd party sound card in a Hackintosh may prove to be very difficult, since probably nobody has drivers for them. I don't know much about Hackintoshes but I thought one aspect was to make sure to use the same hardware Apple uses, or hardware available for the mac so there is driver support out there already.

Unless, sound cards function with generalized universal drivers nowadays? Kind of like HID drivers for keyboards and mice?
 
Ruahrc said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but putting a 3rd party sound card in a Hackintosh may prove to be very difficult, since probably nobody has drivers for them. I don't know much about Hackintoshes but I thought one aspect was to make sure to use the same hardware Apple uses, or hardware available for the mac so there is driver support out there already.

Unless, sound cards function with generalized universal drivers nowadays? Kind of like HID drivers for keyboards and mice?
Click to expand...

Interesting question. I would assume that any end user USB sound device that's "Mac Compatible" would work for me, but the question is what hardware IS mac compatible? I really think it would work as if you purchased the third-party USB device to be used on a real mac?

I just googled USB mac audio, and found this product, http://www.rolandus.com/products/productdetails.php?ProductId=743 says its compatible with mac core audio, etc. I believe it would work, but is it any good?
 
USB audio interfaces seem to operate somewhat around a common standard, I was referring more specifically to if you wanted an internal PCI-e card. That would be where driver troubles could be more of a concern.

I have an ASUS Xonar U3 USB audio card for my PC. I tried using it on my mac (non-hackintosh) to see if it would work. There are no available mac drivers for it, but when I plugged it in the device was recognized and audio played. However, as there were no device-specific drivers, I could not control the gain setting in the card (it has 3 levels of gain for low/high impedance headphones) and so the volume was extremely loud. The only to make it listenable was to set the system volume level to the minimum possible, and turn the volume control on my headphones to the minimum possible as well. Only then was the audio was at a normal-ish level.

A previous version of the U3 was mac-compatible, mac support was dropped when they updated the product and I was unable to find a download link to the old driver set which seems to have disappeared off the web. I theorize that those old drivers would have worked since both the old and the new version of the Xonar are based on the same audio chip.

Anyway, USB devices probably will work, but you may encounter some specific configuration issues with special features of your device. Internal soundcards may be tricker I'm not sure. May be safer to trawl through hackintosh forums for user-confirmation before getting one that has no driver support.

Why not just give the $5 USB nugget you already have a try? Can't see the harm in it if you already own the thing.
 
there is a standard defined for 2 channel USB audio in and out. if it conforms to standards perfectly it will work on anything that supports standard USB audio, even a PS3.
 
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