On 07-Aug-11 19:47:39, John Woodard wrote:
On 7 August 2011 19:18, Anthony Anson tony.anson@girolle.co.uk wrote:
'Course I meant 'the Acer', and there are three jacks: phones, mic, and one with a sort-of ((·))' symbol, which I presume is line-level. (And which I would have expected to be stereo, but for Nev's info')
That rings true, many even low end Acer laptops have a line jack socket in which is unusual. I remember having to get an external USB sound card for my Dell Latitude D800 so I could record from line in. So it appears you lucked out there Tony.
Cheers, BJ
Now that's interesting, BJ! I hadn't heard of such a gadget. Are they still around?
For the record (no pun intended ... ): I have an Advent 8117. Nice little machine. It has an input socket on the front with a "microphone" symbol beside it. I've wondered about trying to feed a line-im *very* gently into it, to see what would happen (it's fine for microphone input). However, I've not dared taking the risk of blowing the input circuitry!
The (very sketchy) manual that comes on the CD with the machine appears to be somewhat inconsistent about this question.
On the one hand, it says:
Chapter 1 getting to know the basics System At A Glance [...] 2. Microphone/Audio Line-in Jack The microphone/Audio Line-in jack (3.5-mm diameter) is where you connect a microphone or an external audio input source such as a CD Player.
which explicitly suggests that it is possible. On the other hand, there is no other mention of using "an external audio input source" anywhere else in the manual, and the only other reference is:
Voice Recording You will need to plug-in an external microphone to the microphone connector to record sound.
which tends to suggest that you can only use a microphone! However, I'm not too trusting of the thoroughness with which the manual may have been prepared. It may be that they simply skipped over mentioning audio line-in, since they were talking here about voice recording. Or it could be that they should not have included mention of "an external audio input source" in the first place!
I've had a long-going (and slow-going) project to make digital copies of vinyl & shellac records (some 80+ years old ... ), and of old audio tapes. So far, I've had pretty good success by using a high-quality microphone, carefully adjusting the quality of the speaker sound on the record/tape player, carefully positioning the mike, starting it all up and then very quietly leaving the room (if I scratch or sniff, it gets recorded). One can always try again if the first try isn't good enough.
So either:
[A] I can bite the bullet and very gently try a line-in input. In which case: Do people have good practical advice on how to proceed carefully so as to avoid zapping anything?
or:
[B] I can get one of those USB sound cards (which should be safe). In which case: Where's a good place to look, and which are good ones? (Oh, and would Debian readily recognise it?).
With thanks, Ted.
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