** Wayne Stallwood ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk [2007-09-18 01:29]:
Paul Tansom paul@aptanet.com wrote:
Has anyone tried these USB sound cards? For decent quality and a known brand I like the idea of the Lindy units, but they are much more expensive (that said they have a 2 year warranty and a mute button) and I haven't managed to confirm Linux compatibility. The cheap ones seem likely to work with Linux....
I haven't tried the USB sound cards but the USB variety of plantonics headsets work very well on linux and appear as a separate sound device.
That said given that our whole office phonesystem is now VOIP/asterisk based and despite trying I have yet to find a fully pleasing VOIP softphone for Linux or windows I have given up on softphones for all but emergency use and now have a "proper" desk SIP phone both at my office desk and another extension at my home study, I have fairly expensive (£90) Aastra sip phones which are nothing less than excellent but I hear that the cheaper Grandstream or linksys units are more than workable.
For me my primary interface to my clients is still via phone and I need it to work perfectly and I found that a softphone was no substitute for a "real" phone on my desk..YMMV of course
** end quote [Wayne Stallwood]
Yes, I've not been too happy with the convenience of a soft phone, although with better headset this may improve. One thing I've been on the lookout for is a wifi based SIP handset, but every handset you see advertised is a Skype one. I've no idea whether this means the phone is 100% tied to Skype, but I'm assuming so (and questions asked of suppliers and manufacturers that have resulted in either a blank stare that indicates they have no idea what you are talking about, or no email response at all seems to confirm this).
My mileage is actually that handsets for traditional phones leave quite a bit to be desired. I've got 3 different dect cordless phones, and they have all started to suffer battery problems after a surprisingly short space of time. That's 3 different sets, the first was abandoned due to reduced range after a couple of years (Panasonic, and even with new batteries). The replacement BT is also having problems now, and the caller id is a bit hit and miss too. Both these two are on my home line and use nimh batteries that are fully discharged before re-charging. The business line has another Panasonic with li-ion batteries and if it has been out of the charger for a few hours and I want to listen to the answerphone messages it can't manage it, I have to get the other out of the charged to manage that - again always fully discharged.
My hard wired handset on the business line is a Plantronics unit with a headset attached. The volume on the headset is very poor and I have it at maximum to be able to use it (I'd like it a bit louder). I also find that the in-line connector needs a wiggle every now and then to get anything out of it. I really must try to sort out cleaning the connections.