Is the Line-in Jack On the Verge of Extinction? 411
SlashD0tter writes "Many older sound cards were shipped with line-out, microphone-in, and a line-in jacks. For years I've used such a line-in jack on an old Windows 2000 dinosaur desktop that I bought in 2000 (600 Mhz PIII) to capture the stereo audio signal from an old Technics receiver. I've used this arrangement to recover the audio from a slew of old vinyl LPs and even a few cassettes using some simple audio manipulating software from a small shop in Australia. I've noticed only recently, unfortunately, that all of the four laptops I've bought since then have omitted a line-in jack, forcing me to continue keeping this old desktop on life support. I've looked around for USB sound cards that include a line-in jack, but I haven't been too impressed by the selection. Is the line-in jack doomed to extinction, possibly due to lobbying from vested interests, or are there better thinking-outside-the-box alternatives available?"
Why do you need one? (Score:1, Informative)
Why do you need two inputs? I highly doubt there's much difference between the line-in jack on your sound card and the stereo microphone jack. If you were hoping a line-in jack would somehow give you better audio quality, I think you'll have to look to more professional gear for that. Try Guitar Center.
Re:I Don't Know What You're Talking About (Score:5, Informative)
Now give me +5. Of course, there are many other ways to record a line-in, but it sounds to me like submitter is very finicky and used to doing things one specific way. I have family who use a dual-deck CD burner because they're used to the whole tape-deck way of recording. They would rather make a mix CD by sticking 1 CD at a time and burning track-by-track than simply ripping all of their music to their $800 laptop(which they use only for internet and OpenOffice) and burning mix CD's from the library. I'll get off your lawn now.
Not sure what you're looking at... (Score:3, Informative)
My latest three desktops have all come with a line-in, as have my latest two notebooks, including a netbook. Only my wife's MacBook doesn't have Line In, of my most recently purchased hardware.
Also, there's the Griffin iMic, a quite cheap device with line in. (Switchable between mic-level and line-level in, even.)
Get a USB line in adapter (Score:3, Informative)
One easy solution is just to get a USB line in adapter [dak.com] for around $40, rather than having to keep an entire dinosaur computer around for just one function.
I don't know how well it works, but here's a $10 adapter [ebay.com] on Ebay that does video too. There are other similar products around.
Not a conspiracy (Score:3, Informative)
It might be less of a conspiracy and more of a supply-and-demand thing. Most people have no use for and could care less about line in (I am not one of them, however). Since you are talking about laptops, anything that reduces space is often omitted, if it isn't really needed.
On desktop machines, I have not seen line-in disappear at all. And I bought a laptop last year, and it has mic/line-in, too.
Re:I Don't Know What You're Talking About (Score:5, Informative)
SOLVED. [thinkgeek.com]
That's sold out, $35 and possibly not available in Australia. However, after viewing that, it has occurred to me what has happened here. The submitter is used to (what I learned to call) RCA jacks in stereo. These I guess are two jacks looking like this [racketboy.com]. I believe what the submitter needs is only one of these adapters [avforums.com] that will run you a few bucks at your local store (unless you're finicky about quality which I'm guessing he's not if he's doing this on that old of a computer).
Yes, the large RCA version of it is going the way of the buffalo and probably has for some time. Similar to the new video out ports looking smaller and smaller but being essentially the same standard.
Re:There Is Hope! (Score:3, Informative)
Actually three resistors.
http://www.electronics-tutorials.com/basics/attenuators.htm [electronic...orials.com]
It's called a pi network (because of the schematic shape.)
Re:Not sure what you're looking at... (Score:3, Informative)
It's much the same on any modern motherboard. The line out jack is also a line in jack. You just need to configure it as such.
Re:There Is Hope! (Score:3, Informative)
Actually two resistors.
RF stuff is done on the basis of matched impedances (maximum power transfer configuration and also avoids reflection issues). Audio stuff is generally done on the basis of a low impedance source driving a high impedance load (maximum voltage transfer configuration) so to attenuate the signal you ideally want a potential divider with a resistance much greater than the impedance of the source and much less than the impedance of the load (generally not a problem as the two are usually VERY different)
However having said all this attenuating the signal and feeding it into a laptop mic input is about the worst solution I can think of. Low level audio signals and laptops DO NOT mix well. .
Mic != line (Score:5, Informative)
Why do you need two inputs? I highly doubt there's much difference between the line-in jack on your sound card and the stereo microphone jack.
A microphone input is expecting microphone-level signals - not line level. There's a big difference, and without something similar to a DI box [wikipedia.org] to correct the level, all you'll get if you put line level audio into a microphone jack is distorted overdriven noise.
Re:I Don't Know What You're Talking About (Score:2, Informative)
That seems extremely unlikely... I've only seen a couple computers with RCA ports ever.
No shit (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously, anyone who can't find analogue sound input for their computer hasn't bothered looking very hard. I can find it for you USB, Firewire, PCI, or PCIe. Stereo, 8 channel, 128 channel, whatever you like. You name the kind of audio capture you need, someone out there makes a product for it. All of them will be better quality than the line-in jack on a laptop, which generally has really poor filtering and thus lots of noise.
The parent is absolutely right in terms of the Behringer as a good, cheap solution. Need something better? You can get something like the M-Audio MobilePre (http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/MobilePreUSB.html) which has pretty good converters and some features you don't need. Still not enough, have to have no holds barred? Get yourself an Benchmark ADC1 (http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/adc1/) converter, which is just about as good as it get.
No matter what the level, from a highly adequate $35 USB audio interface, up to a $1,700 dedicated converter, you can get something that'll meet your needs, and do so online.
The only reason line in is dying on soundcards is people aren't using it much. On laptops, space is also a premium so why bother? Many desktop cards still have it, as they've got the space for more inputs.
Re:Mic != line (Score:5, Informative)
Not all microphone ports are created equal. Some, like the one on the first generation Eee PC, have the ability to automatically switch between line-in and microphone depending on what's plugged into it. YMMV depending on how your audio board is wired.
"The pink microphone port doubles as a stereo line-in socket, depending on what is plugged in to it)."
http://wiki.eeeuser.com/eee_pc_701 [eeeuser.com]
Re:Why do you need one? (Score:3, Informative)
Microphones need power, and the mic-in provides it. Line-level audio is powered by the device producing the signal. If you run a regular mic into a line input, you'll get a much lower signal. Likewise, if you run a line into a mic-in you'll get more signal than the circuit is designed to handle, and it will distort much more easily.
I haven't seen any evidence of any great conspiracy to eliminate line-in from computer audio -- every sound card I've ever bought has it and I've never paid more than around US$25 (except the M-Audio Delta 1010LT -- 10 line-in, 10-line out, ~$200), but there are plenty of really simple audio USB adapters for $10-$20 retail. I've got a couple that came included with music hardware but I've never used them.
As for cost, audio gear is a bit like wine -- there's a huge difference between a $2 bottle and a $10 bottle, a bit of difference between a $10 and $25 bottle, and only subtle differences between a $25 and $100 bottle.
And if you're the audio equivalent of a wine snob that thinks he/she can taste the difference between a $100 and $1,000 bottle, than I'm sure someone is willing to sell you an automagnetic bit-harmonizing inductive-conditioning audio conduit interface for the price of a small car.
Re:Quick question (Score:1, Informative)
Microphone port pumps some current into whatever is connected to it (to power the microphone up)
Line In doesn't provide any power, it only analyses incoming signal from external source, and will be often separated through transoptors or the like to protect the hardware from overcurrent from difference of potential between the devices.
Re:No shit (Score:5, Informative)
Beware of Behringer gear. Yes, it is cheap. Yes, it is decent when it works. But the build quality is quite shoddy. It will do the job, but something will break or burn out fairly quickly. I was warned about this before I bought a mixer from them, but I figured that it would be in a fairly decently controlled location and not moved around. Barely two years later and it's already blown one channel strip and the headphone-out.
Re:Why do you need one? (Score:3, Informative)
Every sound card or motherboard with audio includes an app with the driver that will conform the level to your liking.
Re:I Don't Know What You're Talking About (Score:3, Informative)
That's easy: the connectors are bigger, and there are two of them. The result is higher cost. 1/8" phono jacks are probably cheaper (esp. since you only need one), can handle both L and R on one jack, and take up much less space. As a result, it's easy to stick a phono jack on the back of a computer motherboard, or even on a notebook computer, but adding dual RCA jacks to a computer usually means adding an extra expansion-port plate.
The only downside is that stereo phono jacks have more noise than separate RCA jacks, since the L and R signals are not isolated from each other in the cable and can have crosstalk. Of course, most people can't hear well enough to notice, or simply don't care, so for 99% of users, phono jacks are better.
Of course, if the noise issue is a problem for you, you can buy an RCA-to-phono Y adapter cable. It's not quite as good as true RCA jacks, but by using separate RCA cables instead of a stereo phono cable, you'll eliminate most of the noise since the noise is mostly created in the cable, and the lack of separation in the jack won't affect it much. Besides, PCs tend to be rather noisy anyway, and poor environments for audio signals; all the other electrical noise inside the case affects the audio signals in the analog portion of the circuitry before it gets to the audio chip. A well-designed PC would have shielding to prevent this, such as a separate PCI card with a metallic shielding box around it, but there aren't many PCs with that attention to detail.
Use Mic jack (Score:3, Informative)
I've yet to buy a computer with fewer than 3 jacks (out, line in, mic in generally alternatively selectable as out1, out2, out3 for surround). But if you really don't have a line in, use the Mic jack and uncheck the "Microphone Boost" option. The +20dB boost is the difference between mic level and line level.
Re:Mic != line (Score:3, Informative)
No, a DI boxes are for driving balanced lines, and while this may be a rash generalisation, I don't think any computers have XLR inputs on the built-in sound card. Besides, not all DI boxes have an attenuator (pad), which is what's needed here.
Assuming there isn't a system setting that allows gain switching on the input (quite possible), simpler and probably cheaper would be a basic interface like the Behringer UCA200.
Re:I Don't Know What You're Talking About (Score:3, Informative)
Oh, man... Look what I just found in one of the suggested products page [thinkgeek.com]:
Re:Why do you need one? (Score:4, Informative)
The word you're looking for is "gain", not "power". Some microphones also require power (either of the low-voltage "plug-in power" variety or full 48V phantom power), but if you plug those devices into a line input, you'll get no sound at all.
As for the differences in grades of gear, yes, to some degree, that's true, with the caveat that some $10/channel hardware will outperform the $100/channel hardware and other $10/channel hardware will be utter excrement. In the audio space, there's often more correlation between price and marketing costs than between price and product quality, IMHO....
More to the point, the older the gear, the more expensive it has to be before you are likely to get good sound. There are exceptions, but in general, as the costs of the underlying components decrease, it becomes more practical to build higher quality gear for less money. Thus, a recently designed device that costs $50 is likely to sound as good as a ten-year-old device that costs $100. High quality gear gets cheaper to design and build over time. So the high end stuff today might or might not be a great improvement over the midrange stuff today, but either one is going to be a lot better than the midrange stuff from ten years ago, yet both may still be comparable to the high-end gear from ten years ago.
Re:Why do you need one? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:line-in? (Score:3, Informative)
Three characteristics matter, actually: phantom power, impedance (Z) and sensitivity.
Most PC mics are electret (condensor) types, which typically require a low power DC supply to operate. Fine for a mic, but when you try to connect a line in the DC offset is superimposed on the signal, which can cause half-wave clipping if the output of the device feeding it isn't properly isolated. Most line outputs are DC isolated with capacitors, so this generally isn't a problem, but you can never be sure.
However, the problem with using capacitors to block DC is that they create a filter. If the source impedance doesn't match the load (such as when you plug a high-Z line out into a low-Z mic in), this filter will be audible.
Mic inputs tend to have 20-40dB more gain than line level inputs, and this is indeed referred to as sensitivity (no, it isn't power; see my other comment in the thread [slashdot.org]).
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Quick question (Score:5, Informative)
Microphone port pumps some current into whatever is connected to it (to power the microphone up)
Line In doesn't provide any power, it only analyses incoming signal from external source, and will be often separated through transoptors or the like to protect the hardware from overcurrent from difference of potential between the devices.
Not sure why this was modded +5 informative; it's a load of hooey...
Normal dynamic microphones are passive and do not require any external power to "power the microphone up". They generate a small current, usually from a coil moving inside a magnet. This is why you need a pre-amp of some kind to bring your mic-level signal up to a line-level signal that a regular amp can deal with. Your sound card has this built in.
If you have a condensor microphone, then it will need external power of some kind to function. This usually comes in the form of phantom power (+48V usually) over a balanced twisted pair microphone wire. I can promise you that your average soundcard (and pretty much anything with 1/8" jacks) does *not* supply phantom power. You need an external power supply of some kind to use a condensor mic with your soundcard.
The only real difference between a line in and a mic in on your soundcard is the expected input gain. A mic input has a pre-amp and expects a mic level input. If you feed it a line level input and it doesn't attenuate it (or bypass the preamp) then you'll clip the hell out of the signal.
Re:Why do you need one? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I Don't Know What You're Talking About (Score:3, Informative)
p.s. not sure why you keep saying "phono", these jacks usually run at line level, which is not phono.
Sorry, I meant "phone" as another responder pointed out.
Re:I Don't Know What You're Talking About (Score:4, Informative)
And yes, unless you're hung up on the shape of the little gizmo that plugs into the little hole, every computer from laptop to Mac Pro has a way to input audio (aka "line-in") jack. Sometimes, the jack actually does double duty as mic-in and line in, and the little mixer applet that comes with it will attenuate or boost the signal accordingly.
The trend in the last few years has been to forego the Line-In functionality. Often it's still mentioned in the tech specs, but try finding the software switch for activating the Line-In. Hell, the Realtek audio on my old Toshiba NB100 had a Line-In that only worked with certain driver versions... all of them would give you the pop-up for selecting whether you were using the jack as a line-in or mic-in, but only one of the drivers actually switched to stereo and padded the input (or turned off that nasty nasty preamplification).
I don't get it - these laptops all have microphones built in. Why would you need a godawful preamp built in for an external mic that probably sounds just as crappy? It's not like there are any mics out there that sound any better and have a 1/8" TRS jack...
Now an actual balanced 1/8" TRS connection with phantom power... that I could go for. But this crap is useless. Bring back the line-in and kill mic-in!
Re:I Don't Know What You're Talking About (Score:4, Informative)
I've purchased that turntable, tried it and given it away to an enemy.
I'm not a crazy stereophile by any means, but the quality of this turntable was so poor that you would not use this for any collectible vinyl, or anything worth keeping. The quality of construction is poor, the cartridge is utter crap, it was difficulty to set up the anti-skate, it tracked marginal vinyl not at all. In short, don't get this.
Instead, just buy a used turntable in good condition (so many are available), or I realized my 40 year old Dual turntable ( http://www.dual-reference.com/ [dual-reference.com] ) was still head and shoulders above this unit. Couple it with a reasonable phono preamp ( http://www.zzounds.com/item--ARTDJPREII [zzounds.com] ) and send it through your line in. Combine it with very nice free software ( http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download [sourceforge.net] ) and you have a solution, possibly for as little as $50 and you'll have a turntable that won't ruin your good vinyl, and get excellent sound as well.
Re:I Don't Know What You're Talking About (Score:2, Informative)
Pffft! If your worried about multipath distortion from walls then you obviously have a tin ear, and probably a $5-walkman quality sound system.
Any true audiophile knows you can't hear the full richness and clarity of sound if you've got atmospheric distortion contaminating any part of your audio path. Insisting on vacuum tubes is just the first step in eliminating atmospheric distortion.
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