looking for a debian compatible usb audio interface

[Bernard]

My purpose is to digitalize vinyl records. Using my default audio card
gave poor results. On an audio forum, it was stated that I couldn't
expect good results unless I use a usb audio interface. Lots of them on
the market, but I'd be interrested to hear someone saying that it works
with Linux and give good results for my purpose.

Thanks in advance for any advice

[Johannes Wiedersich]

Post by Bernard
My purpose is to digitalize vinyl records. Using my default audio card
gave poor results. On an audio forum, it was stated that I couldn't
expect good results unless I use a usb audio interface. Lots of them on
the market, but I'd be interrested to hear someone saying that it works
with Linux and give good results for my purpose.

Picking a good usb audio device for linux is a bit more complicated than
it should be. In principle there is a common usb-audio standard and all
audio cards complying with the standard will work for linux or any other
OS 'out of the box', ie. with no need for a driver. In my experience,
however, there are many high end audio cards that are not compatible
with the standard and require proprietary standards that are only
available for the two most common _commercial_ OSes.

(I assume that part of the problem is that virus scanners and the like
that suddenly use a lot of cpu/disk activity break the timing on lesser
OSes which is crucial for audio. The workaround of the hardware
manufacturers is to supply their own proprietary drivers and not to rely
on the capabilities of the OS).

So you have to find a model that works without a driver (or has a linux
driver) and fits within your requirements for sound quality. There is a
list of supported hardware somewhere on the pages of the alsa project
[3]. It is not so useful for usb devices, though, and I found it better
to just check, if a particular usb card works without a driver.

Please go and complain to manufacturers that produce devices that are
not standard compliant. Only if their support gets nagged by many linux
users, they will become interested in exploiting that market share.

FWIW, I have a 'Terratec usb phase 26' [1] and a V-Dac [2]. Both work
out of the box on debian lenny. Both have much better sound quality than
mass market built in devices. The quality of the V-Dac matches that of
the best CD players available from high end audio companies at a much
lower price (ca. 270 Euro).

The Terratec has a lower sound quality compared to the V-DAC, but
records as well as play back and is much cheaper. (IMHO good value for
money.)

I am still looking for a sound card with better recording quality than
the terratec (and linux support!), but the terratec is certainly more
than adequate to record records for use on mp3 players and the like. On
expensive audio equipment it is just not as good as the v-dac.

Of course that is all just MHO and I am not affiliated with any of those
companies. ;-)

Cheers,
Johannes

[1] http://www.thomann.de/de/terratec_phase_26_usb_se.htm
[2] http://www.musicalfidelity.com/products/vseries/vdac.html
[3] http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Matrix:Main

[Allan Wind]

Post by Bernard
My purpose is to digitalize vinyl records. Using my default audio card
gave poor results. On an audio forum, it was stated that I couldn't
expect good results unless I use a usb audio interface. Lots of them on
the market, but I'd be interrested to hear someone saying that it works
with Linux and give good results for my purpose.

There is a large difference in quality between the audio
interface that is part of your typical motherboard, and dedicated
hardware (PC Card (PCMCIA), ExpressCard, PCI, USB, Firewire) with
external devices potentially offering less noise.

Linux support the USB 1.1 audio specification, and if the device
is compliant it just works. USB 2 devices require a driver for
each device.

I have an Alesis IO|2 which works great, but the loud pops into
my powered monitors is a bit nerve wrecking. Edirol UA-25EX and
Lexicon Omega works, but my sample of the former was defective,
and neither device supports separate volume control for the
headphone output which was a requirement for me.

You may want to consider Firewire devices as well.


/Allan

[Johannes Wiedersich]

Post by Allan Wind
Linux support the USB 1.1 audio specification, and if the device
is compliant it just works. USB 2 devices require a driver for
each device.

Where did you get this information? What changed within the
specifications between 1.1 and 2.0 so that they require a separate driver?

Johannes

[Allan Wind]

Post by Johannes Wiedersich
Where did you get this information? What changed within the
specifications between 1.1 and 2.0 so that they require a separate driver?

linux-audio-***@lists.linuxaudio.org

When I looked into this a few months back I was not able to find
any supported USB 2.0 audio devices. I would have bought one of
the Lexicon IONIX devices if drivers had been available.


/Allan

[Johannes Wiedersich]

Post by Allan Wind

Post by Johannes Wiedersich
Where did you get this information? What changed within the
specifications between 1.1 and 2.0 so that they require a separate driver?

When I looked into this a few months back I was not able to find
any supported USB 2.0 audio devices. I would have bought one of
the Lexicon IONIX devices if drivers had been available.

This could either mean

- the specifications changed

or

- there are no manufacturers following the specifications

I went to great length trying to find a first class linux supported
device and had the impression that it is rather the second point, that
limits the choices. Glancing at the usb audio specifications [1], I
think that they cover 2.0 as well.

So its up to the linux users to nag the manufacturers to either follow
the specifications and/or provide linux drivers. As long as those have
the feeling that they don't loose 'enough' market share, they won't
change their linux-unfriendly policies. My experience with contacting
them seems to indicate that they are largely unaware of the problem.

[2] lists some devices that are supported by indamixx and seem to work
with the linux drivers.

Cheers,
Johannes

[1] http://www.usb.org/developers/devclass_docs/
[2]
http://www.indamixx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=70&Itemid=102

[Tim Beauregard]

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Post by Bernard
My purpose is to digitalize vinyl records. Using my default audio card
gave poor results. On an audio forum, it was stated that I couldn't
expect good results unless I use a usb audio interface. Lots of them on

I bought Edirol 1A-UA as the most basic external sound card. It has
been perfect for the job of converting all analogue audio via RCA. As
for working with linux, out of the box. I got it when Sarge was in
testing, and it has always been recognised as /dev/dsp1.

Not sure if it is still on the market but there are plenty of equivalents.

HTH, Tim
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[Raffaele Morelli]

My purpose is to digitalize vinyl records. Using my default audio card gave
poor results. On an audio forum, it was stated that I couldn't expect good
results unless I use a usb audio interface. Lots of them on the market, but
I'd be interrested to hear someone saying that it works with Linux and give
good results for my purpose.
Thanks in advance for any advice

What? Audio quality related to audio interface being usb or not? :-/
Seriously, this is really the worst advice regarding audio interfaces.

Result are strictly related to AD converters inside the sound card,
ie, bytes are bytes whether they are coming from usb or pci or
firewire.

BTW, what do you mean with poor results?

I suggest you to join LinuxAudioUsers mailing list
http://lists.linuxaudio.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-audio-user if you
want to have good advices regarding multimedia and linux.

regards
-r

[ghe]

Post by Raffaele Morelli
Result are strictly related to AD converters inside the sound card,
ie, bytes are bytes whether they are coming from usb or pci or
firewire.
BTW, what do you mean with poor results?

Signal to noise, I'd guess. The inside of a computer box is not an
electromagnetic anechoic chamber, and there are analog components in a
sound card.

You're right about the A/Ds, but it usually doesn't hurt to put them at
the end of a USB or Firewire cable...

(That being said, my bottom-of-the-line RME card is a PCI -- apparently
it *can* be done.)

[Raffaele Morelli]

Post by ghe

Post by Raffaele Morelli
Result are strictly related to AD converters inside the sound card,
ie, bytes are bytes whether they are coming from usb or pci or
firewire.
BTW, what do you mean with poor results?

Signal to noise, I'd guess. The inside of a computer box is not an
electromagnetic anechoic chamber, and there are analog components in a sound
card.
You're right about the A/Ds, but it usually doesn't hurt to put them at the
end of a USB or Firewire cable...
(That being said, my bottom-of-the-line RME card is a PCI -- apparently it
*can* be done.)

Same for my terratec EWS88MT, but I wonder if the differential (?!
apologize for my english :-/ ) between pci and usb/firewire ones would
be noticeable. After all we are talking about dear old vinyls.

Post by ghe
--
Glenn English

-ra

[ghe]

Post by Raffaele Morelli
I wonder if the differential (?!
apologize for my english :-/

"difference" :-)

Post by Raffaele Morelli
between pci and usb/firewire ones would
be noticeable. After all we are talking about dear old vinyls.

Well, *if* there's a noise pickup problem inside the computer, the
character of the noise would likely be very different (hums, buzzes,
squeals) from the noise from vinyl disks (rumble, pops, clicks, surface
noise...). Nothing that would show up on a voltmeter measuring S/N, but
because it's different, it'd be audible.

[Raffaele Morelli]

Post by ghe

Post by Raffaele Morelli
I wonder if the differential (?!
apologize for my english :-/

"difference" :-)

D'oh!
In this case I really didn't mean "difference" but the meaning in
mathematics... maybe "gain factor" is more appropriate for my thoughts
mmh... but maybe I am now misunderstanding your sense of humor... :-)

Post by ghe

Post by Raffaele Morelli
between pci and usb/firewire ones would
be noticeable. After all we are talking about dear old vinyls.

Well, *if* there's a noise pickup problem inside the computer, the character
of the noise would likely be very different (hums, buzzes, squeals) from the
noise from vinyl disks (rumble, pops, clicks, surface noise...). Nothing
that would show up on a voltmeter measuring S/N, but because it's different,
it'd be audible.

+1

Post by ghe
--
Glenn English

-r

[Dave Thayer]

Post by Bernard
My purpose is to digitalize vinyl records. Using my default audio card
gave poor results. On an audio forum, it was stated that I couldn't
expect good results unless I use a usb audio interface. Lots of them on
the market, but I'd be interrested to hear someone saying that it works
with Linux and give good results for my purpose.

Are you feeding your soundcard directly from a magnetic cartridge
turntable? If so, you will need a preamplifier which implements the
RIAA equalization curve.

See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_cartridge> for further
details.

There exist USB sound adapters with phono-level inputs. I have a ION
"MixMeister" adapter which seems to do a decent job and was fairly
cheap. It Just Works with debian and alsa.

FWIW, Ripping vinyl involves a fair amount of effort, so if you can
borrow CD versions of your LPs or find a cheap used CD you're better
off ripping the CD than spending a lot of time in Audacity trying to
get a clean LP rip.

HTH

dt
--
Dave Thayer | Whenever you read a good book, it's like the
Denver, Colorado USA | author is right there, in the room talking to
***@thayer-boyle.com | you, which is why I don't like to read
| good books. - Jack Handey "Deep Thoughts"

[Johannes Wiedersich]

Post by Dave Thayer
FWIW, Ripping vinyl involves a fair amount of effort, so if you can
borrow CD versions of your LPs or find a cheap used CD you're better
off ripping the CD than spending a lot of time in Audacity trying to
get a clean LP rip.

Certainly, it is more involved to record a LP than to copy a CD, mainly
because the latter is much faster than playback and has some tools to
automatically retrieve the track information.

I've recorded quite a few of my LPs and didn't spend any time with
audacity. YMMV and it depends on the quality of your playback and
recording equipment of course. My play backed LPs typically sound as
good or better than CD and there is a slight loss in quality of the
recordings due to the limitations of the usb sound card. I don't think
that this could be improved by audacity or any other software.

FWIW some of my records are not available as CDs.

Cheers,
Johannes

[Bernard]

Post by Dave Thayer

Post by Bernard
My purpose is to digitalize vinyl records. Using my default audio card
gave poor results. On an audio forum, it was stated that I couldn't
expect good results unless I use a usb audio interface. Lots of them on
the market, but I'd be interrested to hear someone saying that it works
with Linux and give good results for my purpose.

Are you feeding your soundcard directly from a magnetic cartridge
turntable? If so, you will need a preamplifier which implements the
RIAA equalization curve.
See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_cartridge> for further
details.
There exist USB sound adapters with phono-level inputs. I have a ION
"MixMeister" adapter which seems to do a decent job and was fairly
cheap. It Just Works with debian and alsa.
FWIW, Ripping vinyl involves a fair amount of effort, so if you can
borrow CD versions of your LPs or find a cheap used CD you're better
off ripping the CD than spending a lot of time in Audacity trying to
get a clean LP rip.
HTH
dt

Thanks for your reply. This is not a matter of ripping, but of
preserving my vinyl collection of about 250 records, before it decays
too much or before pickup heads and diamonds are no longer available. I
am using a RIAA preamplifier, but the results are still poor. I went to
a forum that is specialized in audio matters, and they said I would have
much better results if I were to use a quality sound card, usb for
convenience. Problem is that, in this specialized forum, no one can tell
which sound card is linux compatible... The sound card I have so far
been using is included in my motherboard (ASUS P5LD2 SE, Soundmax ADI 986A)

[Johannes Wiedersich]

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Post by Bernard
no one can tell
which sound card is linux compatible... The sound card I have so far
been using is included in my motherboard (ASUS P5LD2 SE, Soundmax ADI 986A)

There have been a few suggestions and links on the debian-user mailing
list [1]. You might have missed them, because it is part of debian's
mailing list policy to just reply to the list and not to cc the poster
(unless requested explicitly).

Johannes

[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2009/06/msg01611.html
gives links to the replies of your message.
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