Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] laptop sound
From: Paul Winkler (slinkp23_AT_yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Nov 27 2000 - 20:45:00 EET
alex wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm about to buy a laptop for the sole purpose of making music.
>
> Any advice about which model I should buy, or which sound chip I should
> aim for?
>
> The most important factor is sound quality on playback. Some dodgy
> internal midi playback would be fun for experimentation, and external midi
> would be a dream, but difficult I suspect.
For MIDI you might get an external serial or USB midi device. There's
a bunch on the market and I hear they work fine.
Audio is still pretty sad on linux laptops...
I don't know of any laptops with built-in sound that's any good (there
may be some, I just don't know).
Your other choices are
1) USB sound devices - not many on the market, no linux support
AFAIK,
and apparently quite poor latency performance on Windows
2) Firewire / mLan - not many on the market and no linux support
AFAIK.
3) a PC card that breaks out to an external ADC / DAC box of some
kind.
Again, not much on the market and no linux support AFAIK.
I think firewire will be the way to go in the future.
Hey, I know the guys at Metric Halo, maybe I can hassle them about
linux support for their new 8-channel firewire interface.
> At the moment I'm looking at a laptop sold by dnuk.com, which has a
> Maestro 2E soundchip.
Have a look at:
http://www.pcavtech.com/soundcards/compare/index.htm
The Diamond Sonic Impact based on this same chip was described as
"near-CD quality in playback and near-telephone quality in recording".
I think this is what I have in my laptop. Playback does sound pretty
decent. Haven't tried recording yet.
--
................. paul winkler ..................
slinkP arts: music, sound, illustration, design, etc.
web page: http://www.slinkp.com
A member of ARMS: http://www.reacharms.com
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