Is the Line-in Jack On the Verge of Extinction?

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?"

Comments

I Don't Know What You're Talking About

[eldavojohn]

My netbook (months old) has a line in jack. My motherboard (1 year old) has a line in jack. In fact, the software drivers for my motherboard allow me to decide what I plug into each of the three jacks even though it's Realtek crap software. Hell, I think I could have three line-in 1/8" jacks if I wanted to. From what I can tell, the most popular Dell desktop is the Inspiron 560. I hate to sound like a salesman but not only do you get 7.1 surround sound at $350 but you also get a line in jack. They even suggest you "Use the (blue) line-in connector to attach a record/playback device such as a cassette player, CD player, or VCR. On computers with a sound card, use the connector on the card."

So that leaves us with some interesting cases:

1. Something is very rotten in the state of Australia and their recent Think of the Children campaign has gone to new lengths to prevent people from transmitting sexy audio.
2. You are very adept at selecting some models of computers that have no line-in jacks from a sea of computers with line-in jacks.
3. You actually have a line-in jack, you just are confused with the colors (please don't take this as an insult, I've helped family members through this before). You also might have better drivers allowing you to make one of the jacks a line-in jack but you don't realize it.
4. Look closer at your sound card. Does it say "Sorny" or "Panaphonics" on it? Buying computers from a kangaroo in an alleyway will get you what you pay for.
5. Your tinfoil hat is on so tight you can't see the back ports on your computer.

Look, if you could give us more information like what operating system you use and what motherboards you're using, I'd be willing to track down the manuals on them and verify there's no line-in jack and take a boomerang to the head if I'm mistaken. But couldn't this problem have been solved with a couple bucks? My eeePC netbook has a line-in. I really don't see them disappearing at all.

P.S. If you're looking for something a little more professional, external Audigys and M-Audio Pre USBs are useful for what you're doing though they are pricey ($200 USD).

Re:I Don't Know What You're Talking About

[TemporalBeing]

There's a lot of SoundBlaster cards that have them - Awe64 Gold, SBLive!, Audigy2, just to name a few series.

Re:Yes, it's dying

[phliar]

Honestly, unless you're a DJ, it's pretty unlikely that you have any audio that doesn't exist as something digital (MP3, AAC, WAV, etc.)

Well, you know, there are still a couple of people around that play musical instruments (you know, those expensive things you don't have to plug in), and we sometimes like to record the sounds that we make. And others sometimes go to listen to people playing these instrument things, and they sometimes like to record the sounds. Craziness!

My question is

[proxima]

Why don't all car radio setups come with a line-in jack? Even many of the aftermarket ones don't have them (on the front, at least). Such a cheap part, and yet so many people use their ipods via FM tuner or tape adapter.

Almost always the rule when correcting others.

[chaboud]

I know that it's an age-old rule of correcting others that one makes a mistake of the same nature in the corrective statement (I'm likely to suffer a few), but those phone jacks that you list (typically called TS for tip-sleeve when mono or TRS for tip-ring-sleeve when stereo or balanced mono) are most commonly sized in 1/4", 3.5mm, and 2.5mm. 1/2" would be awesome, but I've never seen one.