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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?"
So that leaves us with some interesting cases:
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).
My work here is dung.
More likely, line-in is just not a feature used by enough mobile users to make it worth putting on a laptop.
Most laptops don't come with 7.1 surround sound output either.. and it's not because surround sound is fading into the sunset..
Any desktop motherboard with integrated sound will probably have one though.. and just about any add-on sound card will as well.
_AND_ any decent external sound "card" will probably have one.. have a look at terratec's produce line. The DMX 6Fire USB has a whole plethora of inputs.
Even cheap mini-itx boards (MSI Wind for instance) have line in.. just get yourself one o` those...
There's inevitably some noise that creeps in with a line-level jack on your PC. It's not much, but it drives audiophiles to distraction. Moving it to a USB device helps reduce the noise by an order of magnitude or so. That may be one thing driving the change.
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.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Yes, a lot of new laptops have neither a microphone nor line-level audio input jack. Most people will never use it.
One easy solution is just to get a USB line in adapter 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 on Ebay that does video too. There are other similar products around.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
load the cassette tapes into my Apple ][+ if you take away my line-in port?
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.
No-no-no. You need a 50 dollar gold plated monster transistor for it to sound reasonably ok. All my 5 cent transistors are solid gold.
Actually three resistors.
http://www.electronics-tutorials.com/basics/attenuators.htm
It's called a pi network (because of the schematic shape.)
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
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!
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
The line-in jack will disappear with physical audio. 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.)
Why drop it? Its not as if it is any major cost to the machine these days. I don't use my line-in that often but it is certainly useful and it would be a pain to have to go an get a USB adapter for something so basic.
I suspect that the models that don't have them are low end computers where the manufacture tries to cut costs in the most extreme ways.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
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. .
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Microphone jacks have gain. Gain leads to clipping. And clipping leads to the dark side.
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 to correct the level, all you'll get if you put line level audio into a microphone jack is distorted overdriven noise.
Putting moderation advice in your
It's POSSIBLE that with that disabled the mic port acts just like a line-in.
It doesn't. Trust me. I was handed 12 hours of video with overdriven audio that can't be corrected (there's no good correction for clipped audio), all recorded that way because someone set up the recorder with line level audio going into the mic jack and never checked the recorded levels.
Putting moderation advice in your
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.
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.
This "musical instrument" cancer MUST BE STOPPED. When unlicensed amateurs are permitted to record anything they want, they devalue the musical landscape for legitimate musicians who are under corporate contracts. Do you want Miley Cyrus to starve, and Lady Gaga to go naked? Major recording studios stand to lose MILLIONS of dollars. We need legislation to control the unlicensed spread of microphones and pickup jacks. Anything capable of capturing sound should be subjected to a 60% surtax, the proceeds of which should be delivered directly to the Harry Fox Agency.
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.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
Every sound card or motherboard with audio includes an app with the driver that will conform the level to your liking.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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.
Agreed. Hearing an overdriven amp for the first time tends to turn these into this.
Mod parent up. That's the real reason why the inputs are disappearing from laptops. If you're trying to record something of any quality, the audio hardware built into computers doesn't even begin to cut it. The latency alone will make you want to throw your machine across the room. So:
Either way, the audio input jack sits there unused.
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Ironically, if you wanted to record the sound from an acoustic instrument, you would use a microphone and the mic-in socket.
Only if you hate your ears and believe they should be punished.
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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.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
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.
If you have $10 and a soldering iron, you can build a simple voltage divider network, and use that to attenuate the "line out" from your turntable to levels that are appropriate for your "mic in" port. For example, take a 9k ohm and 1k ohm resistor and go across the common and signal wires on your line out, and take the connection between the 2 resistors as the input to your mic in to get 1/10th the voltage of the "line out". These are almost certanly not the right values for the job, but the principle is the same, and will allow you to eliminate the clipping problem.
Do you want Miley Cyrus to starve, and Lady Gaga to go naked?
Yes and yes.
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).
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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.
appleguru.org
However the signal to noise ratio will be horrible because of all the unnecessary gain of the Mic amp stage.
for two reasons
1. (as another poster said) - you're attenuating and then amplifying a signal: noise
2. LPs are recorded with the high frequencies boosted, and this is then attenuated in a dedicated circuit within the receiver. By skipping this, you're going to end up with tinny recordings (did I mention noise?).
Seriously, unless you've got a nice sound interface, don't bother recording LPs, cassettes, etc - the results won't be worth it. Cetainly that USB thing from thinkgeek (linked earlier) won't produce good recordings. Unless it's a bootleg or something... I've got a nice multitrack firewire interface, and even then I'd only think about recording LPs, cassettes, etc if I had a really nice deck..