My main interest at present is in making archival recordings of material that I originally recorded on audio cassette. My system currently contains a C-Media CM8738 controller as part of the Asus system board, which is recognized by Alsa. I assume that for quality results I will need better sound hardware. I asked this question of a local user's group last year and was informed that the M-Audio Delta 66 is of high quality and has good Alsa support. It was further suggested that one of the USB A/D converters could be useful as it would also work on a laptop. Taking into account price, performance and driver support, what options do you think I should consider? To connect to a cassette tape recorder is it sufficient to run a cable from its audio output to the input of the sound card, or is an audio isolation transformer also necessary (not sure where one would acquire this but I have heard that they are sometimes needed)? There are informative reviews at http://www.linuxhardware.org/ but they focus mainly on playback functionality rather than recording. Any suggestions for a newcomer to the field would be most welcome. Jason.
