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Topic: laptop PC with line-in jack? (Read 4103 times) previous topic - next topic
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laptop PC with line-in jack?

Does anyone make them?  The ones I see all seem to have only mic-in  jacks. 

I've also seen reference to laptops  that let you toggle one jack between mic and line-in.  Who makes these?

laptop PC with line-in jack?

Reply #1 –
As you said, it appears that most notebook manufacturers are opting for microphone and headphone audio options while axing the line-in/line-out features.  It has been many years since I have come across a notebook with line-in.  I had a Dell XPS that came with line-out audio but no line-in.

I looked online but I could not find a notebook with a line-in port.  Some of Dell's Alienware notebooks have an audio in/microphone jack but I don't know if that is the same as line-in.  The Alienware M17x is the model I am looking at.  That is their highest end gaming notebook.

Now, from what I understand, most microphone jacks are actually auto-sensing connections in that they can sense when a line level input is coming in or when a microphone is actually hooked up.  I have an older tablet PC that one headphone output port and one microphone jack.  However, these are auto-sensing connections.  According to Toshiba, it means that they are smart enough to know when they are outputting to a line-level device or headphones (or receiving from a microphone or line-level source).

I haven't had any problems with recording line-level material with my computer's auto-sensing microphone jack.

laptop PC with line-in jack?

Reply #2 –
How about an external USB audio device? Like the ADSTech "Instant Music".  The USB codec is a Burr-Brown/TI PCM2902E (that same chip is found in much more expensive USB audio gizmos). Build quality is good (made in Taiwan, not China); the other chips are all major brands. It's got low-pass filters on the analog inputs and outputs, just like the evaluation board that TI sells for the PCM2902.  Behringer makes the UCA-202 using the same chip, but it reportedly doesn't perform quite as well.  The only real drawback of the Instant Music is the unnecessarily large plastic case, and no headphone jack.