Do I Even Need A Soundcard? Options

[humbug]

Hi there, I'm a newbie. I just threw away some money on an Edirol UA-30 USB audio interface which sucks and is WAYYY too noisy. I did a side by side test with running sound straight into my minijack (on a G4 Powerbook) and the sound was sooo much better.

So... why do I even need a soundcard? I've heard that M-Audio makes decent devices, but to me they look just like the cheap, plastic piece of crap I just bought. Is it just that Edirol sucks? Did I get a bum device? Are other devices that much better? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[CanadaRAM]

Humbug: Just as a guess it sounds like you need to do some investigation of the Edirol 's setup first before spending more money.

Main cause for poor noise performance is improper gain structure. Could it be that your levels going into the Edirol are too low, or that large amounts of gain is being made up at the wrong part of the chain?

We don't know what you are recording or what your signal chain is, so we can only guess.

Another cause of interference might be too much going on on the computer or the USB bus while you are recording. Worst case would be recording to a USB hard drive while an antivirus scan is going on in the background.... Try slimming your system down, detaching from the Internet and removing non-essential peripherals when recording.

The Edirol may possibly be defective, too. Contact your dealer for how to diagnose.

Thanks
Trevor
www.CanadaRAM.com