Quite frankly, in todays business climate, I have little faith in what many corportations "alledge" to be the real deal.

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I understand this, but from an engineering point of view, specification sheets for non-end user components (those sold to other companies and used by them in products) are accurate, though must be subject to careful interpretation. Omitting information in products aimed at customers is one thing, although misrepresentation still puts a company at the risk of being on the wrong-end of a class-action suit if enough people get angry. Telling a manufacturer that your product does A when it in fact doesn't do A gets you sued pretty fast.


Looking through the spec sheet in more detail, node 1F, Stereo Mix-Down, looks somewhat interesting. Unfortunately, I don't have enough depth in this subject to go any deeper, nor a *61 to test with.

I'll read through the thread now, I guess... <_<

Well, the computer handles stereo just fine. If you feed it in through other hardware. And it PLAYS stereo just fine, even if the volume never gets much above a whisper.

Perhaps it is just a matter that they stuck in a mono micriphone socket, didn't wire in the line in socket (I'm told each discrete piece of hardware, jack, socket, button, adds $5 to the sales price of a unit), and somewhere there's a circuit trace to "the other channel" on that audio chip that would work just fine?

I'm not going to get that far down the ToDo list for a long time, but perhaps someone more enterprising than I could look at the schematic for the sound chip, see which pins are "L-INPUT and R-INPUT" and then see what becomes of them on the circuit board.

Stranger things have been known to happen!

Right you are .... I'm very happy with my T61's recording and playback performance. However I have to use an external Express54 slot Creative X-Fi Notebook sound card to achieve this level of satisfaction.

And you also "have" to use XP (although I understand you may not feel that is a drawback )

Yes, I really like using WinXP

I've also gotten the X-Fi external adapter to work. More or less and after a fashion, with zero help from Creative. Satisfactorily?...well...I'm a hard customer.<G> At least their latest driver set, when installed in the proper sequence during a new moon, doesn't cause system problems any more.

Let's hope they get the bugs out of the X-Fi's Vista drivers

Dunno, eecon. Creative's stock prices tanked after a class action lawsuit against them, and you've really got to PO the users to get a class action suit slapped against you.

Then there's their tech support staff, which I hope they bought cheap, because I couldn't find anyone who spoke YnGlitch much less anyone who actually understood which files to download--the instructions on the support page were fubar and flat out wrong, toxic if followed.

That's all usually the signs of real management level problems, which kill a company unless some superhero buys them out cheap and sweeps house. And these days? The superheroes all work in Hollywood. (The pay's better and the villains are working for a percent of the cut.<G>)

Thanks for making this issue a sticky. Better late than never.

Watch the attitude. I can unsticky it just as quickly.

I am sorry you felt my remark was a display of a bad attitude. What I meant to say was that I wish this issue had been more prominently displayed months ago when I made my purchase. But I understand that some issues take a while to become clear.

I do hope that the reason you made it a sticky is that you saw that it was the right thing to do and not just that you felt pressured to do so. In any case, thank you for doing the right thing. Hopefully this will help, even if just a little, so that those that care about this issue can make a better informed decision. The word still needs to be go out much louder.

Any one care to digg this?:

http://digg.com/hardware/Consumer_alert ... ed_laptops

Ok, I finally stopped procrastinating and installed/toyed with the StarTech ICUSBAUDIO device today. So allow me to answer my own ponderings: Yup yup, with the device inserted (and its 'optional' drivers installed from the CD!!), one just needs to plug a headset into it while they are recording, in order to hear the sound. I should have felt more certain about that even beforehand, since the StarTech was designed for use with headphones (or a mic for adding voice-overs and whatnot).

It worked great! (Of course, what you capture will sound better when played on a computer, stereo, etc. with higher quality output than many laptops have.) I'm so happy to have more or less emerged victorious over the real time/stereo recording restriction, that at the moment anyway, I don't even mind that this method involves having a fat little USB device present as I record "what I hear." I think more frustrated peops should try this thingy (and we even know now that it works with both XP and Vista).

Glad to hear that there is a working Vista solution now

semiclue-
Does that gizmo include a balance (left-right) recording control?

I ask because Audacity's balance control only works for playback in Vista--won't affect recordings--and my XFi slot card has no balance control in Vista. I'm trying to compensate for a hot side on a tape player source but have no options.

It's been a while since I visited the forum.

You can definitely record "What-U-Hear" but to "hear while it's being recorded" you need to know a little about the USB sound card.
The issue with the Startech product (and drivers) is the fact that the USB card becomes the sound card when it is plugged in. The onboard speakers on the laptop (and any speakers plugged into the headphone port of the laptop) are muted because they are driven by the soundmax card - not the startech USB card. The only way to "hear while you record" is to plug some external speakers into the headphone port on the startech USB card. These external speakers can be headphones or speakers.

Browsing through the last couple of pages in the forum it looks like any solution from LENOVO themselves is a pipe dream at best....

Funny you mention a Mac...that's high on my list as the next laptop that I buy - sometime this fall.

The same applies to the X-Fi external Express54 solution by default, however the Creative software that comes with it allows the option to remap the sound through the laptop's speakers if you wish. I tried that and it works fine except their is a 0.1 - 0.2 sec time lag in the lip sync when watching DVDs .... barely noticeable, yet still there. Since I'm always docked, with the lid closed (using an external monitor, KB and mouse), I plug an external 5.1 speaker system directly into the X-Fi (using the X-Fi's optional 5.1/7.1 adapter).

BTW, I'm using WinXP and not Vista fortunately.

Hellosailor! Just checked, and saw that the XP recording control panel does cover it, anyway: The recording -- not just playback -- balance option does appear along with stereo mix, while the StarTech device is present. (I've been using Audacity too, but didn't poke around much for that in its own settings.) I hope it's the same for Vista, but Dr. T could answer that for sure -- he's the one who successfully used the gizmo for stereo mix with Vista. (As he posted previously, his first one was defective, but he scored with its replacement.) Hopefully he'll see this and reply re the presence of a recording balance option in Vista while using the device.

Btw, I hear you on the comment in your sig about the feeble Intel 4965AGN! I almost added that to my previous post -- the fab StarTech workaround would be even more useful if it wasn't for this lazy wifi card! (Oh and speaking of the fab StarTech workaround, have I told you that I love you lately Match_Point? Still amazed that anyone stumbled upon this trick, considering that the included drivers CD isn't 'supposed' to be necessary, and isn't even mentioned anywhere in the instructions!!)

so to summarize my 1+ hour of research so far:

- that X-Fi card would be the best solution for T61 laptops using XP ? ... well at least it has surround sound outlets via that extra adapter, and that all could be had for around 100 bucks + shipping these days ..

not that I use the laptop for sound mixing and what not, but will eventually be interested in that in the future. Hell I just downloaded Audacity

FWIW, I use my WinXP T61 on a Lenovo advanced mini-docking station with an external 22" WS monitor and an external KB and mouse 99.9% of the time as my desktop replacement. The T61's lid stays closed and the unit is tucked away at the far corner of my desk unmolested. My docked T61 runs cooler, more powerful and much quieter than my custom built P4-3.0 full case desktop sitting next to it. I use the 7.1/5.1 adapter with the X-fi and no longer hear the noise of 8 whirling fans from the old desktop case during games, music or videos when using my 5.1 speaker system. The room also stays about 4F degrees cooler during summer. I believe that I have not fired up my old desktop in about a year now .... just use it as a stand for my USB scanner connected to the T61's docking station.

This link nicely sums up all of the 290 previous postings within this Sticky thread:

http://temporaryland.wordpress.com/2008 ... d-laptops/

This is so annoying, I randomly used the Line-in port on my old T30 to record some Playstation songs I liked. Also some songs on a NFS game like Carbon, but now for my T61 is gone.

I'm wondering if this crippling audio thing also applies to new Thinkpads like the T400/T500/W500 series.

Which device is the cheaper way to get back the functionality of stereo recording on my T61, the Creative card costs about 80 bucks but as stated above I don't use that much the stereo recording capability, although I got GT5P and tried to record songs but no option there.

I'm really dissapointed with Lenovo's decision. Any one knows if other mainstreams laptops, like a Compaq or Acer still let you to 'rip' the audio from the mic-in source?

MACS ..... Plus I believe DELL recently restored this capability.

I know this threads getting old now, but I though I'd post this as a partial fix.
See video I made and stuck on Youtube.
If it wasn't for the slight echo it would be ideal, but I think it's going to be impossible to lose it.

Here is the new generation X-Fi card for express slot equipped
ThinkPads .... the previous version had some bugs under Vista.

http://us.creative.com/products/product ... duct=17988

Maybe this new model fixes the issues ... I'm using XP with the older version X-Fi with no problems, thus I can't really try this new one out yet.

Yoo hoo, match_point or anyone else who (preferably) has used the Startech USB device workaround, hoping you can take a stab at this: Are recordings made with this device probably of the same quality as those made with a typical default on-board card that came in a basic desktop PC? While the Startech's results are sounding just fine, I guess I wonder if the fact that it only cost $18 shipped should tell me anything! (Altho, for all I know maybe the average included desktop card wouldn't go for more than that anyway.)

I have a 2005 Dell Dimension 4700 that also came with an Analog Devices SoundMAX card (Device Manager doesn't show an exact model), albeit a non-crippled one. That's what I've used up until now for recording, and the results have been fine. I tried to compare by recording the same content on both that machine and my Thinkpad with the Startech. Happily, both recordings sounded the same to me -- but so far I've only been able to listen to the Startech's results on computers and a smartphone, not on CDs or a real stereo system.

So before I continue I thought I'd ask whether there is any reason to pick one machine over the other to record with, at times when either is just as convenient (and a line-in jack isn't needed)? Thanks!

These links answer the many questions about the audio recording capabilities of the new 2008 line of Lenovo ThinkPads (Stereo Mix or 'What-u-Hear' sources are no longer recordable on the new ThinkPads .... X/T61 and newer):

http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/mess ... ng&page=18

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... selected=5

As far as recording the 'sound' generated by the computer (CD,DVD played from the computer, streaming audio, etc....) the startech quality is the same as the fidelity I've been able to achieve with my T43. It makes sense because you're capturing a digital stream (zeros and ones). Recording "stereo mix" from a sound card (on board like the good old days or add-on cards) is not a re-digitizing of an analog stream. You're capturing the zeros and ones before they are converted to analog. (at least that's how I would think the sound chips are designed. I've never studied a spec sheet schematic to verify this....)
I listen to most of my captured audio with high quality in-ear headphones (westone UM2), or the stereo system in my vehicle and home. I have no issues with the fidelity of the 'computer generated audio' that I recorded with the startech product.

As far as recording analog sources via "stereo line-in"; The startech solution is not recommended. The main reason is the fact that the "mic-in" port on the startech product is mono. Yeah, it ticked me off when I found that out. Before I ordered the startech product I actually called them direct to confirm whether the card had a true "stereo line in" jack. The representative, after an in house consultation, assured me that the "mic-in" port was a stereo (three conductor) port, capable of processing stereo, line level signals. I tested it with a stereo separated audio image and found only my left sgnal was being recorded (the tip on the TRS plug).

Hope this helps..........

The X-Fi Express Card Mic input is Stereo