Thinkpads Forum

Just out of curiosity, for people who have ThinkPads with the internal sound card disabled for mixing and don't have expresscard support, why wouldn't a separate USB-based sound card not work? I've read on the forums where people say they haven't heard positive experiences with USB sound cards anywhere. I'm not totally tech-inclined, but the USB sound card would be its own separate device and I would not think Lenovo could affect it.

Is it because A) Lenovo somehow found a way to cripple USB devices that are sound cards or B) the USB sound card itself has this crippling built-in?

Sound Blaster X-Fi Go - USB sound card
http://us.store.creative.com/Sound-Blas ... 651ZNI.htm

Something like that is small and relatively inexpensive. Just want to hear a technical explanation as to why something like that can't be an easy workaround.

Thanks.

Just out of curiosity, what is the crippling issue that everyone talks about with the sound cards?

If it is a mono input jack, then the usb should work, provided it has the features you wanted. You would just have to make sure that any program you use to record is configured to record in stereo instead of mono.

craigmontHunter wrote:Just out of curiosity, what is the crippling issue that everyone talks about with the sound cards?

If it is a mono input jack, then the usb should work, provided it has the features you wanted. You would just have to make sure that any program you use to record is configured to record in stereo instead of mono.

http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/General-Dis ... td-p/10258
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=52527

Here are a couple of links to get you up to speed. I'm not sure if they meant that you just couldn't record in stereo (but you can still record in mono) OR if they meant you couldn't record anything coming out of the built-in sound card period.

I'm almost 100% sure you can record sound, but I remember that those USB cheap devices do not record in Stereo Mode, so if you want to capture with good quality and in stereo buy the Creative card. I use a old IBM NetVista to record old tapes or stuff I want to digitalize.