Looking for fastest Thinkpad w SoundMax chip & PC Card Slot

[Krillo]

Hi all,

This is kind of my first post here. I did have a previous accound, but my ISP has shut down their e-mail server, so I can't recover my password.

Anyhow, I'm mostly an audio guy and musician and I'm looking for a used Thinkpad.
Audio performance will be a priority, although I have a desktop PC for musicproduction. I had a X31 which I really loved, but the motherboard finally died, and there are snappier machines out there. I have had other laptops and the (uncrippled verion! of) SoundMax audio chip with line-in is a must for me. Also I would like the laptop to have either PCMCIA or ExpressCard slot if I would decide to get a dedicated audio interface. So my question is what model of Thinkpads are the fastest that have these features? Screen size etc are really less important for me. I would like it to be a really quiet laptop, ie low fan noise, just like the X31 or better. The most CPU demanding I will be doing is watching fullscreen (flash) video.

I hope I posted in the right forum

thanks!

[RealBlackStuff]

I think the T60 was the last good one.
On T61/R61/X61 it was crippled.
And after your X31, the best same-size would probably be the X60/X60s.
The newer X300 also has Soundmax, but I don't know details and/or if it it also crippled.

[Krillo]

thanks for the info

I notice that some (all after X31?) have combined mic / line inputs, hm...

[Krillo]

Which ones that have only mic-in have line-in on the docking station? I used to have a hp / compac nc6220 that was this way, so pulled out the optical drive and soldered in two 1/4" jacks for the line-ins. I could do that again, as long as I know the drivers aren't crippled...