What Audio Capture Hardware Devices Work Best??

[AFMRPCUSER]

Greetings:

I have been considering the purchase of some hardware and software to capture streaming audio from the Internet and convert the Audio to digital files such as MP3. Having an iMAC narrows the field due to the lack of a Audio Card but I imagine I can make use of a USB port for transferring digitized audio. I would like some suggestions and advice on what type of hardware and software are working with the Apple Mac family running OS X 10.5.5. Your comments and suggestions are welcome.

[marioman38]

Will Audio Hi-Jack (http://rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro/) not suit your needs? Why would you need hardware to capture internet audio. Or Radioshift (http://rogueamoeba.com/radioshift/) if you're looking to capture popular on-line radio shows (ex: Loveline)

[AFMRPCUSER]

marioman38

Greetings:

Thanks for the reply. Well, the reason I need a hardware device is I plan to use outside sources of audio to form MP3 files. I have various computers and one in particular is going to be dedicated to online audio streams. In addition, I plan to capture audio from a HD Stereo RX. Maybe there is a place where I can find just the right sort of animal to do this. So far, I have not been very successful in doing so. I have located only three such devices. It appears that most folks doing this are pulling the audio off the computer they are also using to run the software to do the capturing, massaging and in turn making an audio file such as MP3. It's just a project, I have always been interested in, but building a A/D and D/A system is cost prohibitive with component size and complexity the way it is today.

:cool:

[Plumbstone]

It's not the best quality in the world but the built-in mini-jack should work fine. Internet broadcasts are pretty low res anyway and you are wanting to end up with mp3s so you wont notice much difference between the built-in and a dedicated convertor to be honest.

If you can though, the easiest thing for the internet stuff is definitely Audio-Hijack. It doesn't use much power and will real-time convert everything for you.

[BobbyB2]

I've been very happy with m-audio firewire audiophile - works with m audio pro-tools and everything else - it's been around for a while but the drivers are always up to date. Can't go wrong with m-audio. Low cost great sound.

On the other hand I'm also using an Apogee "mini-dac" usb feeding it my Apogee Rosetta when I want primo sound and I'm "clocking" the Rosetta with an Apogee Big Ben - you do get what you pay for.

-BobbyB

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