[Elecraft] USB sound dongle

[Jim Brown]

On 8/21/2012 7:26 AM, KQ8M wrote:
> Unfortunately the 0204 does not work very well with Win 7.

EMU is on by $&%*@ list because of their conscious decision to NOT 
support discontinued products.  When I went looking for a driver for my 
0202, I found that EMU had removed it from their website ON PURPOSE.

I managed to find a couple of drivers on third party websites, one of 
which wrecked a XP Pro system so badly (it wouldn't boot!)  that I had 
to do a complete restore. I found a driver that worked on N8LP's website.

I will repeat recommendations I have posted here several times for good 
low cost USB audio interfaces.  These are plain vanilla 48 kHz units, 
intended for semi-pro home studio audio playback and recording, and for 
DJs.  One is the lowest cost Numark unit, sold by B&H Photo for about 
$30.  Another is the lowest cost Tascam, sold by B&H for about $70. Both 
are free of Pin One Problems, work with generic Windoze drivers, have 
stereo RIAA Phono Inputs, and  Line Level inputs and outputs, and the 
outputs are adjustable. The Tascam also has a mono mic input, a mono 
guitar input, and an input gain control. It is the one I like best. Both 
work equally well decoding and encoding digital signals.

Someone recommended a cute little Byterunner unit that is much smaller, 
and sells for about $35. I bought one and tried it.  While it works as 
well as the others for encoding and decoding, it's quite cheaply made 
and I found the connections to be flaky at times. It does NOT work with 
generic Windoze drivers, and comes with its own on a CDROM.

If I were looking for a USB adapter for spectrum display, I'd poke 
around websites for distributors of equipment for home recording studios 
and study their specs. Some of the better distributors are Full Compass, 
Sweetwater, B&H Photo.  Be sure to figure out which version(s) of USB 
they support, and which version of USB your computer has.  The newer, 
slicker stuff will be at least USB 2.0, and sound cards that don't tell 
you are probably USB 1.1, which works with USB 2.0 systems.  But USB 2.0 
sound cards may not work, or work as well, with USB 1.1 computers.

73, Jim K9YC