Hallo, Bryan Jurish hat gesagt: // Bryan Jurish wrote:
(B) is the onboard soundcard on said laptop tolerable (A/D-D/A sync, general quality, etc.)? [i realize it probably won't be great; i just can't afford a hammerfall, my quattro is basically crap, and the adc on my terratec usb is thoroughly unsatisfying]
Being in part responsible for your choice of USB card: I also upgraded from the cheap Terratec USB to the Terratec Phase26, which has really good ADC.
Note that on Linux all USB soundcards have the same latency
Another card family to look at my be the Echo Indigo cards (PC-Card). They lack in channels, but otherwise are very good from what I heard.
Firewire seems to be an option nowadays too on Linux thanks to Freebob, but I don't have any experiences with it.
USB and Firewire may have the advantage, that they are somewhere else if a laptop is stolen. ;) (Sorry, I just couldn't resist to make this silly joke.)
The newer Intel soundcards (HD Audio) on paper should have very good specs, but I have no knowledge how good this translates to the real world.
Ciao