Do I need a USB Souncard for MY laptop?

[tonybradley]

I've had my Dedicated Home Theater for about 3 years, so I felt it was time to analyze my room with REW, but have a question regarding the Sound Card.

I think I read somewhere that the soundcard had to operate in Duplex to use the In and Out at the same time.

I have a Dell Inspiron 1525 with the internal sound card. It has (2) Headphone jacks and one Mic Jack. I've read that with REW, not to use a Mic input, but LINE IN. Mine doesn't have a LINE IN labeled, but if you hook up a device to the MIC input, a window appears asking if this is MIC or LINE IN.

First question: I assume if I choose LINE IN, then I'm good on the Line In requirement for REW?

Second, I have two headphone out jacks. Can I use one of those as the LINE OUT, or does the sound card have to have another output specified as LINE OUT to be used for REW?

Third Question, will the internal sound card of the Dell Inspiron 1525 work in Duplex mode for IN/OUT at the same time to run the REW software and analyze my Sub response?

Sorry if these are elementary questions...

[brucek]

First question: I assume if I choose LINE IN, then I'm good on the Line In requirement for REW?

Yes.

Second, I have two headphone out jacks. Can I use one of those as the LINE OUT

Yes.

Third Question, will the internal sound card of the Dell Inspiron 1525 work in Duplex mode for IN/OUT at the same time to run the REW software and analyze my Sub response?

Yes.

I can't see any reason it won't work. You don't have to go any further to find out other than to hook up a cable from right line-out to right line-in and attempt a soundcard calibration. If it's successful, you'll be fine.

brucek

[tonybradley]

Great. Thanks. Looks like I can give it a try.

[Guiria]

Just putting my experience out there for you.

I have a Dell Latitidue D620 with selectable line-in / mic-in and my initial soundcard calibration starts to roll off around 50 Hz. I think it was -17 db at 20 Hz.

It did work but the low end performance of the built in sound card was not acceptable enough for me so I am going to buy an external card and give that a whack.

[DrWho]

The most important criteria as to whether or not your built-in sound card will be sufficient for measurements will be readily apparent when you run the sound card calibration. If you get different results between different runs, or if the sound is attenuated a lot in the passband you want to measure, then chances are you're better off finding a better audio interface.