A/V Talk

If you care for a demonstration, we'll have to hook up over G+ sometime.
I use it regularly.

We already did, remember? And the sound quality was quite nice. This is just one of those things where I have to decide how much $$$ I'm willing to spend on something that I'll use only occasionally.

I do remember... I just couldn't recall if I used this mic back then.

Stupid question, but why not use a "standard" microphone connected to the microphone-in jack on your computer?

For me, I wanted something of very good audio quality.

You can probably get that out of a professional mic that you've somehow plugged into your standard mic input, but most professional mics require XLR pin connections.
You'd have to adapt that to the 1/8th inch mic jack on your computer, which requires buying some other part to maintain.

With my mic, I just have the stand, the mic, and the USB cord plugged into the computer. I'd be screwed if I needed this mic plugged into a mixer, but for my needs, this is pretty good.

The problem with using the audio input on the computer is that it's often wired to the cheapest A/D converter they could get their hands on. A good USB mic is likely to have an A/D that matches its quality.

But I am also looking at components, perhaps an XLR-to-USB A/D plus a decent analog mic. Then I could use it for video projects as well.

I decided to order the Samson Meteor Mic [http://goo.gl/Bgyns]. It should be arriving within the next couple of days and I'll post an audio sample after I've had a chance to play with it for a little while.

I'm pretty happy with the sound samples I've listened to on the 'net, and in addition to the USB port it also has an analog output for "no latency monitoring" -- I figure if I ever want to use it on my analog board I can just attach to it there.

I heartily approve that mic

I agree about the quality issues. Unless you've got a really good sound card, you may not be getting the best ADC components.

XLR, or more to the point, balanced audio signals, are definitely a must for profressional setups, but is a PITA when having to integrate professional and consumer gear.

I was looking for an external electronic crossover for my home stereo system.
Most of my searches ended up falling into one of three categories.

1. Passive crossover units for car audio.
2. Professional-level electronic crossovers for PA systems or concert venues.
3. Audiophile-level electronic crossovers.

I clearly wasn't interested in anything from the first category. The third category carries a huge price mark-up. That's left me with the professional gear. However, most of that gear uses balanced audio, either using XLR or TRS (tip-ring-sleeve) connetors. My home stereo gear uses unbalanced RCA connectins. It was relatively easy to find cheap XLR-to-RCA or TRS-to-RCA adapters, but everything I had read said that the signal levels are different between balanced and unbalanced audio. That would mean additional eletronics to convert back and forth.

I did finally find a crossover unit that has unbalanced RCA connections.
Just need to save up some $$$'s now.
XLR Binder

Well sure, if you want to go XLR and have lots of $$$ to throw around ... there's nothing quite like the high-end gear. If money were no object I would have bought something like an Electro-Voice RE-20, the mic that could make pretty much anyone sound like a radio announcer.

The nice thing about USB mics is that the ADC is integrated, and presumably well matched to the job it has to do. Bypassing the cheap ADC found in a typical laptop or desktop computer is a big win..

Spell what are you doing with an electronic crossover? Are you looking to send different frequency ranges to different amplifiers?

That's exactly what I'm looking to do.

The speakers I have, a pair of A/D/S L2030B's (see http://tinyurl.com/cgm8jfu for specs and pictures), are designed so they can be bi-amplified. A switch on the back disables part of the internal crossover, allowing the woofers to be driven directly. The mid-range and tweeters are still behind the internal crossover.

The idea is that by limiting the frequency range the amplifiers have to deal with, clipping due to transients will be less likely, distortion can be reduced, and a few other benefits. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi-amping has some more info.
Spell Bi-amp-der

People are saying nice things about the Samson Go Mic ($35) and the
sample recordings I've heard on the Internet actually sound pretty
good, but it's a *small* mic. Does anyone know of any real winners in

the under $50 space?

I know I'm a little late, but I own the GoMic and it's really, really good for the price. I had to take the little hex screw out that holds the Mic in place tho and put some paper in front of it to more securely keep the mic from moving though.

I am copying all my cd's of mp3s to my huge hard drive so I can copy them to DVD.

I suspect the sentiment in the suggestion was probably to go from cd to FLAC rather than cd to mp3, which should produce better quality. Recoding from mp3 is certainly a bad idea.

<nitpick>Converting from MP3 isn't necessarily a bad idea if the bitrate for the encoded audio is high enough. I vaguely remember hearing that most people can't tell the difference between CD-quality audio and a 192 Kbps MP3.</nitpick>

You are assuming that he still has the original source CD's.