When oil burned and dinosaurs still ruled the earth, about 20 years ago, an external sound card for Mac cost as much as a smaller country’s state budget. Not to mention what a Mac cost! But times, like Macs, are changing. Today it is possible to buy an external USB sound card for your Mac for a few hundred bucks. Which is exactly what we did.
Rating 4 out of 5
Opinion
A small external sound card that connects via USB to your Mac. No drivers or the like are needed and it’s sick easy to use. The sound quality is perfectly okay. The only thing missing is the ability to set the sound card to a more detailed level.
Positively
- Easy to use
- Priced
- Flexible format
Negative
- Possibility to check the sound card
- Missing usb-c
Digital Life AV202-B is a flexible small sound card that is connected via USB to your Mac. It then converts analog music / audio to digital format. The device itself is a black, rectangular story in plastic. Out of it goes partly the actual usb-a connector that is connected to the computer, partly two rca sockets (females) plus a decent 3.5 millimeter headphone cord.
Talking about installation is to take in. Digital Life AV202-B is really plug and play. Once connected, it appears as a recording option in most of Apple’s own audio programs, such as Quicktime or Garageband.
So how do you go about it? Say you hypothetically have an old cassette tape with some exciting bootleg recordings from that crayfish record you were on in 1980, the one that Thomas Ledin appeared on and produced the guitar, got tok-feeling and interpreted Ry Cooder until everyone went home. Then find an old cassette player, then plug the 3.5 millimeter plug into it, press record the program you use on the computer, for example Quicktime, press the play button on your old Walkman or whatever it may be, start the music and then it’s just wait until the song is done. Could not be easier.
Digital Life AV202-B works whether it is an Ipod, an old Walkman, vinyl player or a tape recorder. The only requirement for it to work is that the source material can be connected via rca or 3.5 millimeter connector. In the program you use for the recording, you can then select an appropriate digital format.
If you want the ability to edit the sound, the manufacturer recommends Audacity, a free program that allows you to wash away the crackle from a scratched vinyl record, tweak treble and bass and much more. AV202-B appears in Audacity to the right of Core Audio, where you change to USB PnP Audio Device. If you prefer to use Quicktime, it works just as well, but it does not have the same editing capabilities at all.
The only thing we have to whine about is that there is no way to control the hardware. On the other hand, there are plenty of free programs, of which Audacity is one of them, which lets you tinker with the sound afterwards. If we are to be even more picky, we will miss it even older your contact, used by turntables from the 1970s. But then we are really picky. If you are a regular user who does not need to set everything on a molecular level and want to be able to convert your old cassette tapes or whatever it may be, then Digital Life AV202-B works really well. The sound that is recorded actually sounds… quite okay.
Facts
Name: Digital Life AV202-B
Connections: 2 x rca, 1 x 3.5 mm, usb-a
Award: Costs SEK 280 at Amazon Sweden
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