Linux-compatible USB microphone or sound adapters

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Mon, Jan 05, 2009 at 12:09:49PM -0500, Tyler Aviss wrote:
> Awhile back I got an HP tx2500 series laptop to replace my old and
> heavy portable rig. It actually runs quite nicely in linux, but one of
> the continual annoyances I've had with it is that the microphone input
> doesn't work on the soundcard (so no skype/voice-chat/etc). I picked
> up an el-cheapo USB soundcard, and unfortunately it's the same issue
> (output works fine, input has no luck). It's detected as:
> [1481307.799208] input: C-Media USB Audio Device    as /class/input/input5
> [1481307.799320] input: USB HID v1.00 Device [C-Media USB Audio Device
>   ] on usb-0000:00:02.0-6
> [1481308.001077] usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-audio
> 
> I'm fairly sure, however, that it's not an issue with ALSA itself
> (other than poorly-supported cards) because I pulled the Logitech USB
> microphone from my 360 (Rockband) and - while it's huge and unwieldy -
> it sounds great. The regular mic itself seems to be working as well
> when I test it on other machines.
> 
> So what I need to find at this point is a portable USB-soundcard
> adaptor that works with ALSA for input, or a smaller USB microphone
> that I can drag around with the laptop. The former is preferable
> though.
> 
> Anyone have any recommendations in this area?

Well I picked up a logitech USB headset for my wife, which seems to work
just fine in linux and windows.  Would that work?

Now a problem with USB audio devices is that many behave as SPDIF and
have fixed frequencies.  That means either the applications has to be
willing to deal with that specific frequency and format for input, or
you need to have alsa do conversion for you.  I have seen some example
.asoundrc files to setup such input convertion.

On the other hand ekiga seemed to have no problem with the USB headset,
even though some othter applications needed some convincing, so at least
chat worked (I won't touch skype).

-- 
Len Sorensen
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