High-end measurementsRecommended Sound Cards
Most of the cards that have been tested will give decent results for ordinary measurements, except for the very high and low frequencies. If you have a sound device that is not on the list of tested sound devices, we recommend that you test it. Please report to us the results of your test. Measurements of some sound devices are found in the WinMLS folder under Measurements->SoundCards.
If you are going to purchase a new card we recommend that you study this document and find a suited card for your type of measurements. The Sound Blaster cards should in general work fine, but for the new cards (SB Live, PCI128 and other Sound Blaster compatible cards) only work at sampling frequencies 48, 24 and 12 kHz. This is because they work internally only at 48 kHz and other sampling frequencies (except for 24 and 12 kHz) are obtained by an internal frequency conversion that give poor results for MLS measurements.
There is a USB device available, the EGO-SYS U2A USB Audio Interface. We have received reports that this is working fine, but we have not tested it ourselves yet. A USB device has the advantages that it can be used on a laptop, and easily be moved from one PC/laptop to another.
If you are doing high-end measurements you should read the recommendations below and also the information given below about the cards that you plan to choose.