In this case, you need a Y-shaped adapter with a 1/8’’ stereo and two RCA monos. And many of them also have an RCA plug instead of 1/8’’. For example, many home stereos have two mono outputs instead of one stereo. In some cases, more complex cables (or adapters) are needed. A microphone usually comes with a cable attached and this cable is usually mono. In most cases, you need an audio cable with 1/8’’ tips on both ends. Most external audio devices also have 1/8’’ stereo output jacks. A stereo cable has two rings (usually black) on its tip a mono cable has just one. You need a 1/8’’ (stereo or mono) audio cable to plug into these jacks. In such cases, it is always preferred to use line level output and connect it to Line-in.įor the vast majority of consumer-grade sound cards, both Microphone and Line-in are stereo 1/8’’ jacks. an output is intended to be connected to amplified headphones.a direct needle output from an LP player.You connect to the Microphone jack in the following cases: a high-end microphone marked as line level.an output is intended to be connected to non-amplified headphones.an output is intended to be connected to amplified speakers.

an output is marked as line out, line, or line level.You may need to read the manual for your device to find out the level of its sound output.Īs a rule of thumb, you connect the device to the Line-in jack in the following cases:

The Line-in jack is designed for so called line-level signals and does not use a pre-amp. The Microphone jack is designed to receive low-level signals and is usually connected to an internal sound card amplifier (usually called a pre-amp) for the purpose of boosting the sound levels. One is usually labeled Microphone and the other is usually labeled Line in. To accommodate these differences, a PC sound card usually has two different input jacks.

Most audio cables are inexpensive and can be bought in local consumer electronic or computer stores.ĭifferent devices can produce sound of a different intensity or level. The first step is to connect an external device to a sound card with the appropriate cable. In this tutorial, we will cover the following topics: The quality of such recordings can vary greatly depending on the sound card, the cable, and the external device itself.

Recording sound on pc