Voyetra Turtle Beach Audio Advantage Roadie Sound Card
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- Output Mode: 7.1 Channel Surround
- Card Interface: USB 2.0
- Bit Depth: 16-bit
- Form Factor: External
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High quality audio sampler for your portable PC
Pros
Small package, low cost high quality audio sampler
Cons
None
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Beats portable PC sampling quality hands down in an attractive package with lots of features.
The Turtle Beach Roadie Sound Card is meant to offer excellent audio recording and play back capabilities for notebooks and laptops. It comes in a small, attractive package that is easily hooked up to your USB port and get you recording in no time. The quality is excellent.
Basics
But wait, don't most notebooks/laptops come with a built-in microphone or line input so why should you be interested in the Roadie? Well, if you've ever attempted to record with your built-in recorder you would know the quality of such recording is pretty crappy. Particularly
speech is very noisy using the typical built-in recording device.
The Roadie is an external recording device that converts analog audio to digital audio and transfers this to your PC over a standard USB link. The device can record both mic as well as line input stereo levels. The documentation does not mention whether the Roadie records with 16 or 24 bit but the dynamic range is quite sufficient for most audio applications (it appears to be 16 bit). A recording of a grant piano revealed no issues on the part of the Roadie; just that my microphones aren't the best.
The Roadie records and plays back SPDIF (optical) as well! That means that you can accept digital audio streams without loss of quality.
Roadie's functions
The Roadie packs quite a few capabilities in a small package, here they are:
* Records analog stereo on microphone as well as line level
* Plays back stereo, 5.1 or 7.1 (it has a special connector for 5.1 headphones)
* There are two built-in microphones for stereo recordings right from the Roadie. If no external microphone is plugged in, these
microphones are automatically enabled.
* The Roadie plays back and records using SPDIF optical.
* Volume control slider
* USB connector for connection to your PC
The Roadie is packaged with a set of cables (USB, 3.5mm Jack cable, 5.1 speaker cable, two optical adapters)and CD containing drivers and software.
Installation and Use
Installing the Roadie's drivers and accompanying software is simple, I had no problems with it whatsoever. The Roadie control panel allows for complete setup of its capabilities. The software allows you to control the number of connected speakers, has a 10 slider equalizer,
has an effects configuration whereby all sorts of echo/depth effects can be controlled or created and a mixer to mix the various PC sound sources. The software is simple to use and looks well designed.
Testing
Being an electrical engineer, I just had to figure out how good the Roadie really is. So I hooked up a Tektgronix AFG3102 synthesizer. Using a 20mVpp input signal (which is of similar level to a high level output microphone) and a triangular wave I can safely say that the Roadie appeared
better than the syntheziser! An open/close input test showed that the noise floor is at about 100dB suggesting that the Roadie is indeed a 16 bit device.
Conclusion
For its price, I don't see how anyone can beat the performance of the Roadie. Assuming one obtains a good set of microphones, I expect the Roadie to make excellent recordings. In addition, the package is very attractive and its built-in features (microphones, SPDIF, 5.1/7.1 output) will keep you busy playing with it. This is a no brainer, go get one!
Basics
But wait, don't most notebooks/laptops come with a built-in microphone or line input so why should you be interested in the Roadie? Well, if you've ever attempted to record with your built-in recorder you would know the quality of such recording is pretty crappy. Particularly
speech is very noisy using the typical built-in recording device.
The Roadie is an external recording device that converts analog audio to digital audio and transfers this to your PC over a standard USB link. The device can record both mic as well as line input stereo levels. The documentation does not mention whether the Roadie records with 16 or 24 bit but the dynamic range is quite sufficient for most audio applications (it appears to be 16 bit). A recording of a grant piano revealed no issues on the part of the Roadie; just that my microphones aren't the best.
The Roadie records and plays back SPDIF (optical) as well! That means that you can accept digital audio streams without loss of quality.
Roadie's functions
The Roadie packs quite a few capabilities in a small package, here they are:
* Records analog stereo on microphone as well as line level
* Plays back stereo, 5.1 or 7.1 (it has a special connector for 5.1 headphones)
* There are two built-in microphones for stereo recordings right from the Roadie. If no external microphone is plugged in, these
microphones are automatically enabled.
* The Roadie plays back and records using SPDIF optical.
* Volume control slider
* USB connector for connection to your PC
The Roadie is packaged with a set of cables (USB, 3.5mm Jack cable, 5.1 speaker cable, two optical adapters)and CD containing drivers and software.
Installation and Use
Installing the Roadie's drivers and accompanying software is simple, I had no problems with it whatsoever. The Roadie control panel allows for complete setup of its capabilities. The software allows you to control the number of connected speakers, has a 10 slider equalizer,
has an effects configuration whereby all sorts of echo/depth effects can be controlled or created and a mixer to mix the various PC sound sources. The software is simple to use and looks well designed.
Testing
Being an electrical engineer, I just had to figure out how good the Roadie really is. So I hooked up a Tektgronix AFG3102 synthesizer. Using a 20mVpp input signal (which is of similar level to a high level output microphone) and a triangular wave I can safely say that the Roadie appeared
better than the syntheziser! An open/close input test showed that the noise floor is at about 100dB suggesting that the Roadie is indeed a 16 bit device.
Conclusion
For its price, I don't see how anyone can beat the performance of the Roadie. Assuming one obtains a good set of microphones, I expect the Roadie to make excellent recordings. In addition, the package is very attractive and its built-in features (microphones, SPDIF, 5.1/7.1 output) will keep you busy playing with it. This is a no brainer, go get one!
