RME

At the heart of the Digital Audio world lies arguably the most important part of the system, the Analogue to Digital and Digital to Analogue converters. Simply put, these converters take an Analogue signal (such as a voice through a microphone) and convert it into a series of numbers, able to be sent great distances or stored over a long time, and then convert them back from digital into Analogue, but without them, we couldn't even begin to make music with our computers.

Dedicated Headphone amplifiers are a must when you are dealing with high end audio, and a seperate DAC is used to convert your digital music back into analogue so you can hear it...

PCI based audio interfaces are internal sound cards fitted inside your system. Whilst not as portable as the USB & Firewire variants they can offer slightly better latency in some situations due to the direct connection to the motherboard and the drivers having more direct control over the hardware.

Microphone pre-amplifiers convert the signal from the microphone into a line level signal, SP/DIF digital or USB format. The use of a good preamp with a good condenser or ribbon microphone can produce some very accurate and detailed results.

USB audio interfaces offer high quality inputs and outputs for recording and playing back your audio. With the added advantage of being easy to transport and move between systems, they are a popular solution for performers wishing to have a single high quality interface they can move between the studio and stage with ease. USB audio interfaces due to their portability and often great value remain perhaps the most common audio interfaces in use today. With USB being the computer worlds most widely supported connection standard, through using an USB audio interface it allows us the flexibility of having it either in the studio or to easily take it out on the road with you. This means that you can use the same high quality audio I/O connections and quality recording signal path found within your audio interface, no matter where your projects may take you. Regular USB audio interfaces are likely to be based around the classic USB connection