Some weeks ago, when I was doing another audio recording, I asked myself if there is an optimal gain setting for the input of the audio interface and what it might be. In general, we can adjust the input gain to any value and amplify or attenuate the signal later in the post processing. However, we all know that low gain settings destroy our recordings as they contain too much noise which is basically impossible to reduce afterwards. So the optimum I am looking for means an optimal trade-off between high gain and low noise as any amplifier also contributes and increases noise. Read more

Some time ago, when I was looking for long microphone cables, I came across the idea of using network cables with appropriate adapters. This is a neat idea since you can run four audio signals over one network cable with 8 pins + shield. However, soon questions about the audio quality and other drawbacks came up. Therefore, I did some simple measurements on microphone and network cables of different lengths, which are described in the following. Read more