Best Dell for sound?

I had been thinking of getting a Latitude E5500, I've had Dell's for years at work and always liked the added robustness and lack of bloatware on Latitudes.

Lately though I have gotten into converting my vinyl to digital and plan to do a lot more sound oriented things.

Do any Dells have an upgraded sound card, or is it all software driven?

Any other thoughts given my "new" interest in music?

I am looking for a 15" screen but would be OK with a 16". This will mostly be a stay at home computer. I don't want something huge, but portability is lower on the list of priorities than it would be for a work computer since I travel a lot.

TIA

 

The built-in soundcards are all crap really...seriously. For what you want to do you should look into a proper audio interface with decent Analog/Digital convertors. Big question is...how much do you want to spend on a soundcard?

 

There are external soundcards available, both via USB or expresscard. Typically laptop sound cards are not up to much cop to be fair, though I've heard my friends Studio 15 on external speakers and it doesn't sound too bad. You don't get much connectivity though I believe. Best bet is to get a semi decent external one, such as the Creative Live USB or some such.

 

To be fair the HD chips in these newer models are actually pretty good for playback - sounds great through my hi-fi. Recording on the otherhand is a bit more dependent on the A/D converter and not really having tried it I can't comment on the quality. Worth a test first to see how it goes though. All the Dell range tend to have the same Sigmatel/IDT codecs so it doesn't really matter which - same jardware just a different package, and matters even less if you are going to go with a better quality external box.