Open Music Labs Forums

One of the demo videos for this gadget briefly mentions that it can be plugged into a laptop's sound card input. I'm considering buying the kit primarily for that reason, because I want to experiment with recording sounds from home-made circuits for the purpose of music making. Being able to amplify weak signals would be very useful, but I'm also very concerned about minimising the risk of damaging my sound card by plugging the wrong thing into it.

I'm wondering how suitable the audio sniffer is for this purpose, since "line out" and "headphone out" are usually different sockets on audio devices. Specifically, if I accidentally connect the probes to a too high voltage source while using it this way, perhaps while forgetting to turn down the volume on the audio sniffer, will I risk damaging my sound card or will this amplifier clip at a safe level?

the audio sniffer is not isolated from input to output
so if you connect the ground clip to 120v mains or something
then you run the risk of damaging your computer
but that is the only real risk

the output is run through 1k resistors
so it is current limited
and it runs off a 9v battery
so thats the limit of the output votlage swing (+/- 4.5v)

if you want to make something that is bulletproof
you can put an audio isolation transformer on the output