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The AN 1 & Interface Connectors

The AN1 installs rather easily. No software drivers are included, because none are needed. You don’t even have to power down the system when first installing the device; you simply plug it in, and windows starts to install. If you have your Windows cab files on your HD, you don’t even have to whip out the original CD-ROM. After installation, a restart is necessary, but afterwards, you can actually plug and unplug the AN1 from your USB ports and your system will reconfigure itself automatically without a restart, it’s USB at its best! The ease of configuration is actually a must, since the minute you plug in your AN1, it takes over as the playback device in Windows. You can only have either your sound card, OR the AN1 as the playback device at any one time, so if you’re not recording tracks onto MD, your only option is to unplug the AN1, because as long as it is plugged in, the AN1 is the only audio device that will function. I found that there were some quirks in the way the AN1 configured itself when plugged and unplugged while the computer was on. The literature states that you should be able to do so freely, but I found that several times, unplugging and/or plugging the device into the system would cause some DLL’s to crash, and ultimately result in a forced reboot because audio became completely unstable.

The AN1 is essentially compatible with all MD recorders, since it’s really just passing the audio signals along. It is also compatible with any media player, again, since it’s just passing the signals along. I would stick with the MusicMatch software, because of its Analogue track-marking feature, but also because MusicMatch turned out to be a pretty good media player. With extensive features, MusicMatch becomes as much a digital music library organizer, as it is a media player. And with additional capabilities like CDDB support and the ability to rip and encode MP3s, this becomes a complete audio center.

Overhead view of the AN 1

The meat of the whole review rests on what I feel is the most important factor in deciding whether to purchase the AN1: whether it offers anything that regular sound card recording does NOT. If you believe in the dirty signal that is associated with a sound card installed inside of a PC case, then you have very good cause for purchasing a solution like the AN1. On the other hand, remember that MP3s use a lossy compression algorithm to begin with, so absolutely pristine recording conditions may or may not even be the most important factor in deciding audio quality, especially if you still go through that additional DAC conversion right before submitting the audio to the MD recorder. Then you could base the decision on ease of use and convenience. Certainly MusicMatch Jukebox enables a convenience that your regular media player does not have, but it can be purchased directly for $29.95 from MusicMatch.

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