Now that 24b/192kHz cards are widely available, I wonder if you could hook a loopstick antenna up to one and get WWVB (60kHz carrier)? In theory as long as the signal is above -144dB you should be able to tease it out...
SNR even on the best converters is unlikely to be better than 120dB, but still - seems likely.
I'm amazed that consumer-grade audio cards are still available and cheap, to be honest. I can't recall having seen one in years, then again, I haven't had a reason to look for them in years either.
To be clear: actual "PCI-slot"-ish audio cards are now rare. But USB / Thunderbolt (and previously Firewire) external interfaces are a dime a dozen. Serious audio mostly uses them now.
Creative is still marketing them to gamers, amazingly.
Can't say I haven't been tempted.
Pretty common for any hobbiest who wants to record things too.
it's a weird market segment. the inside of a computer is not a great place to put a DAC, due to the EMI from all the other components. an audio enthusiast is going to strongly prefer running optical or USB to an external DAC/amp. a non-enthusiast is likely to be happy with whatever comes with their motherboard. it's hard to imagine a scenario that actually makes sense for a high-end audio card, but I'm sure some people buy them anyway.
Anything with a mic input will work. Audio interfaces over USB are plentiful these days though the discrete PC sound card is pretty rare :(
Microchips are cheap, once initial investment is made. I guess, it only costs ~10¢ for new SoundBlasters at 90nm-130nm.
The price of 10 sound cards will be enough to pay for a whole wafer.