Monica, have you had a chance to play around with the Samson mike? I'm hoping you can solve all the problems and then tell me how you achieved it! I have a huge amount of hiss with it, though I suspect it's my el-cheapo sound card. My on-board sound was a lot better, but I kept getting crackles and couldn't eliminate them, so stupidly I bought the cheapest card I could find - I was worried it wouldn't make any difference and didn't want to take the risk. Once I get more familiar with the Audacity software, I'll try burning to CD and take it to work to play on my MP3 player. I guess that will prove that it's all the soundcard's fault. Have you tried recording via another PC as yet?