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External USB Sound Cards?

post #1 of 6
2/22/10 at 6:05pm
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So I'm thinking about purchasing a external sound card for my Laptop, I was wondering how good they are, and how much of an improvement I should see over my lappys onboard sound. I'm curious to the quality of them, because the most expensive one they have on newegg is only about 70 bucks, and the rest are all around ~30. I also have a ExpressCard slot, if those soundcards have a better quality.

Does anyone have an experience with these cards, and could give me some idea of how good they are?
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Veronica
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post #2 of 6
2/22/10 at 6:37pm
I bought the creative one to use with my laptop but I found it was a pain and returned it after a couple days of use. I found that whenever I plugged it in I had to manually select it as the sound device and then I'd have to manually select onboard if I unplugged it and wanted sound. I just thought it was annoying to deal with because I was moving my laptop around a lot so I just returned it. IMO stick with onboard.
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post #3 of 6
2/22/10 at 6:39pm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by airplaneman View Post
I bought the creative one to use with my laptop but I found it was a pain and returned it after a couple days of use. I found that whenever I plugged it in I had to manually select it as the sound device and then I'd have to manually select onboard if I unplugged it and wanted sound. I just thought it was annoying to deal with because I was moving my laptop around a lot so I just returned it. IMO stick with onboard.
Well, did the external sound a whole lot better than your onboard sound?
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post #4 of 6
2/22/10 at 7:15pm
Depends. A good DAC should sound a bit better than onboard, and many sound cards. Cheap DAC's like the Creative one probably aren't very good.

The Nuforce uDAC is a great little DAC for $100, and the Musiland Monitor 02 goes for a little more. According to Chinesekiwi, the Musiland sounds better than his Xonar STX.

iBasso also has several offerings.

What's your budget?
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post #5 of 6
2/22/10 at 8:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by FattyMcFatFatFatty View Post
Well, did the external sound a whole lot better than your onboard sound?
Not really, there was a bit of a difference but not enough for me to justify buying the sound card. My laptop has pretty a good onboard 5.1 sound card though.
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post #6 of 6
2/24/10 at 7:53am
It is supposed you will have a superior sound quality using them, but if your onboard soundcard is good enough, you wont see too much difference.
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