Looking for a good usb sound card for my laptop

Hey guys how's it going? I'm looking for a good USB soundcard for my new laptop. Must be Win7 compatible. Don't care what the price is as long it can run sound through my speakers and deliver a significant improvement in sound quality. The Realtek OnBoard sound chip in this machine is simply awful!

 

I'm not sure about USB soundcards, but apparently there are some alright Expresscard ones. I can't speak for their quality though, as I haven't used one.

Sound cards are always going to be more "available" for a desktop, as there is a larger market for them, but certainly have a look into Express Card sound cards if your notebook has a slot.

 

Thanks. It's gotta be USB though. My EC slot is being occupied by my wireless internet card.

 

There are quite a few USB ones these days though. I have no idea which ones are good though.


Turtle Beach makes some cheap ones. There are also some professional level ones.

B&H sells some USB sound cards. That store caters to media professionals, so maybe you can trust them to stock good stuff?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=usb+sound+card&N=0&InitialSearch=yes

 

Also check out sweetwater.com and musiciansfriend.com under audio interfaces. I have a Lexicon Omega, but I'm not happy with its build quality, and its probably overkill for what you are looking for.

If you have a firewire port, this is also a popular interface, but the prices are steep.

 

I use EMU-0404 and it works pretty well as a DAC.

 

Hmm, interesting. I didn't realise that they were that popular.

 

Depending on how closely you listen - I find the X-Fi Go without any effects sounds quite OK - I can't decide whether my Sony X1060 isn't better though...

On Sony EX85 the Sony MP3 player won... and Sennheiser IE8 I can't decide...

The Creative X-Fi USB cards do run on the processor though - as long as you aren't used to 1000+$ hi-fi set-ups I'd think it should do you nicely

 

The audiokontrol1 is a great little interface. There's the cheaper audio2dj which has the same converters but lacks the audio ins.

 

also check out zzounds.com perhaps

 

Try a DAC.

The NuForce uDAC is supposedly excellent.

I have tried a few HotAudio DACs and they are pretty good.

 

Which onboard sound card do you have? AC97?

If you've got a new machine, you're not much of an audiophile, using Intel's HD Audio, then it's far more likely that the problem is your speakers, not your sound card. I suggest you get a new set of those instead. USB sound cards don't give a "significant improvement" compared to Intel HD for normal use, the biggest rewards being the removal of that annoying white noise (the hissing sound you hear when nothing is playing). White noise is more intense in older laptops or particularly powerful ones, unfortunately

If you are using AC97 a USB sound card makes perfect sense, and i would reccomend Turtle Beach. Creative makes good products but they tend to be a little on the pricey side.

 

I went and picked up both the nuforce and the turtle beach from amazon. I will letcha know how I like them

The machine I have is the new model from Sager Notebook: the 9850. There is an issue with it's onboard Realtek soundchip that causes mp3 files to skip and stutter. It's driving me up the wall. Plus, the volume on this Realtek chip is pretty low. I'm hoping one of those new USB Soundcards will help.

Do you guys happen to know if there are any decent external mini speakers that are USB powered?

 

A bus-powered USB adapter won't help you much on the volume side - although some onboard soundcards are inordinately quiet (and yet noisy at the same time). You'll find out in any case I guess.

RE: USB speakers. There are hundreds of Dell A225's on fleabay. It's kind of pathetic for a speaker in terms of volume, but it is better than a laptop speaker and there is of course a limit to what you can do with 5V @ 500ma.

 

I think it'll also depend on the headphones used - my X-Fi Go is significantly louder than my onboard Audio (realtek HD) - and so is my mothers X-Fi 5.1 USB card - on speakers and headphones.

But I use IEMs, so that might affect them.

If you have high end headphones - those large ones, there might still be too little power to drive them properly.