Question about USB Audio adapters

Ok, the headphone jack on my laptop has broken and I need a USB audio adapter cause I don't want to open my laptop and attempt a repair.

I found these 2 products :

http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/imic/ : this costs over $ 30.00

and

http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-5-1-Channel...d-Adaptor_W0QQitemZ190112101771QQcmdZViewItem

I just want a no frills adapter that I can plug into my laptop so that I can listen to some music. Can someone explain what is the basic difference between these two products ? Will the ebay product affect sound quality ?

 

Neither are here or there

For the Griffin you are paying a premium for the "iPod" affiliation and for recording capabilities you may not potentially use. For the second it is a jack of all trades, but cheap plastic no-name brand thing (come on, its 50c buy it now!). I mean if you want to buy it for $5.70 I suppose its a low-cost risk if only to satisfy curiosity and on the off-chance it might be half decent...

But you may as well go the whole 9 yards and buy a proper sound card; PCMCIA or usb.

Signed,
Making people spend all their money

 

Look here, there are plenty of options. I would reccommend the USB dongle kind or a PCMCIA card for a laptop. The iMic, and those like it, ruin the portability of having a laptop.

 

Thanks guys. Right now, I am not looking to upgrade or invest in a better sound card since I already have a fully functional card in my laptop. I just want a solution for my broken headphone jack. The 0.50 cents adapter is very cheap I admit. But it just represents the lower end of the product spectrum.

Now, there's another very similar cheap adapter ( link) for $ 0.69. In the product specs they mention the following :

Does this adapter bypass my sound card ? Will it affect the sound quality ? As I said, I just want a cheap solution to my broken headphone jack. Without loss of sound quality, will this product solve my problem ?