This laptop's sound card SUCKS! Help me

Just bought some expensive new headphones but everything that comes out of the P151 sounds like garbage (not so from other devices). Bass is nearly non-existent, even after I installed some bundled THX software! Can a USB sound card fix the problem? What are my options here?

 

Get a Headphone Amplifier or a USB DAC. Good recommendations I have are the FiiO F7, FiiO E10, FiiO E11, Creative X-Fi HD USB, or the NuForce uDAC 2. They are a tad on the higher-end of prices but they are worth it for your pricey cans anywhoo.

 

Oh I remember reading something about fiio! Will definitely look into all those suggestions, thank you

 

No Problem. I use a FiiO E10 and it does wonders to sound so you should definitely check them out.

 

Fiio is a good cheap alternative to an onboard sound card. I myself would rather spend a bit more and get something professional grade. I use the Echo AudioFire2 if you have firewire. If no firewire I would go with the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2

Both of these have balanced in/out which is great for recording or running some good active studio monitors. They both also have a good headphone amp built in with a volume knob on the front. I've gone through alot of sound cards and nothing sounded as good as the Echo AF2. I'm yet to try the scarlett but I've heard positive things from people who know what they're talking about.

And what headphones did you get?

 

Thanks for the suggestions but those look huge, I should've mentioned I'd like to be able to velcro the device to the back of my laptop

 

Yes, a USB sound card can definitely help fix the problem.

Your two options are:

* Get an audiophile-quality DAC (Digital-to-Analog Converter). Processes only 2.0-channel stereo sound, but does so at a very high audio quality. If you care about music more than anything else, this is what you want to get. Popular products here are from Fiio, such as a Fiio E7 for about $90.


* Get a USB gaming sound card. Processes 2.0, 4.0, 5.1, 7.1 sound. Even supports surround downmixing, which converts a 5.1 / 7.1 surround signal --> 2.0 stereo headphones for virtual surround sound. If you care about surround sound in gaming more than anything else, this is what you want to get. The card to get is a Sound Blaster X-Fi USB SB1090 for about $55.

 

The SB 1090's surround is pretty fake and everything relies on the X-Fi Drivers to make them sound even any better than onboard audio. I have used it very briefly with the X-Fi HD and I can tell you the X-Fi 5.1 Pro is garbage.

However if you want a good stereo experience with your headphones or a good 2.0/2.1 setup, then you should stick to DAC's. If I had to go with Creative Labs as an external solution, I would only stick to the X-Fi HD USB.

 

Well, like I mentioned, the Sound Blaster X-Fi Pro 5.1 USB SB1090 sound card is attractive to gamers, because of the CMSS3D Headphone mode (downmixes 5.1 / 7.1 audio signal --> 2.0 stereo headphones for virtual surround sound). To gamers, positional audio can be a more desirable feature than the incremental improvement in sound quality you'd get by going with a 2.0 channel DAC.

It is obvious that you care about sound quality above all else, and are willing to forego positional audio for better sound quality. Not everyone is willing to make that trade.

 

True but I think that the OP is more aiming about the Sound Quality criteria over the Directional Surround in my logical guess.

 

If you just want something cheap, simple, and small. Go with the Turtle Beach Micro Advantage. It sounds really good, is plug and play, and if you choose it has a system wide EQ(windows).

One of the most important things with notebooks is getting the sound card OUT of the case. Even if you use the lowest quality product it will sound better than most internal sound cards.

 

get a amp/DAC combo...you can use it for your laptop and your ipod.

 

This looks interesting but will it make my music louder? My main problem right now is that the laptop can't seem to power even my cheapo on-ear Sonys properly (which BTW give great bass using an old HP desktop!) I'm willing to sacrifice a USB port if the Micro can give me some booty bouncin bass at that price

Edit: Just read through some reviews on Amazon, some people were complaining about it being too loud... Gonna give it a try If it doesn't do what I need it to, I may pony up the cash for the FiiO E10

 

Yeah, I was going to say it is very loud. What headphones do you have? That will help in telling you what sound card will be able to power them properly.

 

Got the ATH-M50 and MDR-V6... I really know nothing about impedance and sensitivity but I don't think these are high-end phones, they should be fine with the micro right?

 

I've got some ATH-M50's as well. And yes, the Turtle Beach will power them. They are actually low impedance headphones. Only 38 ohms.

The Sony MDR-V6 have an impedance of 63 ohms, which still isn't very high. You may have to turn the volume up a bit while using them but it will still be able to power them.

On a side note, what do you think of the M50 vs the V6?

 

I think they're both pretty well rounded but the M50 has better bass, which is something I'm way into these days. Actually I was gonna go with the Sony XB's but I looked on youtube and it was nothing but kids wearing them lol (the things look ridiculous too)

 

You can even luck out with those $10 eBay specials most of the time. A $10 Cirrus-codec'd soundcard (I bought two from different suppliers - both check out fine) I got measures fine and powers even my Tesla T1's to ear-bleeding levels.

But the TB is a fine 'label assurance' alternative - hard to go wrong.

 

Thanks for the reassurance, it should be arriving tomorrow and I'll be back with impressions

 

Don't mean to hijack but has anyone tested these for low latency/realtime live audio applications? How does that turtle beach perform? If anyone would be so kind to test any of them with an Ableton Live demo, that would be nice, it has CPU usage simulation with a test tone at different sample rates and latencies.

My presonus inspire is generally pretty solid at 96khz 4ms.

 

I'm sorry but I didn't understand a word of that...

But holy crap the Micro WORKS. My head is pounding with bass and I'm just over 20% volume. <--Me right now.

The USB cable is very secure and I love how sleek the thing looks too. The blue LED matches my P151's perfectly. Oh and I'm loving the normalizer feature. Now my ears won't be randomly raped when I'm cruzing the youtubes

 

Booty bouncin' bass... Totally making that reference every time I talk about headphones now.

"Does it have good BBB?"

"What the hell is BBB?"

"Booty Bouncin' Bass."

 

Since there's no ASIO support it's kind of immaterial. If you want a decent bus-powered interface (well, you'll need two ports) with low latency I can recommend the RME Babyface