USB Sound Card / Headset Advice

Hey all, i am currently waiting on my new p170sm and i am looking to buy a usb sound card for it for around 30-50$ since the on board sound card isn't that great on laptops. The Asus Xonar U3 caught my eye, Amazon.com : ASUS Xonar U3 Sound Cards (XONAR_U3/UAD/B/A) : Electronics, and i would like to know that you all think of it. Its pretty cheap atm but i am willing to pay a bit more for a better product. I never use laptop speakers and i use in ear headphones for gaming / watching videos.

Also,does anyone have a recommendation for a good gaming headset for 100-150$ (or less if i don't need to go overboard lol). If i can give you more information to get a better idea of what might suit me best let me know. Thanks.

 

Creative Labs Recon3D Headset - Walmart.com

This is what I got. I budgeted the same as you. But I went way overboard with this. But I'm glad I did. I wanted a headset that could do virtual surround sound and was wireless. The recon3D soundcard makes it that much better than pushing sound thru the aged sound processor in my R2. I guess it'll depend more on what you're gonna use it for really.

 

USB soundcards are just USB DAC's, I would go for an actual DAC instead of a sound card, you'll get better quality.
Behringer UCA202 - $30
HifiMeDiy Sabre - $50
Fiio E10 - $60-70
Schiit Modi - $100

I would probably go with the Schiit because of the cool name and best sounding DAC at this price range, but if you don't want to spend all that much, get the E10 or Sabre.I should say though, I haven't tried any of them out, go look at some reviews, they're all pretty solid though

As for headset, I would go for
Superlux HD-668 B $50~
CAL! - $70
Audio Technica ATH-AD700 - $100 - Lack of bass, but probably best headphones out there for gaming

The AD700 are the best headphones out for gaming period. But the lack of bass means if your music taste is into say dubstep, these wont sound good for you.
If you like your bass though, get the CAL!, trust me, get em
Check out Mad Lust Envy's Headphone Gaming Guide: (Updated: 5/23/2013. MrSpeakers Mad Dog v.3.2 Reviewed) for a more indepth look at lots of headphones for gaming and such

As for the microphone, I would go
Samson Go Mic
Mod Mic

Samson Mic is better, but isn't a headset type of mic so go get which one you prefer

The reason why I don't recommend all that 'gaming' headset bull**** is they don't offer you much in terms of good sound quality and costs lost of money, you want open back headphones that are very transparent have offer a good ability to image sound, this will help you LOADS when it comes to FPS games as you'll be able to pick out noises a lot easier and clearer.

 

This is not correct.

USB sound cards that are gaming-focused will have support for virtual surround sound. Virtual surround sound (aka downmixing) is a sound processing technology that takes a source 7.1-channel audio signal, calculates what your 2 ears SHOULD be hearing based on the position of the sound source, and pipes that processed sound into 2.0-channel stereo headphones. Examples of this are the Creative Labs X-Fi USB or Creative Labs Recon 3D USB (both use Creative Labs CMSS3D Headphone mode), or the Astro MixAmp (uses Dolby Headphone).

Note that the audio needs of a PC-gamer are different than the needs of an audiophile. An audiophile wants gear that gives near-perfect reproduction of 2.0-channel stereo sound for music. An audiophile will emphasize things like neutral sound signature, clarity, sound stage, transparency, etc. A PC-gamer wants gear that makes games sound "fun". This will often mean gear that emphasizes bass frequencies, or does virtual surround sound downmixing (7.1 --> 2.0 channel). The reason I mention this is because you cannot take a look at what an audiophile considers to be desirable, and assume that it would also make for a good PC-gaming experience.

Having said that... to the OP:

• What headphones are you using? Headphones should easily be the first place you invest money if you're looking for better audio quality.
• If you want virtual surround sound on-the-cheap, check out Razer's Surround Sound audio driver. It is a piece of software that you install that does the 7.1 channel --> 2.0 channel virtual surround downmixing for you; and it does a pretty good job compared to the top-end software algorithms that do this (CMSS3D and Dolby Headphone). And it's free for the rest of 2013.

I suspect that the best use of your limited budget $100 - $150 would be to spend that all on a set of good headphones, and just use Razer's Surround Sound software to provide the virtual surround sound support for PC gaming and movies.

 

This.

Ditch the USB sound card and use Razer Surround. As for the headphones, take roughavoc's advice and use the $50 you saved toward a really nice pair of audiophile stereo heaphones (recommend something from Sennheiser or Audio-Technica) and a cheap clip-on mic. You'll get way better audio quality over a "gaming" headset at the same price range and Razer Surround will take care of the positional sound for games.

 

Just be aware that the Modi is just a DAC, therefore you will need to purchase an amplifier separately. The HifiMeDiy Sabre is also pretty poor at driving headphones so I'd recommend an amp for it as well.