What does an external laptop sound card do?

What is the purpose of an external sound card? Does it improve the built-in speaker sounds? Or only headphones and external speakers? Thanks!

 

It'll only improve output for external devices. The main purpose is to have better hardware in charge of the digital to analog signal conversion as well as to avoid interference coming from other "wiring" on the motherboard. Some devices also serve as an amp in order to drive higher impedance audio gear. I wouldn't try driving a pair of 300 Ohms headphones from a laptop headphone jack for example.

Some laptops have onboard sound that is just pure junk.

 

Ok now I get it thanks tijo!

Sorry I have another question. Does the astro mixamp pro or 5.8 work as a sound card or just amps?

 

If it connects through USB, it acts as a soundcard, if it connects through the jacks, likely it doesn't. It will be recognized by windows as a separate sound device if it does in any case.

 

Kk do you, by chance, have a good suggestion for a 7.1 surround sound card? I'm looking on google but can't find a good portable one. There are many but I'm looking for a nice USB one. Thanks for your inputs tijo

 

I'll move this to accessories and unfortunately, i don't have a recommendation for a 7.1 soundcard.

If you want me to change the title of the thread to reflect your new question, let me know.

 

nothing wrong with driving 300 ohm headphones from the laptop. Higher resistance = less current, so it's safer so to speak

actually there's big chance those will sound louder then some with less resistance, such as the case with my 32 ohm zennhiezer vs. my 24 ohm sony headphones. Note that less current is not always equal to less overall* magnetic field that drives the membranes of the speakers. That depends on the design of the coil inside the speaker.

P.S.
dont get USB sound card. Get expresscard one, or at least PCMCIA one.

 

Expresscard is indeed preferable, more bandwidth, but might not always be possible.

 

Maybe the Diamond Xtreme External 7.1 USB Sound Card or SIIG USB SoundWave 7.1 Digital would fit the bill? Most USB surround cards seem to use 5.1 or even virtual surround.

 

Only thing is, there's more than enough bandwidth regardless of USB or Expresscard. Why you might pick Expresscard is latency, but it's definitely not a guarantee.

 

I stand corrected, i'll take your word on that.

 

That's because that's the sweet spot in the surround relm. I doubt that you will find even a handful of commercial products with 7.1 encoding. Not to mention all the accessories needed to reproduce it. Unless you have deep pockets, it's just too esoteric to bother with.

 

Depends on what 7.1 you actually want. i.e.

1. if you want to pass through 7.1 Dolby surround from a movie into a receiver then some cards with optical out will pass through 7.1 - but not e.g. 7.1 for games.

2. If you want that (actual 7.1 for games to be output over speakers), then you need either a card which can encode Dolby (which aren't that cheap and I doubt any with USB or Expresscard exists) or a card with actual physical 8 outputs, as you might find on e.g. a desktop motherboard. I'm not sure any USB 7.1 soundcards are around these days apart from pro audio cards with 8 outputs (which wouldn't work for gaming).

3. If you're looking for actual 5 or 7.1 with headphones, I believe the Tritons and others come with dedicated multichannel amplifiers.

4. Or you're OK with virtual 7.1 - i.e. 7.1 surround simulated over stereo headsets - then there are a lot of USB modules which will do this with varying degrees of effectiveness. IMO if you're going to get one of these you're better off getting a virtual 7.1 USB headset.

Since the latter is also only actually outputting 2 channel audio in the end, any bandwidth issues are utterly moot as well - such a solution would even work over USB1.

 

Then maybe using a 5.1 sound card would be better then? When I make more cash, I plan to get the astro a50 headset, which can have 7.1 surround sound in it. It does sound easier to invest in a 5.1 rather than 7.1. Thanks guys for all these responses! Do any of you have suggestions for 5.1? I have a few in mind but I'm not well versed with sound cards

 

Exactly what is it that you want to do? If its 5.1 surround for movies I'd go the hardware route and let your receiver/pre-amp do all that work. To me, there's no way you can beat that heavy duty design. That's the simplest solution and the one I use unless you have some other exotic setup in mind?

 

*BUMPING OLD THREAD ALERT! *
Hello guys.
Recently, someone thought it was a good idea to get me a "Razer Tiamat analog 7.1" headphones as a gift, its really mighty and all, but I do hate to see it working on my stupid laptop's internal sound card, I googled for a bit, and found that an old Creative audigy 2 zs notebook is my best option, of course I'll have to get it used, as they don't make it new anymore.
Is there any viable replacements out there? and i mean PCI express ANALOG 7.1 sound cards.
Thanks in advance.

 

Hmm, funny that you mentioned they don't make it anymore. Could that be due to the limited gimmick factor? You might want to consider carefully before buying. Even true 7.1 encoding audio is rare.

 

Well I read a review about it here, and the reviewer said that its good for gaming, not bad for music, and I actually only want it for gaming, I don't record much either, so I think I'm gonna go for it, I mean, how many PCMCIA sound cards are there anyway? I've searched around and this seems like the only solid one, unless you have other suggestions?

 

Nope, no suggestions just the caveat. Please don't hesitate to keep us informed on how it works out. This is the place to share your good fortune, and/or mistakes.

 

I dunno how much it's going for, but in all honesty I would rather go for virtual 7.1 from a USB headset.

The problem with 'real' 7.1' headsets is that you don't actually get that effective positioning (as opposed to the state of the art now in terms of virtual surround), because the transducers only give a slight sense of front and back, and everything is still firmly in your head (unlike many virtual implementations, many of which take a fair stab at trying to move the sound away from completely between your ears) - and furthermore since every driver has to fit into a standard headphone form factor, the drivers are small and compromised.

 

The big issue is that most USB sound cards are no better than the on-board sound chips that decent laptops have and they add unwanted latency. If you happen to have a bargain-basement Acer then maybe they'll improve your sound slightly. The only real reason you'd want one is for extra speaker outputs but if all you're using are headphones then you're better off getting ones with bigger drivers and less of them.

Lots of fun huh? If you already have the 7.1 overmarketed headphones I'd recommend one of ASUS or Creative Labs USB soundcards. I'm sure they make something that would work for you. Diamond is a bit of a bargain-basement brand that's been handed around between several owners recently and I'd avoid them.

 

Yes, I would have gone with them too ( Razer Megalodon looks really fine btw ), to save me all the fuss, but I got this one as a gift anyway.

I looked in Creative's website, there's no USB 7.1 sound card there, also asus's only 7.1 usb sound card is xonar u3, it doesn't look like much, and its digital 7.1, I need an analog one.

Of course, I really appreciate your help and information guys, and I would love nothing more than to help you a little bit with feedback, problem is, I live in Egypt, that sound card doesn't exist here ( looked everywhere ) only found it used on amazon and ebay. Amazon is fine, but it doesn't sell Electronics to Egypt ( DUH ) only books
ebay = paypal, which doesn't support Egypt's credit cards... my only options are to ask one of my friends to pay for it, or wait till my brother returns from USA in june to get it....
ty deal isn't it... I pay for an internet visa, and the only thing I can use it for is to pay for my game server rental.

 

Thanks for your reply mate

Ok guys, I received my creative audigy 2 zs notebook yesterday ( see how long it took.. duh ) and I just want to say: Amazing! its definitely a huge boost to my music and movies.. I have it connected with Tiamat 7.1 and everything is going great, so thanks for all of your replies.
About 7.1 surround, it works perfectly with my games, pinpointing the exact position of the sound source, even more accurate than the virtual surround. Before my sound card arrived, I downloaded razer surround app, which boosted my Tiamat 7.1 with virtual surround system, it was a huge improvement, but now I have the real 7.1 surround, I must say it totally trumps virtual surround, and of course saves a few valuable cpu consumption, allowing my FPS to increase by 10-20 on Call of Duty: Modern Warefare.
The sound seems a bit different when using my Tiamat in 7.1 mode I must say, but the pinpointing of the exact location of the sound source isn't something to give up easily.
That's just a little feedback from a newbie thanks for all the help.