Which of these is the best audio solution for my notebook?

Like the title says, I am looking for the best audio solution - a quality DAC, amp not necessary - for my notebook.

I have a Sigmatel onboard solution and am connecting to a Logitech 2.1 speaker system. Usage is primarily music/movies and a little gaming on the side. I need optical out also as I have another 5.1 setup at a friend's place. I am looking at a $75 budget for this.

Given that my first choice, the Creative X-Fi USB does nothing when using the optical out, what good solution (for a laptop) would give the best sound quality (using the hardware/DAC, not the software)?

I am not really looking at effects (those can always be obtained using software), I am looking for cleaner processing and "purer" sound. Will be using analog cable connections here to connect to my 2.1 speaker setup.

I am thinking one of these might work:

Asus Xonar U1 - Out of production but on ebay for $80 approx link here
M-Audio Transit - $80 - Out of production as well link here
Behringer UCA-202 - $30 - link here
Turtle Beach Micro II - $25 - link here
Creative X-Fi - $50 link here

Your suggestions would be welcome. Thanks!

 

The top two in the list would be my choices.
I might lean towards the m-audio.

That's based on my use of those manufacturers in pci card form though.

 

I have the Creative X-Fi 5.1 and it works beautifully...both because it sounds great with only headphones and has a top mounted volume/mute knob, but it also has 5.1 support and analog, RCA, as well as optical outputs/inputs...

Definitely and awesome device and the software is pretty lightweight, easy to install and easy to use...very overall solid.

For the price and what you are looking for, you cant go wrong with the Creative X-Fi 5.1!

 

There is no doubt that the X-Fi gets the job done in terms of getting my audio to my speaker setup - all of the options listed can do that - what I really want to know is how well and if there are better options out there. I am measuring "how well" by the quality of the DAC inside the USB device.

With optical connections, the DAC does not come into play, as there is a direct passthrough of the digital audio signal to the optical output. As I am using analog connections, I am trying to find a better quality DAC and wanted to know how the other USB cards compare to this one. TIA!

 

That's interesting...but it is possible that the USB cards use a different a chipset than the PCI versions do. Have you heard any of those cards in action? Perhaps you could compare with your audio PCI setup?

 

I don't think it matters. The Xonar and M-audio are going to be better audio quality than the others.

But depending on the system it's getting output to you may not even be able to tell the difference.

 

IIRC, only the Asus Xonar U1 provides dolby digial live (or DTS connect for that matter)...which means if you plan on gaming and want to use a TOSLINK cable, this is the only way to do it.

I currently have an X-FI titanium pci-e sound card in my HTPC and bought the USB sb1090 x-fi for my laptop thinking it would sound good as well....not even a remotely close comparison. My realtek integrated audio sounded better. With that said, I haven't personally listened to any of the others above, so I'm not sure how much to expect from a USB audio solution.

 

All those products are toys or packaged as toys.

Creative is very bad at updating drivers and getting things to work smooth, they also cripple products with their drivers, and try to hide it. But its 24/96.
They don´t even post real specs for this product on their site, only "features".

M audio, the undisputed king of buggy drivers and subpar sound quality 8for the price).

Behringer is probably no worse than any of the others.

Turtle beach, don´t know.

Asus, could be good, but it looks very fragile if you plan on taking it with you.

"Sounds good" means nothing, RMAA result do though.

I recommend ESI - UGM96
ESI - U24 XL

First they have a real plug, 6,3mm, which lasts much longer, pretty much everything I have with the small connector has broke, and its always trelated to the connector.

The also have rock solid drivers, low latency drivers.. I have used esi for many years and never has the driver crashed. Not a single problem.

All metal.

Don´t get any of these disposable plastic toys when you can get something real for not much more.

 

That's helpful, thanks! Size is not an issue, I am not taking this outside with me. The UGM 24XL would be a closer fit with what I want, since it has a digital out which the UGM 96 doesn't. A little over budget, I was thinking $80, but I could try to fit it in.

So I have 2 more questions, if you could help out :

As we are talking about ~$130 range products here, I did some more research; would you know how the Nuforce Udac 1 (or 2) compares? Here's a review link here

And is there any way I can get these to do Dolby Digital Live or EAX through software/drivers?

 

They probably wont support either EAX or Dolby digital Live, but they do provide pure undistorted stereo sound for many years, and they should have enough power to drive almost all phones to dangerous levels.

There are pdfs at the site for both products (user manual), the specs looks similar to the UDAC, its purely academical anyway since all 3 products provide better quality than the hearing treshold anyway.

One of ESIs have "directwire", I think its the U24XL, you can for example internally route WDM sound (with virtual cables) to Asio (or something else), and record it with an audio editor like Audacity.

If you want to record whats being played by some program, like streamed audio, its very easy. Check the manuals.. really cool feature at this price point.

The manuals are very informative and should answer most questions.

You can get virtual surround with software I think, like this YouTube - Virtual Barber Shop (Audio...use headphones, close ur eyes) the algorithm is called cethera or zethera.

 

These guys are good with software and codecs and such Hydrogenaudio Forums (Powered by Invision Power Board)

The rabbithole is deep.

 

Helpful again, thanks! Looks like it's a toss between the UDAC and the ESL U24XL at this point. My budget is going to be a constraint here, $130 is stretching it a bit..

Btw, just saw this, here is how you can get EAX 5.0 on ANY card using software - OEM - Software Solutions - Sound Blaster X-Fi MB

From the site:

Haven't tried it out yet, but will give it a go soon...

 

I was given the Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 to test:

Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 | Creative Labs Online Store

And it has terrible audio. As stated most of these consumer products aren't that great if you've got a good ear and can distinguish sound quality. The Asus Xonar and M-Audio are better than Creative but the drivers are pretty old (more so for M-Audio). Haven't used the ESI, but it looks like a great solution.

 

Yeah, Creative is definitely out. The thing about the Xonar is that it's hard to find, ASUS seems to have stopped making it and there are a couple I saw on ebay.

Am leaning towards the udac right now, trying to get the original udac, which seems to do almost the same job as the newer udac-2 does, with a 33% discount.

 

I don´t think you will hear any difference at all, but the U24XL is an audio card, and the UDAC is a much simpler device. You get menus and settings and drivers, and directwire, and you get inputs (with preamps on the non U24XL model). The UDAC and the ESIs does not do the same thing.

The only reason I see for choosing the DAC is that you really want a mechanical volume pot, which could be very nice.

If you would ever venture into any type of audio editing, music production, recording or whatever, the ESIs will be much superior, since they have drivers specially made for this.

Also the headphone output is not the same, the UDAC pumps out 80mW in a 16ohm load but the ESIs deliver 100mW at 32ohms, that would be over twice as powerful I think. You will probably go deaf by 30-40mw in an avarage pair of phones

They are probably good products all of them.

ESIs products provide really much bang for the buck, with both good build, good sound and lots of features, nothing in this pricerange even comes close (if you want something portable).

 

Thanks for detailing that! Truth is, I don't really plan to do much editing/studio/recording work, so the 24XL would be overkill for me, despite it being the better card of the 2.

I am trying to get hold of a used uDAC for about $70, so if I can do that, it would save me quite a bit over a new ESI U24XL which costs $130. Though I would take the U24XL over the uDAC in a heartbeat, if I had a larger budget for this.

Thank you and repped

 

If you only plan to listen, all of them will be equal or very very close. Get the one you can find cheapest. The UDAC is probably the most compact solution in the world that you get with a real volume-knob, its a good idea and I wish some of the other companies would finally get the point. Compact+volume knob+decent build, how hard can it be really?

 

Agreed. Even with the one manufacturer who has listened and got a product which meets that criteria - Nuforce UDAC - what do they go out and do? Release a new model (UDAC-2), with no specific detail on what has been improved and bump the price up by 30%.

 

I have separate question that's really similar to this one so thought I'd post it here (hope no one minds).

I'm getting a soundcard as well so that I can get surround sound from my Samsung R580 laptop (hdmi, usb, esata, expresscard 34) via a digital optical out from the soundcard to my Rotel RSX-1056 sound receiver (pretty much everything except hdmi). Projector doesn't have hdmi either just as an fyi.

I want to get a 7.1 channel surround sound card even though I have a 5.1 speaker setup in case I switch my speaker setup to 7.1 someday.

So should I be getting the same soundcard as allister or is my situation different? Sounds like that would be the UDAC if I need the same thing as allister. I was going to get the creative card but from posts here, that doesn't sound like a good idea.

Thanks.

 

The UDAC does not process 5.1 or 7.1. If you want 7.1 from it, you have to use it as a passthrough device (no processing by the UDAC) with the digital coax output from your laptop to the UDAC to an external receiver which will decode the signal to 5.1/7.1.

The only thing the UDAC does here is act as a conduit for the optical signal, which can be done by any card like the Creative X-Fi etc.

Now it looks like your receiver decodes 5.1 but not 7.1. Which means you will need to get a 7.1 sound card and hook up your speakers to that 7.1 sound card.

As for a USB/expresscard sound card which decodes 7.1, I don't know too many quality ones out there. There is stuff like this here but stay far away, as these create virtual 7.1 and the quality of the DAC is terrible.

IMHO, I think your best bet is to get a receiver which decodes 7.1, if you -really- want 7.1. Use the digital out from your lappie and you should be good to go.

Hope that helps.

 

Thanks. In that case, I'll stick with a 5.1. sound card. I'd prefer not to upgrade my sound receiver for maybe 2-3 years more.

So, which 5.1 sound card should I get? There are just too many options.

 

What does your budget for this look like? What outputs do you want?

 

I just want a digital optical out. If I could get a 6-pin firewire output (that isn't just sound but used for midi as well so I can connect my midi music keyboard to the computer) too that would be fantastic but I'm pretty sure they don't make anything like that so haven't been asking about it(I'll buy the firewire card seperately).

Budgetwise, I was hoping under $100 but I can spend more if need be. There's just a certain point where financially, if the sound card cost is too high, I would be better off just buying a new sound reciever.

 

Does your computer have a Texas instuments firewire chip? If not you will not be able to make music with a firewire card, no laptops newer than 2 years have this chip. Not even Apple. The other chips just don´t work. You can buy midi (DIN) to usb boxes cheap.

Also check out ASIO4ALL. It lets you use ASIO with any card. It works quite well.

 

Just a question, how do sound cards help? Also what is the best and cheapest soundcard? I've been hearing of creative xfi-go.. usb stick... i need something portable.

 

I see this comment popping up a lot but are you sure this is true for my case as well? I have a motif xs8 keyboard and I just use cubase ai4 and sibelius 6 - not professional studio stuff or anything. People on motifator, the yamaha motifs forum, had told me to just get a firewire card even when they knew I was buying a new laptop.

I don't just want to send midi to my laptop - I want to connect my guitar and a microphone through my keyboard which I think those are just analog sound.

 

If you just want guitar and mic inputs and a good quality DAC for $100, look at what krate ranus suggested earlier, the ESI UGM 96 link here

M-Audio makes a decent DAC product as well, though I cannot comment on this model as I have no experience with it link here

You have options in your price range for what you want to do. I'm not an expert, but there are plenty of them online who do review such products.

 

Thanks but I want keyboard midi input too so really want firewire. I'm still very much confused but after searching a million threads and contacting yamaha directly I think my laptop which has an intel chipset may be compatible with a firewire expresscard that has a TI chipset. So am going to risk it and get a TI chipset expresscard for the firewire and the creative labs soundblaster soundcard for the stereo surround sound.

I have no idea what ASIO is and when I read the definition for it, it just leaves me even more confused can the explanation makes me have to look up a million other words i don't understand. This stuff is just way too complicated for me. Hope I've made the right decisions. Will find out soon. Thanks everyone.

 

Have you tried this here?

 

Thanks for the suggestion. That specific model won't work because there's nothing I can plug my keyboard into so it can relay midi info (even though amazon says you can plug in a keyboard, the ports allow for analog sound only since the usb port is reserved for the laptop).

You're idea though leads me to this other model which would work. M-Audio Fast Track Pro Mobile USB Audio/MIDI Interface and more Audio Interfaces at GuitarCenter.com.

It's more expensive than a firewire card though so it'll be my back up plan in case firewire ends up not working. Thanks a lot, good chance i'll be needing a backup so now I have one.