need a good external 7.1 sound card

i have a clevo p170em which have terrible sound quality so im planning to buy a external 7.1 sound card , i saw some on amazon for 30-40$ but im not sure about their quality , does anyone knows good external sound card that have 7.1 jacks

 

I had a creative sound blaster worked a treat had all jacks plus optical....

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is that a external sound card that is connected to the pc by usb? i also need it to be under 100$

 

What kind of sound system are you connecting to? Also what kind of connections does your sound system have?

As far as I am aware the M-Audio Sonica Theater is about as good as you can get for a 7.1 USB DAC under 100USD. I can't personally vouch for the sound though since I have never used one.

I have however used a Creative Soundblaster X-fi 5.1 USB module and I can say that it is unbelievably rubbish. Do not buy it, it has some horrendous crackling and hissing through the analog out. Looking on Amazon also shows quite a lot of cheaper looking 7.1 USB modules though I would struggle to believe that their audio quality would be any better than the onboard sound of the Clevo systems (I believe they are usually purchased by people with only stereo outputs on their laptops).

 

Better to have quality stereo than cheap 7.1. What of HDMI?

 

I agree with Krane, a decent stereo setup would generally offer much better audio quality compared to a similarly priced surround setup (well for music at least).

hdmi could be a decent option if your receiver supports 7.1 over hdmi.

 

In fact that was the whole point. The integration and less complexity (not to mention clutter) of all those connections and cords via one convenient port. Virtually all modern receivers/preamps have support for HDMI.

 

don't believe me, OP? i'm offering personal experience with the card i recommended in the other thread. and for $25, you really can't go wrong. anything less than $100, less than $200 or $300 or $500 even, is "cheap" 7.1, but what does that even mean? we're still waiting to learn what you're outputting to, i.e. what speaker setup you have. and although i agree that creative is as "cheap sounding" as it gets, this...

...would seem to be a PEBKAC issue.

i have one and a clevo system and can personally attest to it being leagues better than the on-board sound, no struggle to believe required. i have a logitech x-530 5.1 setup that i output to. sounds great. i even produce music on this cheap setup and it sounds surprisingly quality.

or people with garbage integrated sound.

for playing/listening to what? on what? isn't it kind of hard to compare stereo to surround sound, be it 5.1, 7.1, 5.2--whatever? they're not the same thing, two-channel (if that's what you mean by stereo) versus surround sound. if OP's looking for surround sound, we can bet/hope it's not for listening to music (unless he's trying to experience tipper in all his sonic glory, which i highly doubt).

 

I was originally hoping that it was a PEBKAC issue, but it didn't seem to be the case. I should probably expand on the X-fi and say that it seems to have certain incompatibility issues with certain mobo's, mainly to do with pci lanes I believe. I only used it on my useless Toshiba something a rather laptop (I use Xonar DX with a proper amp on my desktop). The crackling/hissing would occur with both my old (and albeit pretty crappy) Z-5500's but it was far more prominent outputing sound directly to headphones. I ended up getting rid of it because of those reasons (which plenty of others seem to have if you do a quick google search) but I would love to be proved wrong (I always had a pretty good track record with Creative products up until that point).

As far as surround vs stereo goes, I've had much better experiences for gaming/movies/music with stereo systems (well headphones) than surround systems. I found that it was very hard setting up my Z-5500's the right way in my small-ish room. Audio positioning never really felt right compared to just simulated surround using Dolby Headphone. Eventually I ended up getting rid of my speakers as well (mainly due to multiple noise complaints from the neighbors) and started getting more involved in headphones.

A bit off topic, what kind of music do you produce mattcheau? I'm always keen to listen to something new.

 

Only if you don't know how to define your parameters: First you have dialogue, then stereo. The rest adds ambiance and supports the original.

On the contrary, surround sound can do music quite. Particularly for the aforementioned reasons--ambiance. Check out "Back to the Future." For an excellent example of just what I mean.

It just take a bit of planning and most important, choosing the right monitors.

Not that's a comparison I would never make. Headphones and speakers are a totally different aural experience.

What you may not have discovered is that a good, well balanced, surround sound system can sound just a gratifying at low or moderate volume, as it can at a loud volume. That's how you can tell its a well make system.

 

did i say produce? i really meant mess around in ableton whenever i get the free chance, which isn't very often. but my 100% original, incomplete (probably never to be revisited), and unmastered "tracks" can found here. (you may want to have your volume at a minimum and turn it up from there.)

 

That's how I start all my recordings. And it a pretty good judge of your system and the recording. With a good system, it need not be played loud for you to enjoy the subtle nuances.

 

Get a fiio e17 and connect via spdif.


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That would be fine except its obsolete. Few systems come with S/PDIF.

 

Of course it can connect thru usb but spdif, if available in your system, will give you a cleaner signal.

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