usb sound card suggestions?

I'm looking for a USB Sound card that preferably has a dedicated chip inside of it so the CPU doesn't mix the audio.

I've been through three notebooks and on EACH notebook (1 sigmatel, 2 realtekc chips) I've consistently had audio skipping/popping whenever I play audio files. Movies run great, games run fine, but audio (mp3/ogg/aac/etc) always pop and skip!

Choice of music player doesn't matter.
Vista/XP doesn't matter - happens on both. Yes audio enhancements are disabled on Vista.

Disabling powermizer doesn't work as some have suggested.

I've come to the conclusion that notebook audio outright blows.

So I'm hoping to find a USB audio card that'll eliminate my music skipping problems!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132004

I've heard about the Asus above, but it's also a little pricey.

And I'm also aware of the X-Fi by creative, but I've heard that it doesn't process the sound through the card, but through the CPU, and if it does that I'm pretty sure I'll get popping/skipping as the CPU throttles up and down.

Any help would be appreciated,

Thanks

 

Sound quality of notebook sound cards generally sucks, but integrated cards along with any modern CPU can decode and playback mp3/ogg/aac or any other popular audio file format without skipping. What you experience is not due to insufficient audio processing capabilities, it must be something else, like a software or driver problem. Core 2 Duo CPUs are more than capable of handling simple audio files. I have used many notebooks with CPUs ranging from Intel Atom, Celeron, Sempron all the way to Core 2 Duo, but none of them had any significant audio skipping problems. Sure, there was an occasional skip here and there when a high CPU intensive or IO bound task is carried out, but very rarely. And this shouldn't be the case especially with your notebook.

I am using an X-Fi GO USB soundcard (no hardware acceleration) where everything is run on the CPU, even with the added weight of effects processing (EAX, Crystallizer, CMSS 3D) which constantly takes around 10% of CPU usage when running under power saver mode, audio files still play back very smoothly.

 

i use the Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi 5.1 Surround Sound USB soundcard.


Quite cheap and it has quite an improvement over my crap SigmaTel built in chip.


this soundcard is in a mini "box" format that u can hook up speakers, amp, headphones, mic...etc.

its like a multimedia interface kind of.


It has the Creative X-Fi Crystaliser, CMSS-3D, EAX 2.0 Advanced HD, a mixer, Equalizer.

I think you can get this baby for around 60$ in the US

 

Well I'll look into it...

I figured these computer sshoul dhandle simple audio!

But alas...

 

Also, if you haven't already done so, pick one of the files and play the same file back on another device (ipod etc.) to make sure the problem isn't in the audio file itself. (I'd be especially suspicious if you're not having this problem with the sound when playing movies.)

I would also try uninstalling the sound driver. Some sound chips will work fine with Vista's built-in sound driver, and it might even fix the problem.