Is there an express slot sound card out there?

Parting with my Audigy2 card will be fairly painful as I transition to my E1705. I knew the on board sound wasn't going to be great but plugged my z2300 speakers in anyway, just to test. It wasn't pretty. Why can't the motheroard makers team up with Creative to have on board Audigy hardware. Is it because the board manufactureres want to develop their own? If so, they sure aren't it making it a priority. I suppose I could get the Audigy2 NX and my other laptop does have a pcmcia slot but I plan on replacing it late next year so why spend the money on Creative's Audigy2 pcmcia card? I'll have to think of something quick cause my desktop will be decommisioned in 2 weeks.
I have about 27GB of mp3 tracks as this is 1 of the 3 primary functions of my E1705.

 

There are some manufacturers that do have the Creative card built in, but they are rare and expensive. There is no Express card sound card out there, but there will hopefully be on soon. You can go with a USB pcmcia adapter, but at around $200, it is not a cheap way. You could use a USB sound card, but you will have to use a USB port. I still don't know why everyone just decided to stop having pcmcia anyway, I think it is because everything that they were used for is not build into the notebook. I guess I am lucky and get the pcmcia and Express card ports on my notebook. There are only a few things that even use it right now anyway.

 

You are lucky to have both types on your notebook. I read somwhere that Creative has to re-engineer part of the card to work with the express slot because of the different architechture. Thanks for the information.

 

This Express Slot thing is a real scandal for us, the hard paying consumers.

This is forced on by manufacuturer as a lower current consumption format but the industry forgot to have products available when the computer with that standard emerge.

The same thing has been done by Intel with their most recent chipset, they dropped the IDE interface forcing the motherboard manufacurer to add that interface with another manufacurer's chip. In the mean time, DVD & CR Rom drive with SATA are far and few.

Sorry I am venting off here and I have not even touched the parallel port yet!

Another standard that have been dropped, what about home users who already have good working printers without USB interfaces? There are some USB to Parallel adaptors but they do not work with all printers. I have a $1500 Inkjet printer that is built like a tank (HP DJ2500C) that I use to print wall charts (13" X 19") The printer only has a parallel port and does not work with USB to Parallel adapter. This printer has been trouble free and have not seen a better alternative to my needs forcing me buy a PCI parallel port card.

Too bad you can't buy a PCMCIA port card for notebooks computers.

Also, when you look at the limited amount of Express Cards out there, they are more expensive then the current PCMCIA.

Merry Christmas to all

 

frenchnew, very true. But I think that we should awnser Skye2's question. I am sorry about starting a topic that has and is in discussion right now about the Express card. I would say that you have to just go the USB way, look here. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102174

 

This is why I did my research and made sure my laptop had BOTH. Sorry to hear about your problem, but I think Creative is making an express card sound card now. Should be out next year.

 

I agree that it is a scandal. More express cards should have already been on the market. Creative should do pretty well selling the Audigy2 express card. Although not everyone is into hi fidelity sound. (Thanks for the link)

 

frenchnew: It won't work with a USB port replicator? That's quite strange. Does it require an ECP or EPP port or something? I have run into issues with getting serial port replicators working, but that's usually because it chooses to replicate a port with a non-standard address. I'm 90% sure that you can use a port replicator with almost anything, as the printer really shouldn't have any clue it's not talking to a "real" parallel port as long as things are done correctly. You MAY have issues with the drivers for said printer not getting full functionality, but for $1500 that better have been a PostScript compatible printer. See if you can use some generic postscript drivers, rather than the full suite that is often laid out for those printers.

I'm also surprised that you can get drivers for XP for the printer... USB came out way before Windows XP did. Anywho, we can start a new thread on your printer, or you can PM me if you want to try to get it working.

Back on-topic, why isn't everyone whining about PCI slots not being on all desktop computers anymore and only very few PCIe cards are created? Or Firewire? How about ISA? I have an ISA video card that can support up to 4 heads... why can't I just plug it into my current desktop? This is a progression of technology... there has to be supply and demand, and they can't exist without each other. The demand is starting to build, and companies are starting to work out the supply. It just takes time, as it does with any non-compatible technological shift. You didn't get a lot of software on optical drives until optical drives were common, and many older laptops don't have optical drives. And I'll bet that some people complained that their laptops only had an optical drive and not a floppy drive, when they had to use floppys, so they had to buy another drive, and swap them out, etc. This isn't anything new, and it's really not anything to complain about other than you had to have chose it as a tradeoff. You have your new fast computer with Core 2 Duo, etc., and you just have to deal with the fact that any brand-new technology takes a little while to mature.