Looking at external sound cards

http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=208&product=17751

http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=208&product=16642

http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=206&product=10702

Those are what I am looking at I currently have a set of Logitech Z-5500 speakers and want a good external sound card for my laptop any suggestions?

Also does anyone have reviews of external sound cards I am having technical difficulties with getting wifi so I can't do much searching.

Thanks for any help,

Mike

 

Philips PSC805 Aurilium

Also has digital pass through which is how you should be using your Z-5500's.

Creative notebook solutions suck, with the exception of the Audigy 2 ZS PCMCIA card which is probably incompatible with your laptop.

Turtle Beach Audio Advantage SRM

Another good choice, far more full featured than the Philips model (I owned the Philips before moving to the Audigy 2 ZS). This is likely my next sound card when I raise the moolah and find a new job.

 

i was aiming for those cards....since my laptop's headphone port had gone ka-boom....but i bought the griffin imic....which works well for headphones as well as my home theatre (sony dav dz830)....since i watch movies straight for my laptop and the audio output is perfect....
i also have the sitecom cn-126 which i use to connect with my philips 5.1 as the sitecom is a 5.1 usb sound device and that works great too....both are plug n play
the creative ones are crap and they have bad reviews as well....so u cud try the X-Fi Surround 5.1 but i dunno if it is gud or not....

 

If you're using digital, pick any card with digital output and whatever bits/sample rate you need. The quality of a digital output is the same for all cards.

 

Unless you want to use cracked drivers that actually work in Vista don't bother with Creative. Google around a bit for the story about creative drivers and vista.

 

Yep, IMO, Creative's support Sucks!

Go with the Turtle Beach, unless you want a bunch of headaches. I don't think you need the SRM, the Amigo will do fine: http://www.turtlebeach.com/products/amigo/home.aspx
Creative could give you a better product, they chose not to and blame Microsoft instead. Sure there's the whole HAL/OpenAL issue, but really, Creative just SUCKS IMO!!

Oh, and I say that as an owner of many of their products including the 2ZS PCMCIA, and USB Live 24Bit.