Which sound card should I get?

I'm looking to upgrade (or add) a new sound card on my Dell Vostro 1500...

I'll be using my laptop for gaming, movies, and lots (LOTS) of recording (bass, guitar, and drums). The card sound be able to handle low frequences from the bass and high frequences from the guitar.

Which should I buy?

Thanks

 

You can't upgrade the sound card on the notebook itself. Now Sound Blaster has external sound cards that rock! go to there web site. Very nice! And price is OK!

 

I heard some negative comments on that new X-Fi card...

 

There a sound blaster live usb version but I heard they die after about a year according to one guy. The only thing stopping me from getting a x-fi is it uses the cpu to process the sound. For 80 bucks I'll look elsewhere. Anyone heard anything about the turtle beach amigo USB sound card ?

 

I don't really know but I lean towards PCMCIA and express cards.

 

The X-Fi line up has a new express card thats coming out, but you can't use the laptops speakers with it, only external ones

 

Yeah I did a little more research on the X-Fi it actually is less of a burden on the processor then the standard built in BUT it doesn't want to work with vista. Really all I need is something for my 5.1 Z-5500's to be hooked up. It doesn't matter if it's express card or usb and I don't care what it has for ports as long as it supports 5.1 my speakers can use it. Oh and incase you didn't figure out already it needs to work with vista.

 

The x-fi should work with vista, the desktop versions do have some issues, but my platinum works fine, besides the hardware decoding, which the expresscard should have

 

I read on newegg that someone couldn't get it to work at all and someone on here said they got it to work but it crapped out shortly after and it wasn't easy to get it to work the first time. Both said the creative labs tech didn't know it even existed. I don't worry about getting it to work on my own but 1) I don't want to keep fiddling with it and 2) the fact creative techs don't know about it tells me creative doesn't really give a rats ass about it. I'm leaning towards the turtle beach audio advantage amigo right now. It's about half the price of the X-Fi and should do the trick hopefully.

 

I also did a quick search on creative's site to see about a driver and they don't have anything for it on their downloads...

 

http://reviews-cdn.dell.com/2341/310-8272/reviews.htm

So wait I can get 5.1 through an S-video port ?? I always thought it could only handle video and not sound ??

EDIT: BTW I'm getting a vostro 1500 if it makes any difference.

 

I still say the x-fi, just because thats the only one i know off.

 

FWIW I went out and bought the sound blaster live! external USB sound card. Reason being

1) it is about the cheapest solution
b) X-FI is nothing more then a rebadge audigy 2
III) turtle beach amigo was not true 5.1
4) I didn't want to wait for something that costs twice as much (the M something)

The sound quality is good but I haven't really messed with it much I just plugged it in on my desktop to make sure it works. In a few minutes I will put it back in the box and have it setting there for when my laptop gets here. There are MANY different ports here including optical out (toslink), a coaxial digital out, regular 5 channel analog out, a mic in, another line in, and headphone jack. It also has a mute button (push down on volume wheel), volume wheel for speakers, and volume wheel for the mic in. There's also a 9 pin DIN port on the back which will connect to some of creative's speaker systems and allow to control them through a remote (seperate). Along with that there's a IR port for a remote (as mentioned sold seperately). Overall for 50 bucks it seems like a deal. Let's just hope it lasts contrary to what someone has said in the past.

Oh one last note I am on XP right now but will be putting it on vista once my lappy get's here. If there are any problems I will be sure to post up here.

 

Gotten your lappy? Hows that audigy working, I need to find out the best solution for hooking up my z5500s to my vostro...