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General discussionDoes anyone have any experience with external usb soundcards?(12 posts)(12 posts)
(12 posts)
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Posted March 17, 2017
I'm pretty sure I have a hardware fault with my laptop's soundcard. In a lot of games the game lags for a split second, and sometimes several seconds, right before it plays some sound effect. Some games are completely unplayable unless I completely turn off the sound. And reinstalling the drivers doesn't work.
So I figured getting an external usb soundcard might be cheaper than trying to repair/replace/find the issue with the one on my laptop.

Is it worth it to get a cheap-ish one, or will you have very poor sound quality if buy one for less than, say, $30?
Posted March 17, 2017
I am actually listening to music from a streaming site right now on a pair of loudspeakers with a built-in soundcard. Some issues with them: NO headphones or microphone jack(s), extremely loud so I need to stay at 1-4% volume settings, no Linux drivers (kind of typical for such small volume parts :-( ).

Maybe get a box that has ports and jacks instead of what I have...
Posted March 17, 2017
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Themken: I am actually listening to music from a streaming site right now on a pair of loudspeakers with a built-in soundcard. Some issues with them: NO headphones or microphone jack(s), extremely loud so I need to stay at 1-4% volume settings, no Linux drivers (kind of typical for such small volume parts :-( ).

Maybe get a box that has ports and jacks instead of what I have...
Speakers with built in soundcards? Hmm, I hadn't thought of that. But for now I want to aim for the cheaper option.
Posted March 17, 2017
Something like this. Has anyone ever used something like this?
Attachments:
usb_sound.jpg (25 Kb)
Posted March 17, 2017
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Matewis: Something like this. Has anyone ever used something like this?
I have one of these, it came with my MIDI keyboard, but I've never had a reason to use it:

UCA 222

According to Amazon, it's $29.99 and has high ratings.

Features:

Outputs:
Headphones
Optical S/PDIF
RCA

Inputs:
RCA

Volume Wheel and has ASIO drivers.
Attachments:
uca222_p0a31_rig.png (283 Kb)
Post edited March 17, 2017 by djdarko
Posted March 17, 2017
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Matewis: Something like this. Has anyone ever used something like this?
I used such a USB soundcard some time ago for DJing on my Labtop only. There you need a second soundcard for monitoring. My advice is not to buy the cheapest stick. I had one cheap stick bundled with MixVibes and even in the headphones it sounded like crap. Then I bought a more expensive stick from Soundblaster for about 60€. That was OK. Now I have a builtin soundcard in my DJ controller. That's much better.
Post edited March 17, 2017 by Silverhawk170485
Posted March 17, 2017
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Matewis: Something like this. Has anyone ever used something like this?
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Silverhawk170485: I used such a USB soundcard some time ago for DJing on my Labtop only. There you need a second soundcard for monitoring. My advice is not to buy the cheapest stick. I had one cheap stick bundled with MixVibes and even in the headphones it sounded like crap. Then I bought a more expensive stick from Soundblaster for about 60€. That was OK. Now I have a builtin soundcard in my DJ controller. That's much better.
I figured as much. There are some really cheap options available but sounds like the quality will be horrible. At 60€ I might as well hold out and save for a good wireless headset then. I think some of those have soundcards built into their dongles.
Posted March 17, 2017
I have been using an ASUS Xonar U7 for a few years, and it has easily been one of my best investments thus far. I started looking after an USB audio card after purchasing a good quality headset for my music relaxation, and found out that all of my 3.5mm jacks had terrible interference.

The audio quality is fantastic. I do not care much for surround sound, though, and have therefore only used it in stereo mode. It has worked out of the box, without any additional drivers, on all my installations (Windows 8-10 and Xubuntu).

Unfortunately, it was a bit pricy. I believe I paid around 100 USD for it.
Posted March 17, 2017
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Xzaril: I have been using an ASUS Xonar U7 for a few years, and it has easily been one of my best investments thus far. I started looking after an USB audio card after purchasing a good quality headset for my music relaxation, and found out that all of my 3.5mm jacks had terrible interference.

The audio quality is fantastic. I do not care much for surround sound, though, and have therefore only used it in stereo mode. It has worked out of the box, without any additional drivers, on all my installations (Windows 8-10 and Xubuntu).

Unfortunately, it was a bit pricy. I believe I paid around 100 USD for it.
I looked at a few Xonars but for now that is a bit more than I'm willing to spend. Though I'm glad to hear that the sound quality is fantastic. Perhaps something for down the line.
Posted March 18, 2017
One of my old desktop has a really small case.
When its soundcard failed, I did not want to open the case, so I bought an external USB soundcard for it.
Everything works just fine, but the USB soundcard only supports stereo audio.
If you want fancy 5.1/7.1 audio, cheap USB soundcard is not for you.
Posted March 18, 2017
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Matewis: Is it worth it to get a cheap-ish one, or will you have very poor sound quality if buy one for less than, say, $30?
Which operating system are you currently using?
Posted March 18, 2017
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Matewis: Is it worth it to get a cheap-ish one, or will you have very poor sound quality if buy one for less than, say, $30?
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djdarko: Which operating system are you currently using?
I'm using win7 64-bit
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionDoes anyone have any experience with external usb soundcards?(12 posts)(12 posts)
(12 posts)