here is my problem :

I am a student in exchange in another country for one year. my only source of music is my laptop but the quality of the sound is ...crappy of course. I will not hear anything good with an internal ac97 soundcard on the motherboard.

for the headphones, I am gonna take senn hd497 or a grado sr60 (no real need for amp in a first time and some quality anyway).

but I also like to improve the quality of the audio signal. So I try to find a external soundcard which could really increase the quality of the sound, whitout crashing my bank.

I saw a creative extigy for $100 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?sku=C44-3005 but after a short research on this forum, it could not seem such a good deal.

Here what 's I am looking for :

* relatively good output, I don't care about getting music into my computer, I just want music going out
* usb or pcmcia connection (it is a laptop)
*the price of the extigy seemed alright for my bank, more could be difficult (perhaps, one day, after christmas, I could have enough money to buy a headroom amp ).
* I don't care about home system of speakers etc, i just want to connect headphones on it
* Only for classical music, I will used the internal card for gaming (so few) and pop music when i surf on the web. so the ressources consumption is not a problem (P3 750, 320 mo ram)


Of course, If you know great deals to get things used or with little problems, I am interested too

Maybe http://www.echoindigo.com/ ?

found an Onkyo SE-U55 on this forum for $80, gonna try to get it, but I ll seriously think to this if the deal cannot be done

I use Roland/Edirol. Very happy with sound quality, and great recording and output flexibility. Low powered phone jack, however, you might want to use an amp with inefficient phones.

The only external USB sound device that measures well in the bass region is the M-Audio Sonica. (Note, I haven't seen measurements for the Onkyo and Roland/Edirol units.) Also, the Onkyo unit is not supported on Windows XP, though it may work for you. I recommend the M-Audio Sonica.

The Onkyo card in question worked with XP when I tried it but required some voodoo handwaving to get it running .

hum, i am just thinking, what's the best idea :

a soundcard or an amp ?

what will provide the best ratio between price and improvment of the sound ?

I know both but no money enough right now

The echo indigo is both a DAC and headphone amp (with two headphone jacks, no less!).

I don't want to sound like I'm pushing this hard, especially since I've never heard one or read anything by someone who has used it, but if I wanted to get better sound out of my laptop and didn't want to deal with a mess of hardware coming off my laptop, this is what I would buy.

I would say a better soundcard.
If the sound is crappy now, an amp would just make the crap LOUDER.

i ve got the choice between this http://www.pcconnection.com/scripts/...vendor=M-Audio , a sonica at $59, and the onkyo se-u55 of zzz at $80.

according to zzz, the headphone jack will probably not be much better on the onkyo than the standard one (by the way, I ve never seen such a nice seller, just helping you to find what you really need and not his own stuff). and so the sonica could be the best option, and of course, it s small. wodgy, do you have this one and with wich kind of installation do you use it ? (gonna make a research in the archives of the forum, there is no serious review on the web)

the echo indigo seems so nice, but $139 without shipping is too much for me, it s twice the price of a sonica (it probably worth it ) and i reach my upper limit with $100

according to what I read here, it just seems that i will have the best for 100$ with my senn HD497 ($40) and the sonica ($60). i could get better with a indigo but it would cost me $200.


anyway, thanks to everyone for your answers, this forum worth to be linked everywhere

Let us know what you wind up with and your impressions.

Good Luck.

When I was considering upgrading my laptops soundcard, I was leaning towards the Stereo-Link 1200. It has both a headphone output (50 mW into 32 ohms) and RCA connections.

One person on Head-Fi tried it and seemed relatively happy with its performance for classical ... http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showt...t=stereo+link. Check around the web for other reviews which are pretty unanimously good.

Zin

edit: just checked out specs for headphone out (added above) and saw the price was $150, so looks like this out of your target price range, sorry for confusion

yes, the stereolink 1200 seems outstanding, but much over my budget again as you ve seen .

but, looking still deeper in the archives, i saw the analog xitel hifi-link, just seems a good value for $40. but sound quality not so good than the sonica, am I right ?

Sorry to go off topic, but actually some of the onboard sound on laptops these days aren't too bad. My current model has an "ALI Audio Wave" device. I'm not sure what codec it employs, but I thought sounded pretty good.

This week I did some measurements using Rightmark Audio Analyser and confirmed what I suspected. Excellent frequency response and good levels of THD and other parameters.

Another friend of mine has a higher spec laptop, but the headphone output is noisy and hardly bearable to listen to.

So results may vary.

I just found this alternative for upgrading laptop sound and found it interesting. It also appears on this forum in several different areas under different threads with everyone looking for more info on it so I thought I'd offer some links that I found.

It is menitioned in a recent issue of PC Magazine and was reviewed by geek.com. Recent pricing at $99USD.

Here are the links for your consideration:
PC Mag Nov 26, 2002
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,725005,00.asp

review from geek.com:
http://www.geek.com/hwswrev/hardware/indigo/index.htm

Brief excerpt from this review which caught my eye:
"Here are the specs:

24-bit, 96KHz audio
Greater than 111dB Dynamic Range (A-weighted)
Better than 0.003% THD+n @ -3dBFS, 1 Vrms output level Frequency response of 10Hz-22kHz, ±0.25dB
The headphone amplifier alone is worth mentioning. Most cards (even the Santa Cruz) can't drive every set of phones out there, but the Indigo gave me respectable sound even with my wonderful sounding (but notoriously inefficient) AKG 240 Monitor headphones"

Echo Indigo specs:
http://echoindigo.com/indigospecs.html

Their site also states a 30 day money back guarantee policy.

If anyone actually listens to this first hand, please let us know.