[ched999uk]

Thanks to recommendations on here and a long listening session in a store I have ordered a pair of Sennheiser HD 558 as my Christmas present.
I will mainly use them for my home cinema viewing, maybe on my desktop (Packard Bell S2870) and on occasions on my laptop (Dell Inspiron 1525). Problem is my laptop hard drive started to fail so I bought a new hard drive and cloned it but I think the sound card has died as I can't reinstall the drivers no matter what I do.
 
Anyway I was reading here that there are a few USB - DAC - Headphone amps that are cheap (i.e. £30) that would allow my new headphones to work on my laptop.
 
So I was wondering if say a CREATIVE SOUND BLASTER X-FI GO PRO or Asus Xonar U3 would be any good at all? i.e. not be too hissy and annoying?
I know they are very cheap in hifi terms but are they useable? Would they actually give a better sound than the built in sound card in my PC (Packard Bell S2870)?
 
Thanks for any help you can give.

 

[BenF]

The Sabre DAC is your best choice by far, no sound card in this price range can compete with it.
http://hifimediy.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=83

 

[ched999uk]

Thanks for the suggestion. I have now found out that it's a bigger issue with my laptop than I thought! Somehow I can't install the drivers, it keeps saying that the drivers are corrupt, even though I download new ones directly from Dell. Spent way too many hours trying to fix this issue. For once a computer has me beat, well till I can think of something else to try
 
Once again thanks for the suggestion.