[d-cee]

hi all

i've been looking at inexpensive USB soundcards for my dell latitude D610 notebook to power my Koss KSC-75s

anyway, i narrowed my search down to <AU$100. this left me with pretty much the turtle beach audio advantage micro or a used m-audio transit

i'll be driving my headphones straight off the headphone jack on the usb card, so i am leaning towards the audio advantage. the problem is that i cannot find it anywhere in australia. there's a used transit going for $40 on ebay otherwise shipping from USA is so expensive (US$30-40) which basically doubles the price of my purchase

out of misery i decided to just search for "usb sound card" on ebay.com.au and to my surprise there are these all over the listings. now, i'm not sure whether my excitement is justified, but from the pictures it looks like a rebadged TBAAM! i can't tell from the specs and screenies... but does anyone know or can somewhat confirm or dispel my suspicions?!

Thanks

 

[K2Grey]

It looks extremely similar. If you go to the Turtle Beach website and look up the Micro some stuff is similar such as the claim to have a 10 band EQ and so on.

I dare not say it is a rebrand, though, but it is definitely extermely similar. The digital out plug/adapter thingie looks very similar too.

 

[vo328]

Interesting. Their official website shows 6 different models: http://www.sinovoice.net/en/product_list.asp?typeid=50

 

[theexec]

i got an audio advantage micro off ebay for about $60AUD shipped.

From impressions, the transit has a better headphones out... I will be mainly using it for the optical out, so I just got the TBAAM.

 

[facelvega]

Looks to me like a small chinese knock-off firm who set themselves the task of making a precise copy of the TBAAM. The screen capture they put on the auction shows that it isn't Turtle Beach, but a very close copy that didn't scruple to take many of the graphics elements directly from the TB program.

However, if it is indeed as it seems a cheap knock-off, that doesn't mean it isn't worth the money. Heck, they may be using the same factory where the TBAAM is made anyway. These days you occasionally see reviews in which the knock-offs fare pretty well, provided they are mostly electronics and not something like speaker drivers, where chinese fabrication firms have a hard time reaching the pricier levels of quality. (this is a matter of business culture, they've just got everything geared to minimizing production costs) For something like this, it's definitely worth a try. But if you do try it, make sure to tell us all how it sounds!