obobskivich
Headphoneus Supremus
it should be unamplified, the volume control afaik just controls the system volume, so its between whatever the floor is (like -100) and 0.0 out
another option, although one i'm not sure if you can do on a laptop, is to look for something with Dolby Digital Live, which will just "poof" things to AC-3 esque streams that you can feed into your reciever, and get 5.1 over digital for things like games
PreSonus has some firewire interfaces, although I don't know much about them, i've heard they compare nicely to M-Audio's in the same price range, and I've heard great things about the FireWire 410, which can do up to 7.1 discrete output over analog, or you can assign them however you like (multi-stereo, etc) and it can act as an A/D and D/A box
it also can do DTS/AC-3 output to a reciever or similar
idk, once you step outside of 2x2 interfaces and basic 4x4's, things start getting wild and expensive
another option, although one i'm not sure if you can do on a laptop, is to look for something with Dolby Digital Live, which will just "poof" things to AC-3 esque streams that you can feed into your reciever, and get 5.1 over digital for things like games
PreSonus has some firewire interfaces, although I don't know much about them, i've heard they compare nicely to M-Audio's in the same price range, and I've heard great things about the FireWire 410, which can do up to 7.1 discrete output over analog, or you can assign them however you like (multi-stereo, etc) and it can act as an A/D and D/A box
it also can do DTS/AC-3 output to a reciever or similar
idk, once you step outside of 2x2 interfaces and basic 4x4's, things start getting wild and expensive