[partyatmyears]

i have a laptop and i want to improve the sound quality on it. i have the klipsch promedia 2.1 and the shure e3c and the sennheiser hd202. i was thinking about getting a better soundcard like the edirol ua-1ex. what do you think? i don't want to get a headphone amp because i use speakers as often as headphones. i also want to do recording from my electric guitar. my budget is about $100. any suggestions are welcome. thanks

 

[gonglee]

You will end up with a great recording set up + a 24/96 spec play back capability.

I have one, and I like it a lot. What an improvement over the stock soundcard in a laptop.

 

[Ingo]

*Edit* - Tired and not paying attention

If you could strectch your budget $60-$100 more you could get the E-MU 0404|USB which is said to be excellent for listening to music and should also be very good for amateur recording. I think it has 2 mic preamps built in, which I think means you could use DSP plugins like Amplitube for amp modeling without external pre(ampage?), lol.

 

[xenithon]

I have the UA-1EX and it is brilliant. It was a big step up when I installed it and finally got to use true ASIO with foobar. Its ASIO drivers are flawless (unlike some other brands which tend to give problems). What I really like too is the fact that it has optical out allowing you to add an external DAC at a later stage of you want. That is exactly what I did - got myself a Musiland MD10 which I am running from the Edirol's optical out to the DAC's optical in.

 

[partyatmyears]

bump. i'm looking for other options under $100

 

[joze7205]

I also have an Mbox (first version) and it has a decent DAC (same chip as Echo indigo) and a decent headamp. I you want to use Pro Tools (which were included in the new ones) this is a good choice if you can get it cheap. Mind that it uses regular USB which makes things slower and gives you high latency. Neither Pro Tools nor USB is the best for use with soft synths. The mic preamps (focusrite) are OK. I'm not so sure about the line-ins though, I have heard different opinions about them. The line out signal is pretty weak. Good things with it is that it's bus powered, it has balanced ins and outs and it has connectors for inserts.

If you don't need/want Pro Tools or if you want to use soft synths, I guess there are better options. The EMU 0404 USB is supposed to be good (it uses USB 2).