Looking for ~$100 USB soundcard w/ quality comparable to Xonar DX

[Teal]

I have a Xonar DX soundcard on my desktop, and I love it, it goes great with my Grados. I'm thinking of getting a netbook soon. These things don't have SPDIF, nor any good internal soundcards, so I'm forced to get a USB based one.

I'm looking for one in the price range of ~$100, whose quality is comparable to or better than the Xonar DX (clean crisp sound). (certainly something better sounding than an ipod or a creative card). I've seen several recommendations around here and elsewhere on what the best USB soundcards are (and some can get expensive), but really I only want something as good as a decent internal card, nothing top-of-the-line, sorry-about-your-wallet expensive.

EDIT: Alternatively, I've seen some projects of creating a USB-SPDIF converter or adding SPDIF support internally. If I were to go these routes, would buying (or building) a DAC/AMP combo give me something of better quality and lower price?

 

[Teal]

Alternatively I see you can get a USB dac. What would be a good USB-DAC/AMP combo for ~$100 +/- $50 for Grado SR-80 (there are so many DACs available at every price range...)?

 

[ROBSCIX]

Xonar U1?
USB model and IIRC has a signature similar to the DX but not quite as high specs..
for your price range I htink your a bit limited.

 

[MikeW]

off topic: about the netbook, make sure you know what your gettin. They don't perform anywhere close to a real laptop, Intel Atom is very slow. I think there are a few non-atom based models out now that are much quicker, and I know there's some on the horizen. If you understand how slow atom is, and are ok with it thats fine. Just don't expect laptop performance, atom can hardly handle a website with flash without being 100% cpu pegged. If you watch, you can get a core2duo laptop brand new for 350$

 

[ROBSCIX]

Yes. he has a point there.
USB audio on top of website processing all under a slower CPU would probably invite a bunch of negative effects.
I missed that part, a bit sluggish today

 

[MikeW]

funny enough i did not even think of rob's point, it was just a general warning about netbook performance lol

 

[JimVincible]

I think the USB-load point might be an issue. Other than that though, on my Intel Atom powered Aspire One, I can run iTunes 9, firefox with tabs and Photoshop CS3 (don't want to mission with updating 11.1 CS4 on the netbook lol) running in the background with pretty much no problem

The iTunes library is shared from the netbook, and I have an auxiliary LCD screen plugged in too. Atoms are much faster than I anticipated. I have the WinXP, 1gb RAM, 160gb version called the ZG5, fyi.

j

 

[deltaspirit]

Maybe you should wait until you get the laptop to see what kind of sound you get from the onboard.

 

[Teal]

I've never had anything but dissapointment from onboard audio. The netbook I'm interested in is the [Asus Eee PC 900], which runs 900 mhz Intel Celeron. I think that should be enough.

So far, I'm thinking of getting a USB DAC along with a Pocket Amp 2 ($60). I'm thinking of an Alien DAC, is it hard to build? There's not that many good inexpensive DACs.

 

[miloxo]

For $120 you can get a musiland SVDAC06 from ebay, I have it, and like it. But cannot really compare to other DACs except the Hot audio DAC destroyer.

Dont know if it matters, but it uses the same DAC chip as the popular Zero DAC