[ogduncan]

I watch DVD's on my laptop and was wondering other than IEM which im currently getting ready to buy. what else would make the audio beter. No i dont burn CD's onto my computer so i dont need those features and i dont want to alter recording or do anything like that. I just want to listen to my crapy 128 mp3's and dvd's and have them sound there best. I can use PCMCIA cards, or usb 2.0. Also i heard PCMCIA is better than USB 2.0 is this true

 

[Awk.Pine]

Laptops aren't known for having good audio out. The biggest improvement after earphones would therefore be with an external sound card. You'll find more USB than PCMCIA sound cards, because more computers use USB and there are no form-factor restrictions with a USB device; I doubt there's any inherent difference in sound quality between the two interfaces. For higher end external sound cards, search for USB DAC's, which are the same thing just fancier-sounding. Your budget is the limit--and, as they say, sorry about your wallet!

 

[JadeEast]

The creative xmod has very good suround features for
movies and it does an pretty good job with music, you
can pick it up for quite cheap as everyone jumped all
over them for the claims of their "crystalizer" that you
can simply turn off with a switch.