christjared Posted November 9, 2006 Share Posted November 9, 2006 Im using a Gateway laptop and running the sound from the output on the front of the computer. It most likely has a sound card inside the unit, but it seems like when i listen to music it doesnt sound that great, do i need an external sound card for better sound? If so what should i get, im on a very limited budget since im in college. I saw a USB converter that had a single digital output, but my new HK doesnt have a digital input. Any ideas and opinions would be awesome! Thanks JC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay481985 Posted November 15, 2006 Share Posted November 15, 2006 if you can find an older laptop sound card that might be a start as even though its old its alot better than the internal cheap as hell built in soundcard in your laptop stealing from another poster ericoegle http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102185 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Megaohm Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 if you can find an older laptop sound card that might be a start as even though its old its alot better than the internal cheap as hell built in soundcard in your laptopstealing from another poster ericoeglehttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102185 That is what I was going to suggest along with the new external X-Fi or an older Extigy (on ebay for $20). Also some company (I forgot about) makes a 1394 sound card that offers low cpu utilization and low latency. 1394 is better for time sensitive data like audio. USB offers higher latency and cpu usage. http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/firewave/ http://soundblaster.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=205&product=11226 http://soundblaster.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=207&product=10246 http://soundblaster.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=206&product=10702 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay481985 Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 actually the difference between firewire and usb2.0 is usb2.0 has a higher theoretical transfer rate but it can vary from fast transfer down to slow. Firewire offers a constant speed that is why audio and video pros use firewire for the consistancy. In the real world though both are fine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Megaohm Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 USB cannot ever achieve it's top speed of 480 Mb/s because of it's higher latency. The reason why 1394 is the interconnect of choice is because of it's low overhead, low latency (gam3r speak- Low Ping Time), and most importantly- Isosycronous transfers. USB is software based while 1394 is hardware accelarated. 1394 was also desinged from the start to be a protocol that allows for peer to peer transfers and usb cannot do that becuase it requires a host to control all funtions of data transfer. Just Trust Me ON THIS! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay481985 Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 Uh I was agreeing with you.... But USB is fine for just normal music Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Megaohm Posted January 14, 2007 Share Posted January 14, 2007 Sorry, I misunderstood your reply. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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