Laptop audio

C

CoolZone

Weaksauce
Joined
Oct 14, 2004
Messages
101
I am searching for a laptop external audio solution, mostly because I listen to a lot of mp3s and watch movies and TV series. My current laptop has a Realtek ALC888 sound chip which isn't that great regarding sound quality.

I saw new on the market there are the ASUS Xonar U1 and the X-fi GO!

What solutions would you recommend me to buy?I am not interested in high quality recording, only playback, and I mostly use headphones.
 
I went through the same situation, trying to find an external solution for laptop audio. I ended up going with a simple USB dac which lacks the frills of a sound card but performs well for what it's built for--to output clean audio.

This is the one I ended up buying (and I highly recommend it), but there are many choices. You should specify a budget so people know how much you're willing to pay.
 
I´m thinking about the same thing though I have an Dell Vostro 1500 with a Sigmatel soundcard (no clue which) and I´d like to use the soundcard/dac with my Creative I-Trigue L-3800 (2.1) system. A few months ago i already searched for an external soundcard solution and in the end I also came up with the FUBAR (great name :D) but I hesitated :/
 
I am curious about the Xonar myself, seems quite nifty, its also about 1/3 of the price of the Fubar III.

I don't think you can go wrong with the Xonar, it looks great, seems very functional with the volume knob, can take a beating with plugging and removing it in all the time in a real life laptop scenario, and must sound miles better than the onboard laptop crap.
 
coolhandluke said:
I went through the same situation, trying to find an external solution for laptop audio. I ended up going with a simple USB dac which lacks the frills of a sound card but performs well for what it's built for--to output clean audio.

This is the one I ended up buying (and I highly recommend it), but there are many choices. You should specify a budget so people know how much you're willing to pay.
Click to expand...

Haha, once I read the OP's post, I KNEW the Fubar3 was his best bet. GREAT recommendation. Awesome product. I personally have the Fubar2 (same thing but without the headphone amp) and I love it. Unless you are into that gimmicky gaming EAX crap, fancy soundcards are useless, just a good quality DAC is all you need.
 
theproblem is the X-fi go! is 50$ and the FUBAR is 229$ and I'm not willing to pay so much
 
CoolZone said:
theproblem is the X-fi go! is 50$ and the FUBAR is 229$ and I'm not willing to pay so much
Click to expand...
That's the kind of info we need to know. If the xfi will work for your needs then go for it. However, paying a little more money at this (relatively low) price range will generally yield impressive results.

I'm going to be completely honest though. If you're listening to mp3's, your laptop audio is probably fine. Quality audio starts at the source, and mp3's are not a quality source. Even a $20,000 external dac will never be able to replace the lost bits from an mp3.
 
I have a Xonar on my PC and with the same headphones I see a very big difference in sound quality when listening to mp3s
 
coolhandluke said:
I'm going to be completely honest though. If you're listening to mp3's, your laptop audio is probably fine. Quality audio starts at the source, and mp3's are not a quality source. Even a $20,000 external dac will never be able to replace the lost bits from an mp3.
Click to expand...

Ouch, even w/ the lowest bitrate mp3s, laptop audio is just an outright catastrophy. Any exteral sound card/DAC solution would make a super huge of a difference. I dont know whether modern laptops integrated audio even compares with that on today's motherboards, but I have a 2 year old laptop, and the audio is just unacceptable.

You dont give mp3s much credit I see, yes, its nothing compared to flac and other lossless formats, but mp3s are relatively good for what they are, and a sound card will make a night and days difference.
 
I just installed the ASIO plugin into WMP and that improved the SQ on my old laptop a fair notch for no cost whatsoever.
 
Empty_Quarter said:
Ouch, even w/ the lowest bitrate mp3s, laptop audio is just an outright catastrophy. Any exteral sound card/DAC solution would make a super huge of a difference. I dont know whether modern laptops integrated audio even compares with that on today's motherboards, but I have a 2 year old laptop, and the audio is just unacceptable.

You dont give mp3s much credit I see, yes, its nothing compared to flac and other lossless formats, but mp3s are relatively good for what they are, and a sound card will make a night and days difference.
Click to expand...
I'm not going to argue against seeing improvement in mp3's with a sound card vs laptop audio, but in the end crap in=crap out no matter what you're pumping the sound through. This is especially noticeable through quality headphones or speakers, though the OP didn't mention what headphone he's using.

To me, lossless audio makes much more sense, especially with how cheap hard drive space is these days. MP3 is essentially a solution to limited drive space which is becoming less and less of an issue. just my 2¢
 
I got the Xonar U1 and I'm loving it so far. I got it instead of the fubar because I may upgrade to a set of 5.1 speakers in the future. I can hear the improvement in sound quality, but not a big one, with my ATH-AD700's. What is great is that it basically doesn't stress the CPU, as the usage pretty much hovers around 10%.

You might also want to try the Turtle Beach Micro as many people (read from HeadFi) find it is a really good bang for the buck sound improvement from laptop audio.

Before switching to the Xonar, I tried the Turtle Beach Audio Advantage SRM but it gave me noticeable static possibly caused by my USB ports not supplying enough power to it. They recommend I lower the power consumption of my graphics card to supply more power to the USB ports, but that is just not possible for me since I am a gamer. It maybe a good solution for someone that isn't a laptop gamer, or a solution for a desktop user that doesn't have any pci slots left for a dedicated sound card, since it has many MANY features.

Hope I helped.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top