Anyone have experience with external soundcards?

[jdbnsn]

I need to free up a PCI slot and was thinking about either an external sound card or external TV tuner. I found this on ebay (http://cgi.ebay.com/Philips-PSC805-Aurilium-USB-External-5-1-Sound-Card_W0QQitemZ230154067678QQihZ013QQcategoryZ3701Q QrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem) and was wondering if they are worth a damn. Any thoughts?


Jon

[simon275]

Review

http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-176-1.htm

Doesn't seem that special.

[Luke122]

I'm using an M-Audio Mobile-Pre USB external soundcard. It's just a 2 channel unit with 2 inputs, each with a preamp and two different plugs for input (XLR or 1/4"). Also has it's own headphone amp with sep. volume control, and gain for each channel as well.

Great for recording, terriffic sound quality output, but way overkill unless you need the preamp, and no 5.1 out.

I paid $195 CAD for it last summer, and I'm happy with it.

[Redundant]

How good is your onboard sound? Any noticeable difference?

I would think getting an external TV tuner would be better than an external sound card. The external ones often have cablecard support if necessary too.

EDIT: How many PCI cards do you have, BTW?

[jdbnsn]

Thanks guys,

I was starting to lean towrds the TV tuner also, my soundblaster just kills my onboard. I have 3 PCI slots but because of the dual GPU's one of them cannot be accessed.

[r0adawg]

Hey,

I have one of these:

http://tinyurl.com/3cp6vd

and I've been pleased with it for several years.... better price now than then. I've got mine hooked up to my home theater.... excellent sound.

however, its no longer supported by sound blaster... if you go this route... I can dig up the drivers for it tho...

[Luke122]

You could always get a PCI extention.. has a ribbon cable,and allows you to plug in a PCI card to it,and mount wherever you like.. But you would more than likely have to mod your case for it.......... ;)

-Jeremy

Lol.. well THAT wont do at all! We cant have modding around here!
;)

[Crazy Buddhist]

I was starting to lean towrds the TV tuner also

... I'd chew on it a bit. I have experience with external TV tuners and they haven't been great. They tend to be usb and somewhere along the line they get bottlenecked and you get a jumpy picture or slow framerate. Or they need frequent rebooting and suchlike. It's happened on more than one occasion on more than one system. It might have been curable and others experience is perhaps different. But I do know computers and especially if you have other stuff running on usb I wouldn't jump in to it thinking you have your answer.

Matthew

[jdbnsn]

Good to know, thanks for the advice. I was actually wondering about that but haven't met anyone who owned an external tuner so I had no input. I have thought of another solution that solves this problem. I just need to get a different pump that can connect directly to a molex and I won't need the PCI slot, I can use this pump on a different mod down the road.

[jdbnsn]

No, the pump is designed for aquariums so it runs off 110V. There are PCI cards built to control power to the pump. You plug the cord from 110V to the back of the PCI card and it simply senses when the comp is powered up, then switches on the 110V to the pump.

[Jim Beam]

get an external Tuner card that runs on firewire. I am gonna run out of slots as well and all the research I've done says firewire Tuner cards are very good.

[Crazy Buddhist]

get an external Tuner card that runs on firewire. I am gonna run out of slots as well and all the research I've done says firewire Tuner cards are very good.

That would make good sense seeing as FW is meant for Video etc. In theory the software on the machine could actually just be a piece of video monitoring software with the box firing a video signal at it (though I doubt it's implemented this way).