Turtle beach sound card questions..

can anyone suggest other external sound cards i can have a look at?

Yeah, I was kinda curious about external sound cards as well. One of you said darician, I think, that USB cards have the potential to be better than internal. Are you talking integrated or those big things you plug into those big old desktops? I use a laptop by the way so I don't have much of a choice. I've never bought one of those big cards for the desktops I had though. I have a creative x fi go card that I now use sometimes and it sounds good but really only cleaner than the onboard IDT sound.

What's the sound signature like with the turtle beach external cards or others you guys tried? do they all pretty much sound the same if your using the generic windows 7 drivers for it? I don't know how these things work but it seems they would all sound the same because arn't they basically just a jack? If they arn't just a jack I would be interested in maybe buying a couple more cheap ones just to see if I like the sound signature.

hmm im in no position to say if they all sound the same, but i can imagine they're very similar. The newer Turtle beach micro II and amigo II both use generic drivers though. If you're an audiophile, or looking for a really good audio experience i would recommend u look elsewhere. Turtle beach is a good entry level audio card, but nothing more imo.

I've made the decision to buy an Echo Indigo DJx after a lot of research. The price is a little steep (about 200 euro), but i know i'll be getting quality. I hear nothing but positive reviews from Echo products, and this one in particular. It uses my laptop's Expresscard slot and not the USB which is good because it frees a usb port.

Echo Digital Audio Corporation

The former Amigo, Micro, and now defunct SRM Audio Advantage Cards from Turtle Beach were far better. They had drivers, a full suite of EQ and such to modify settings. If you can find one of those, they are nice cards. I've tried the original Micro and currently use the Amigo on a desktop machine I have. I've tried it on a laptop as well and it's very good.

I used to be a very big fan of Creative but they have gone downhill since the launch of Vista and just can't seem to get their act together. Additionally, I don't feel their price premium is worth the very minute advantage I would get from one of their cards, if any as the Vista audio stack made onboard sound very competitive and actually worth a damn. It does depend on the internal card you began with however in terms of whether or not you'll see a marked improvement. Case in point, if you have a Realtek HD ALC892 integrated sound card as I do in my main desktop, there's no case for me to upgrade as I probably won't notice much of a difference and feel incredibly gipped. However, I have some PCs that have old SoundMax Integrated Audio, which leaves a lot to be desired in the features department; in these cases, a USB or PCI Sound Card would make much sense.

In terms of Turtle Beach for a desktop, I would buy either one of the older Amigo or SRM USB Cards or better yet, the PCI Montego DDL. However, if going with another brand, unfortunately I am not too versed and I have more than given Creative a chance and they have continued to drag their feet and continuously fail with their bloated and buggy software so I would not personally give them the nod. Again, that's my personal view however, others may have a better opinion of them than I do. From what I hear, Auzentech is not bad in terms of quality sound however since you're looking for a card for your laptop, this wouldn't really help you. You'll probably have to research some because unfortunately, I seem to be coming up rather dry in this department.