Jump to content


Help me choose a soundcard...


5 replies to this topic

#1 OFFLINE   JDPower

    Cydonian Knight

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 2,952 posts
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:England

Posted 04 September 2007 - 02:04 AM

Following on from THIS post a couple of weeks back I need a cheap external soundcard for my laptop. I've rounded it down to four:

Trust SC-5500P 5.1 External USB Surround Sound Card (£24.31)
Icemat Siberia USB Soundcard (£27.99)
Creative Sound Blaster Connect /External USB Sound Card (£28.72)
Creative SoundBlaster Surround 5.1 External USB Sound card (£32.99)

I know its unlikely anyone will have tried them but I just want some general advice - Are Icemat or Trust generally any good? I know Creative are good but their external soundcards are apparently a little resource hungry (according to my Googling of them) and I don't need any fancy stuff, it's literally just for getting working sound in the one game I play regularly.

At the mo I think it's a choice between the Icemat and the cheaper of the two Soundblasters.

Any thoughts/recommendations?

#2 OFFLINE   speytone

    Advanced Member

  • Members
  • PipPipPip
  • 100 posts
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Grande Prairie, Alberta

Posted 07 September 2007 - 08:41 PM

View PostJDPower, on Sep 3 2007, 11:04 PM, said:

Any thoughts/recommendations?

what are you using the sound card for? like gaming and entertainment or audio recording?

#3 OFFLINE   JDPower

    Cydonian Knight

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 2,952 posts
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:England

Posted 07 September 2007 - 10:46 PM

View Postspeytone, on Sep 7 2007, 09:41 PM, said:

what are you using the sound card for? like gaming and entertainment or audio recording?
Its purely to get working sound in a game. The soundcard in my new laptop doesn't work properly with the only game I really play on it and there's never been working drivers released to fix it so I need an alternative and as I said although I know Soundblasters are supposed to be good (though a little resource hungry) but I've no experience of Trust or Icemat soundcards at all (and computer hardware is not really my strong point :unsure: )

#4 OFFLINE   JDPower

    Cydonian Knight

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 2,952 posts
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:England

Posted 11 September 2007 - 01:07 AM

No-one ever used Icemat, Trust or Soundblaster soundcards??? :huh:

#5 OFFLINE   Andavari

    Captain Spectacular

  • Moderators
  • 13,330 posts
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Shadow Moses

Posted 11 September 2007 - 01:36 AM

I have a Creative SoundBlaster Audigy2 in my PC (don't have a laptop).

It works fine and has good sound and all with just the drivers installed.

The problem is if you do things like I've did by only installing the needed drivers and don't install their clunky and slow software that's always resident you won't have 5.1 surround sound.
Complexity of incoherent design.

#6 OFFLINE   JAGO

    Advanced Member

  • Members
  • PipPipPip
  • 363 posts
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Michigan

Posted 19 September 2007 - 01:13 PM

The Audigy2 is a good card... I would go with an M-Audio card personally :).
IPB Image