I've seen plenty of good reviews for this thing, but frankly you'd think they were written by employees of the manufacturer. The card plugs in easily into a USB port, but it just hangs there flimsily and unsupported, ready to break your jack at the slightest application of force. So be careful. Also, I used mine for two days before it just quit working. This was due to the fact that this is one of those devices suffering from collapsed button disorder. There are two mute buttons at the top/front of the device, for muting either the speakers or a mic. This entire button will collapse into the device itself without any excess of pressure, and it cannot be raised without risking breaking the device itself by jamming a thin piece of metal into the groove to lift it back out. I fixed my own button, but at that point the thing just stopped working. So don't be fooled by the price and get something a little nicer, and a little sturdier. I mean jeez, what does it take to get dependable stuff these days instead of disposable junk that doesn't even work? Hosed again. 7.1 Channel USB External Sound Card Audio Adapter
The adapter is as easy as it gets to use right out of the box and worked well as a substitute to my faulty laptop headphone jack, but the quality of the device itself is very poor. I have had mine for a month or so and it has fallen apart completely. Upon receipt, I noticed that the outer case was already separating, and within a couple of weeks the headphone contacts began to disconnect so I had to continually find the "sweet spot" to get any audio to come out of the headphones. As cheap as it was, it served as a good experiment but it is not something that I will waste my time or money on again.
We bought this to evaluate its suitability as a headset adapter for use with Skype on Macintosh. We found that it is inferior in all respects to a similar product by the same manufacturer, the Syba SD-CM-UAUD USB Stereo Audio Adapter, C-Media Chipset, RoHS. Avoid this 7.1 version and get the simpler one for the same price that lacks the chintzy buttons, has correct color coding, a smaller and shorter housing, better build quality, and is better identified in OS X.
As other commenters have noted, the exterior buttons are very flimsy and do feel like they could break with a strong push. Their only function is to send a signal to the computer to change the software volume level, which can also be easily done using the volume control in the operating system or via the keyboard if it has multimedia buttons. On many computers the USB ports are inaccessible anyway, so why bother adding these cheap buttons that weaken the whole case, when many people can't even reach them?
The jacks are color coded in yellow and black, not the standard pink and green that headset jacks use. For what possible reason? Yellow plastic was cheaper? They are also labeled with tiny icons that are very hard to tell apart, and the labels are not next to the jacks but on the top face with all the buttons.
The USB plug on our unit is angled off-center, again suggesting shoddy construction.
On the plus side - it does work as advertised. Although the device is identified as "Unknown USB Audio Device" by OS X, it does input and output sound fine, and loudly. The chipset is advertised on the box as the C-Media CM119, and it's a USB 2.0 device. The "virtual 7.1" gimmick appears to be "3d surround sound" software by Xear, which comes on a mini-CD and is Windows only. I think it's safe to say this is basically a non-feature.
It would be a marginally acceptable solution to using a headset with a Mac or other computer that lacks a headphone jack, but again the similar yet entirely superior Syba SD-CM-UAUD USB Stereo Audio Adapter is a far better choice. See my review of that device on its product page for more info.
I've had 7.1 USB sound card for two weeks now and it works fantastically on my Labtop. It not only replaced my labtop sub-par internal speakers but it also replaced its broken 3.5 headjack on my labtop, which was a huge plus for me. I tested this sound card with some really cheap headphones and I have to say I'm really impressed by the sound quality. On every application I used this sound card with, it worked on every one of them (WMP 11, GOM, [...], etc.). I love this sound card so much I really recommend it. Although I didn't find a use for the CD software it came with, I can forgive that.
This is currently shipping **withöut** the sofware CD indicated in the Product Description, which states:
"Package Includes:
1 x 7.1 Channel External USB Audio Sound Card Adapter --
1 x Software Disc for Xear 3D"
Nor does the software seem to be available for download on the Internet.
I brought this product because my on-board sound card had gone bad. At first, the item worked fine but it was a bit flimsily! It worked for at least a week then just completely fell apart! I was very angry! I will never buy this item again! I highly recommend from purchasing it! LOOK ELSE WHERE!!
This sound card work better than I expected to for the price. I had a notebook computer with a broken headphone jack and no sound was working from the speakers either. I bought this card for $9.95 and got better and cleaner sound than I ever had from the computer. But wait that's not all, my daughter was doing voiceovers on another computer for a video project. The mic was plugged into the computer and noise was being recorded with her voice. We plugged in this unit to the mic and the computer and we got a super clean and loud recording. I think I am going to buy 2 more just to have them as spares because they are so cheap and work so well.
The sound is very good. The recording quality is excellent. In fact, it is better than the iMic that I bought for more than 30 bucks more than a year ago. It looks reasonably sturdy. It is rather thick so it may obstruct the adjoining USB port(s). All in all, you can't go wrong with this nice little sound card. - External Sound Card - Usb Audio - Usb - Laptop'
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