With this little USB audio card it was 5% lower, sometimes even under 40%. Playing youtube audio (static image, only audio) the CPU utilization with the onboard audio card was hovering between 45 and 50%. It offers a noticeable lauder audio than the onboard audio card.īut what is more important and a really great bonus, is that it uses much less CPU time. Works fine under Windows XP and Windows 7, at least. VIA was producing good audio chips back then. I connected it on an old Core 2 Duo laptop with a VIA chipset, 10+ years old machine.

I order it mostly because I was curious about these USB audio cards and the price was really low to satisfy my curiosity. And if the quality of more traditional hi-fi equipment can be matched, then a case can be made (given overwhelming convenience) for our PCs becoming the ultimate audio source.More usefull than you think OK, when I was ordering this I wasn't expecting it to be really useful. Thankfully, hi-fi devices natively supporting PCs are becoming increasingly common. One part of the pipeline that remains constant, and where PCs traditionally lag, is the translation from digital source to actual sound. And if you back up your library, it will never get lost or degrade. Finding an album or track in your collection happens quickly. Buying and downloading a new disc takes minutes, at most. Suddenly, a $60 1 TB hard drive can store 3000 CDs at their native quality. Of course, today we enjoy multi-terabyte drives, very fast broadband connections, and almost gigabit-class wireless data rates, and advanced lossless compression schemes like FLAC and ALAC, the latter of which can halve the size of an audio file with no quality loss whatsoever.

: Anything Above $2 Buys More Features, Not Better QualityĬreative Labs' Sound Blaster 2.0 from 1991, the first PC audio card capable of 44.1 kHz playback.

: Why Audio Formats Above 16-Bit/44.1 kHz Don't Matter.

: Why We Need To Test Low-Impedance Headphones Soon.: Bonus Test: DSD Versus PCM Billie Jean / Michael Jackson's Thriller.: Results: Symphonic Dances / Andante Con Moto / Rachmaninoff.: Results: Through The Fire And Flames / DragonForce.: Results: Soothe My Soul / Depeche Mode.: Test Setup: The Blind Testing Process.: Test Setup: Cables, Software, And Tracks.: Test Setup: Volume Matching And Testing The Listener.: Test Setup: Sennheiser HD 800 And AKG K 550 Headphones.: Four Devices Tested: From $2000 Down To $2.: Turning The PC Into A True Hi-Fi Audio Platform.Turning The PC Into A True Hi-Fi Audio Platform

Best external sound card for cost