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 enlarge | Brand: StarTech
Category: CE
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $14.22
You Save: $5.77 (29%)
New (25) Used (1) from $14.22
Rating:  16 reviews
Platform: Macintosh
Media: Electronics
Memorabilia: No
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition or later
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 7 x 1
Warranty: 1 year warranty
MPN: ICUSBAUDIO
Model: ICUSBAUDIO
UPC: 065030819183
EAN: 0065030819183
ASIN: B000NPKGGK
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 16
 horrible output sound quality September 2, 2008
Lanchon
I bought this item after reading the reviews, hoping that the sound output would be better than those chinese $4 devices you can find anywhere with shipping included. my suspicion now is that this item is in fact that same device in a different plastic case (which by the way is not a quality case either).
the output sound quality is horrendous, lacking definition and response in the high end of the spectrum. no amount of fiddling with software or external EQs can rescue the sound to an acceptable quality level. also, when wave and mixer volumes are maxed out (the default setting) the device saturates horribly.
I'm not an audiophile but I have good hearing and pay attention to detail. the device delivers unacceptable performance for music playback (including movie viewing IMHO) but could be used for voice or game sound effects. or for any use if you have a dirt-cheap speaker system.
I haven't tested the input.
also note that I got this item in black, not white as shown.
Device Detection and Driver Installation Failure August 26, 2008
M. Johnson
I was expecting an easy installation of this device on my computers; simply plug the device in and install the driver. However, installation failed on both of my computers. When running setup (automatically started when I put in the driver CD), I got a "Please Plug-In C-Media USB Sound" alert message, which I am guessing indicates it did not discover the device. After this, installation does not continue as described in the PDF user's manual, and the device remains unrecognized. This device is likely a dud, and StarTech probably put their logo on some cheap USB Audio Adapter coming out of Asia (the manual requires a Chinese plug-in for the PDF reader). If Amazon replaces this device easily, and it works, I will do a new review or modify this one.
 it works well July 17, 2008
G. J. McNinch (Arlington MA USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
We needed a second sound card. At my house, we connect our home computer
to the stereo and use it as a music-player. Previously, if my son played a
video games on the computer while music was playing, one would hear a messy audio mixture (beeps + song....)
This USB-based "external sound card" was a perfect solution for me.
(My computer is GNU/Linux-based; I am able to route the output of the
music-player-daemon to this second sound adapter. So the computer has
then two diferent audio outputs.)
The adapter's interface is standards-compliant, so it works without difficulty
under ALSA in Linux. I can't comment personally on how it works e.g. with
a Mac or Windows-based machine; I would guess that it would be also trouble-free.
The sound is great. It is small and quite affordable. Highly recommended.
Big improvement over OEM Sound Card! July 15, 2008
Jaffrey W. Ali (McLean, VA United States)
I got this to connect my Sony Vaio Laptop to my TV Monitor and use as a home theatre PC set up. The included sound card was too muffled when used with my TV speakers (Pioneer PRO FD 150 plasma). So I ordered this and so far am really pleased.
I just placed an order for a 2nd one for my other PC (DELL Vostro 200) that also has a pretty low end sound card. At this price this is an awsome product. It comes with a USB extension so the adapter does not need to stick out.
 Helps June 30, 2008
J. McDonald (Wisconsin)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought this to help with the crackling in my sound on my Dell Inspiron 1720. It helped, but didn't fix it completely. The crackling still happens but it's less noticeable and happens less often, so that is nice.
I have Vista Home Basic (lame I know) but anyway, I ended up having to install the drivers since for some reason they wouldn't work otherwise. That could have just been my machine. The device came with the drivers so that was handy. The only thing I shouldn't have done is pull out the USB Sound card while it was in use for the first time after installing. I hadn't rebooted to finish the install. For that, I was awarded with a blue screen of death. However, after rebooting to finish the install, that doesn't happen if you then pull it out while it's in use.
Other than that, I don't have any major complaints. The cap only fits one way since the USB portion is not centered. The bottom edge is thinner so that you could fit another USB device in the slot below it (if you had two USB slots stacked). I marked the cap with a marker so that I wasn't always fumbling with it to figure out which way it went.
The USB Sound card can only go in the top USB slot if you wish to have more than one USB device connected there. Even then it's a pretty snug squeeze to get another device plugged in below the card, but it does fit and you won't be bending anything to get them both in there. I generally tend to put the USB Sound Card by itself since I have 4 USB slots and only use 2 others, but this wouldn't be an option if someone only had 2 USB slots and used one of them for a mouse or something.
So anyway, bottom line for me, for the price, not a bad purchase. The sound is good. I haven't tried the mic portion. It DID fix some of the crackling and it's certainly easy to transport. You just MIGHT get annoyed with it if your laptop only has 2 open USB ports since it's a slight squeeze to get anything to fit with it, but it DOES fit.
So, for the price, I think it works as you would expect. Not perfect, but pretty decent. No complaints on the sound.
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