Best USB sound card? yes, it is CA related

Post by **Jacampb2** » Sun Oct 10, 2010 11:42 am

I think I am going to finally take the plunge and start putting my car PC in my Jetta. I'm looking for what you guys think is the best multi channel USB sound card available, I don't much care if it is recent or older tech, I just want to know the top few so I can start looking for a reasonable deal.

I dolby digital decoding is not imperative, but I would like to have it for movies and such. I have been looking at the Creative X-fi USB card, and I like it, except it uses software based surround decoding. I found a used Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX, which is supposedly 6.1, but I cannot find any info on whether it is software or hardware decoding. I would prefer something with hardware decoding, because I want to keep the load off the PC.

So, LMK what is out there that might be sufficient for replacing my eclipse HU. Another option is if there exists a USB to spdif dongle. I have a Clarion 5.1 DD/DTS decoder and I can run that with fiber optics for interconnects

Later,
Jason

bretti_kivi · Post by **bretti_kivi** » Sun Oct 10, 2010 12:38 pm

there ain't much out there that runs 6 channels and is USB.

I have a Terratec Phase 26 here at home, and it's OK; the DMX 6Fire at work is better sound wize but "needs" 12V AC to work. I haven't taken it apart (it's their soundcard!) to see why.

Gigaport or Maya are about the only other options, though I think some of the VST things could be talked into talking to multiple stereo soundcards.

And the difference in sound between a SBLive! and the Phase26 was like night and day....

Bret

00goobs · Post by **00goobs** » Sun Oct 10, 2010 1:35 pm

If you have not been to this site, they have everything then you could just source what they sell at other sites:

http://store.mp3car.com/Audio_Radio_and_Video_s/42.htm

I've been using an HP thinclient for a few years and it does fine. It runs off of 12 volts and fits inside a typical glovebox. It runs windows embedded which is on its flash drive, so it is compact and has 2 PCi ports and on board video. The forum on there should have resources for the front ends to use for free, so everything for under $500 to get a carputer working with radio...

THUMP-LUMP · Post by **THUMP-LUMP** » Sun Oct 10, 2010 3:05 pm

You might want to consider firewire and some of the professional interfaces.

calvinhpk · Post by **calvinhpk** » Mon Oct 11, 2010 8:20 am

maybe this?

Onkyo SB-90PCI

they looks yummy though

calvinhpk · Post by **calvinhpk** » Mon Oct 11, 2010 8:21 am

http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/119 ... d-a-review

http://www.jp.onkyo.com/wavio/90pci/

Post by **ttocs** » Mon Oct 11, 2010 9:26 am

onkyo huh? I have been running an old integra series receiver of theirs for years now with out any problems...

Thumper88 · Post by **Thumper88** » Mon Oct 11, 2010 12:25 pm

That's a pretty classy looking sound card....

Post by **Jacampb2** » Mon Oct 11, 2010 1:11 pm

Unfortunately I have to have either PC Card (pcmcia), USB, or firewire. The PC is a surplus data911 mobile computer I bought about a year ago. It is kind of between a laptop and micro desktop FF. It has a Intel Celeron M 1.5 Ghz processor, 512 Mb of ram, and a 40 gig 2.5" IDE drive. It does have firewire and USB 1.1, I am ordering a USB 2.0 PC card for it, I'm going to dash mount a 12.7 mm slot load DVD rom drive above the monitor and that will be IDE to USB converter, so I want the 2.0 ports for higher data transfer rate.

Anyhow, I have investigated the PC Card options, and there isn't much and they are pricey. It seems that the external options are going to put quite a load on the processor regardless of manufacturer, so I am really leaning toward a USB--->Toslink (S/PDIF) dongle and use my clarion DVC/DVH920 for DAC and processing.

The first thing I am going to do is open up the PC case and see if there is a S/PDIF header on the MB. If there is, then I am golden, I know how to make that toslink "optical output" and that is what I am going to have to have for the Clarion processor. The only thing I don't really like about the Clarion is I have to mount the controller somewhere. It is half din sized, but it is not meant to be din mounted, it is similar to the type of controller that old school add on changers had, but this thing is HU sized...

So, the next question is, are all these USB to toslink adapters pretty similar? Anyone have any knowledge on the issue?

Thanks,
Jason

THUMP-LUMP · Post by **THUMP-LUMP** » Mon Oct 11, 2010 5:42 pm

Just wondering why your wanting to upgrade the USB to 2.0 when firewire has a higher data transfer rate than 2.0.

Post by **Jacampb2** » Mon Oct 11, 2010 6:41 pm

THUMP-LUMP wrote:Just wondering why your wanting to upgrade the USB to 2.0 when firewire has a higher data transfer rate than 2.0.

Because ide or sata to usb 2.0 adapters are cheap. Idk how much they cost for firwire, but usb 2.0 is more than satisfactory for a read only optical drive interface.

Later,
Jason