USB Audio Adapter External Sound Card with SPDIF Digital Audio Sound Cards 6 Channel 5.1 Surround USB Sound Card with Line in External Sound Card Exwindows 10

An external USB Audio adapter was ordered for $14.98 on October 9, 2017. The Unit was received on Oct.23, 2017 (approx. 1 week before promised date.) in good working order. I purchased this item looking for an inexpensive external sound card that has at minimum 2 in and 2 out. This unit totally fills the bill!Observations.1. The unit worked immediately on plug in using the supplied 24 “ A-Male to Micro-B Male USB cable.a. No software driver load was required on my 32-bit Windows 10 system. The supplied Mini disc was not loaded.b. Note that the Windows driver indicates 8 output channels are available (ala 7.1) and the unit has 6 output channels (ala 5.1 as sold).c. No Power / activity LED on the unit.2. The design is compact, neat and light weight.a. External dimensions are as advertised. 3.46 x 2.36 x .79 in.b. Silkscreen on front is clear and crisp, all ports clearly marked.c. Silkscreen on rear is clear but up-side-down when front is in reading position.d. The case is an aluminum extrusion with front and rear molded plastic parts. The front and rear are attached to the case by 4 Philips screws, 2 in each side.e. No feet are present on the box.f. The Front Out, Line In and Mic. In ports were tested. The SPDIF interface, Rear Out and Cen/Bass Out were not tested.3. Microphone input and Front Out were tested using an inexpensive headset with mic.a. A single mono mic is connected to left and right channels internally.b. No balance function is offered in Sound-> Recording devices -> levels tab. However, both channels are available to the PC and could be exposed with a different driver.c. A balance function is available in Sound -> Playback -> Levels tab and works to provide L <--> R balance of side-tone levels to the headset.4. Line in was tested, to verify both channels work with reasonable separation.a. Sound-> Recording devices -> Line (USB Sound Device)-> Listen tab box may be checked to cause line playback to system speakers.b. Sound -> Playback -> Speakers (USB Sound Device) ->Levels tab, mute both Line & Microphone during this test.c. Note that un-loaded Front Out volume is not zero when left or right channel balance is set to zero. Therefore, during test one input was connected to its respective Front Out channel while the other was disconnected and electrically open.d. With both channels driven @ 1kHz and full-scale output of 1.4Vac the other channel (input open) shows input level at least 60dB down. Very Good.e. With line in level at 100% the maximum undistorted input level is 20 mV (approximately -32dBm) With the input level set to 250mV the maximum line level is 75 for undistorted input. Very sensitive for a Line-In port.f. When Line input level is near maximum undistorted levels, system THD is less then .05% and remain low over at least 20 dB level range. Good.5. Line and Microphone Recording device functions are not concurrently available.a. Selection between Line and Microphone is achieved by enabling the desired input in Sound-> Recording devices and disabling the other.b. With Sound-> Recording devices -> Microphone (USB Sound Device) Properties -> Levels set to 100% the maximum undistorted microphone input level is 20mVAC.c. When microphone input level is near maximum undistorted levels, system THD is less then .1%.d. Microphone bias 2.25Ve. The inexpensive Mic that I used worked OK. A low output Mic, maybe not so much.6. With both channels of Front Out set to 800mv @1kHz unloaded (approx. 1mw into 600 ohms), the 2nd harmonic is approximately 75dB down. Full scale output is 1.4 VAC and the 2nd harmonic is at least 63dB down. All good!

I wasn't sure about this sound card by looking at it but I figured I'd give it a shot and return if it fails and well it hasn't failed so I'm keeping it. It comes with a mini cd that contains the driver and program that gives you full functionality for the card so if you don't have a cd/dvd/bluray drive on your pc/laptop this might not be the choice for you. In my case I had to pull out an old drive from out of my storage to hook up to the pc. However, once I got it all done and tested for 5.1 audio, it was working just fine. I'm wired up with 3.5mm jacks for center, rear and fronts so I can't say anything about the SPDIF because my sound system doesn't use it. But it did come up in the pc sound settings so I'm guessing it works. Same with the Line In, I'm not using it.All in all, it wasn't a bad purchase. It works for 2.1 if you don't want to install the driver or you can install the driver and get 5.1 for sure. It also says 7.1 but I can't say anything for that as I don't have it. Sound quality is good and I have no complaints. It's not bad at all.Build quality is decent with plastic trim and aluminum body. The usb cable that comes with it is of the cheap thin variety but it functions as expected so I have no complaints. I have better cables laying around if I need to replace it. It's about maybe 8 inches long but that's me eyeballing it. It could be a whole foot lol but I have it bundled in a wrap.The sound card is not a looker by any means but I don't mind as I have it stuck up under the desk and won't be seeing it. The 3.5 ports do look a bit cheap but functionally they work fine. I have no complaints but I'll update if anything comes up. If you don't see an update below it means we're still going strong.

It works for Windows 7 Professional 64 bit as soon I connected it to my laptop all the drivers were loaded which is a good thing. The bad thing is that the given software (in an unlabeled mini CD) never was installed in my laptop; my antivirus said all the time that the install was suspicious and it was attempting to perform a dangerous action in my system and that software was blocked. I tried to install the software in three different laptops with different antivirus and I got the same problem. I was able to manage because I have my own reputable software. With my software I was able to read incoming audio from fiber optics audio line and also from inline 3.5 mm digital audio. Unfortunately the SPIF was read with a latency that made slow audio reproduction. So if you don't have software, you will be unable to get anything from it. Finally, like I mentioned before the included software CD was unlabeled and I received the device without cardboard box or any other protection just a cut of bubbles bag and no manual. All this makes it disappointing and I suggest no to install the software. If any of you can tell where we can contact the maker please tell, I need the original drivers.

I bought this audio solution after my previous similar solution met with a problem involving water. I hadn't realized it, but my rear speaker outputs were distorting much more than they had any excuse for. That problem is gone with this unit. Now, I would be really happy if I could get the line input to work right. Might be a Windows problem, or maybe I should just shop for a better sound solution. Good to go for now, though!