| Brand | DIGIFLEX |
|---|---|
| Package Dimensions | 11.94 x 11.18 x 3.05 cm; 139.98 Grams |
| Item model number | YA21 |
| Manufacturer | DIGIFLEX |
| Color | Blue |
| Hardware Platform | PC, Laptops |
| Are Batteries Included | No |
| Item Weight | 140 g |
DIGIFLEX External Sound Card USB 6 Channel 5.1 Audio
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- This device supports 32 KHz, 44.1 KHz and 48 KHz sampling rate in digital and analog recording, and in digital/analog audio playback
- In digital playback mode, it receives an audio stream from the PC via a USB interface and transmits audio data according to AESEBU, IEC60958, SPDIF consumer interface standards.
- System Requirements: Win98/2000/XP/Win7.
- External 6 channel (5.1) sound card.
- Inputs: SPDIF in, Line in, Mic in.Outputs: SPDIF out, Front out, Rear out, Cen/Bass out
4 stars and above
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Product information
Technical Details
Additional Information
| ASIN | B003TO3KHY |
|---|---|
| Customer Reviews |
3.7 out of 5 stars |
| Best Sellers Rank |
113,435 in Computers & Accessories (See Top 100 in Computers & Accessories)
39 in Internal Sound Cards 147 in External Sound Cards |
| Date First Available | 23 Jun. 2010 |
Warranty & Support
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Product description
This external sound card offers a quality solution for upgrading you PC or laptop audio.
Features
This device supports 32 KHz, 44.1 KHz and 48 KHz sampling rate in digital and analog recording, and in digital/analog audio playback.
In digital playback mode, it receives an audio stream from the PC via a USB interface and transmits audio data according to AESEBU, IEC60958, SPDIF consumer interface standards.
System Requirements: Win98/2000/XP/Win7.
Contents
1 x External sound card
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Customer reviews
Top reviews from United Kingdom
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If all you want is to do is add normal headphone ports to your computer, then this will plug and play no problems with no driver install needed, Windows will set it up as a 2-channel USB audio device and work straight away. You can even use multiple headphone ports for surround sound, so long as your 3.5mm jacks are small enough.
However, the optical input and output will not work at all until you install the actual drivers. The driver CD supplied was completely in Taiwanese with no English instructions at all, and appears to contain drivers for a number of other products such as a USB serial port, a USB network adapter etc. Since all the folder names are in Taiwanese I could not figure out which one to install. Luckily one of the reviews on Amazon told me it was a CM2606 sound chip, so I figured the CM2606 folder was the one I needed. However, the CD supplied only has drivers for Windows XP, Vista and 7, not Windows 8 or Windows 10.
To use the device in Windows 10, I needed to locate the C-Media 6208 drivers for Windows 8.1 online and use those. The C-Media website itself is currently offline with some kind of php error, but according to archived versions of the page I could get to, there is only a Windows 8.1 driver anyway, no Windows 10 specific driver. The Windows 8.1 driver works in Windows 10, and thankfully there was a mirror on Softpedia of the 8.1 driver. Thank goodness! I got it up and running with optical out by using that driver.
So my overall experience with installation was very poor, probably as poor as you can get. It took me back to the early 90s when nothing worked properly and you were basically guessing at what software to install.
Saying that, the unit is *extremely* cheap for what it is, and once you do have the drivers set up it's a reasonably competent USB sound card with optical in and out. Just don't expect to use the optical input or output without putting in some work finding the drivers online.
options snd slots=snd-usb-audio,snd-hda-intel
to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
On booting this forces the usb audio device to load first and be the default audio device, followed by the Intel. My integrated Intel audio device is still available and working if I want to use it.
That's the theory, but does it work? I rebooted and everything works as expected.
I also booted Windows XP with the device attached and the driver CD in the CD drive. Windows initially used its own pre-installed generic driver. I then ran the Windows Device Manager and updated the driver by prompting it to search removable devices and it found and installed the appropriate driver from the supplied CD automatically. Everything worked. I then ran the installer .exe that had been placed into Program Files\USB Multi-Channel Audio Device. This installs the sound chip manufacturer's graphical user interface. It's very horrible and if you play with the silly effects they can be impossible to disable without a reboot. Yuk. You may as well use the generic Windows sound properties dialogues which will do everything you need without making a complete mess of it.
Sound Quality:
It seems OK to me, with some caveats. It is certainly much louder than the integrated Intel outputs but I'd be very reluctant to claim this is unambiguously good news. I'm using it with a cheap Labtec 2.1 Speaker set (2 small desktop speakers and a subwoofer) and playing back all kinds of music, anything from bass heavy electronic stuff, 60s rock, classical orchestral music through to early lute pieces and polyphonic chant, as well as DVDs, ripped movies, iplayer etc. For a desktop set up it's OK but the extra level of this usb device over the integrated one means that I'm left in absolutely no doubt that my speakers are nasty, horrible, cheap and utterly lo-fi buzz boxes. The output levels seem surprisingly high to me and it's easy to crank things up to the point that your speakers/headphones will distort/clip and suffer permanent damage. I'd suggest *never* cranking the PC's volume control over about 80% and also being similarly careful with any external amplifier attached. One big positive is that being a USB device there is no audible electrical interference from the motherboard. Some laptops and PCs can really suffer from this, making squeaking and popping noises as the hard disk spins or the mouse is moved, so if your hardware has this problem then a USB soundcard is a good fix.
Some people have wondered about using headphones with this soundcard. If you plug your portable headphones into the front channel and start playback with the volume even moderately high you may well ruin your headphones. This is especially true of small highly sensitive phones such as in-ear monitors. I've tried listening with some good quality full size Sennheiser HD 500s and some quite good Sennheiser and Klipsch in-ears; it's pretty nasty when you can really hear it! This soundcard can't drive a full size high impedance headphone at all well, there is no bass, though it's OK with ones built for portable use as long as you bring the volume down a long way. For headphone listening any decent mp3 player, tablet, or smartphone is better.
Some technical info about the device:
I opened the case to check and can confirm that the sound chip is a C-Media CM6206 [...]
Not all of the capabilities of the chip are supported in this particular device; for example there is no headphone socket, no volume control onboard, only sockets for 5.1 speakers not 7.1 and so on.
Its analogue inputs and outputs support 44100 and 48000 Hz sample rates and the digital I/O support 48000 Hz pass through. In Windows the device's analogue samplerate output seems to be locked by the driver at 48000 Hz. I couldn't see any obvious way to change this to 44100 but I'm no Windows audio expert. In Linux ALSA can be configured to force the device to 44100 or 48000 Hz as preferred via /etc/asound.conf or ~/.asoundrc. The device doesn't do hardware mixing so it can't resample multiple sources of different rates and play them back together; your operating system's software mixer will have to continue to take care of this for you. In this respect it's the same as 99% of the very cheap integrated and PCI sound cards available, and markedly less capable than a soundcard intended for audio production or a reasonable quality home cinema/hi-fi. At a price below £15 there is no suprise here and no complaint from me.
I've made several negative or neutral observations but I'm still satisfied with this device. My PC's integrated audio (Intel HD using Realtek ALC888 codec) is very nice quality but way too quiet, especially with many movie soundtracks in AC-3 or DTS. This solves that problem for me entirely, and also leaves the good quality Intel/Realtek line out free so that I can attach a headphone amp to it. For the price I paid this is more than acceptable. Anyone expecting something like a Denon or Yamaha home theatre component, or an M-Audio soundcard, needs to return to planet earth and get real, but if your expectations are sensible then this £15 soundcard might be a good choice.


