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Review on 🎧 StarTech.com 7.1 USB Sound Card - External Sound Card for Laptop with SPDIF Digital Audio - PC Sound Card Silver (ICUSBAUDIO7D) by Steve Harris

Revainrating 3 out of 5

External components Just okay

Let's get the good stuff out of the way - It was easy to install in the PCI/USB slot - Easy to connect to speakers - Now for the bad - I should have checked before I bought it So it's up to me, but it doesn't have HD audio pins for my PC case's headphone and microphone jacks. However, the sound quality is really only okay and if you try to crank it up to even a moderate volume, it becomes a pretty loud hum. Strange. The volume below the feedback is pretty low - I checked all my settings, card settings and sound system options to see if/whether I muted anything - even the EQ - Nothing was silent - Same settings as my previous Creative SB1040 Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCI-E Sound Card - (( The reason for replacing the sound card is that the WIFI card was out of service, it was only single band and any dual band or even 5.0Ghz card only available in PCIe, the sound card was in one of the two slots, the second is closed by a fairly wide graphics card - so I had to use a PCIe WIFI card and get a sound card that fits the PCI/USB slot )) - glad that this card was under 20 money, that's nonsense. I've replaced it with an ASUS Xonar DG 5.1 sound card and it's on par with the CL Audigy - plus it has HD audio jacks so I can reuse my case. (See my review of this card on the Revain page).

Pros
  • Sleek design
Cons
  • Annoys