Customer Reviews

StarTech USB to Stereo Audio Adapter Converter Sound Cards ICUSBAUDIO

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

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.

I ordered this for my Acer laptop when the built in sound-card broke. The adapter itself is too big to fit into a USB port without blocking access to another, but they realized this and included a small USB extension cord, which is convenient & completely solves the problem. I'm running Vista, and upon plugging the device in, it was recognized automatically without the need for any manual driver installation. The reports from other reviews about it being rather loud are true, but I noticed no distortion and was able to get it to a perfectly reasonable level. I had no issues with audio latency either. Recommended.

I got this for my laptop, which has awful sound. The sound from this USB adapter is fine, and a big improvement over the internal sound adapter.

But... the volume is way to high. I listen with headphones, so it is very uncomfortable when the volume gets wrong. I have the volume set at 3 (out of 100!) and go up to 5 in a noisy office. And that is with the application levels set very low too. Every so often some rude application makes a warning beep at high volume and just about scares me out of my skin.

Get this adapter if you will use it with speakers with a volume control. Don't get this adapter to use with headphones unless they have a volume control.
Get this adapter if you are deaf, or want to be deaf.

I bought this for my MacBook Pro, which has line-in but no microphone input. I wanted a microphone input so that I could use a headset with Skype. I plugged the unit in and had to do nothing else (no drivers necessary). However, I found that no matter what I did, the input had a constant loud noise in the background. It varied if I touched the USB adapter or the computer, but it did not matter what microphone I tried. I also tried to move it away from the computer using the included extension cable as well as a 6ft. extension cable I use without issue for my HDTV tuner and neither improved the noise.

This device works well with our computer. It was shipped to us quickly and fully intact. Very easy to use and good value for price paid. Overall nothing but good things to say.

This sound card was easy to install, works well.
I noticed sound drop outs and phasing.

Not noticeable so much when using headphones,
but i use it on powered speakers.

Would not recommend it for anyone looking for great sound quality.

I just got this device, because my mac's output port is distorting a little, and thought a good idea to just have a passive USB audio card too bypass the native port. What i heard one connected just startled me: What a horrible piece of gear! no highs, too much bass and no mids, this device deserves not to be manufactured again.

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.

I'm using a MacBook Pro and wanted to jack in my old headset/microphone. It worked perfectly. The sound recording is clear and sharp. Everything plugged in and worked immediately.

This USB SOUND works fine when it works , but if don't, you get a pain in the..... because sometimes windows vista doesn't recognize the USB device and sometimes a message error appears: Cmsnxeye stop working......
well I had to erase all the files with that name and I had to plug and unplug the USB SOUND and it stars to work and fine.... great sound with 5.1 speakers