Creative Labs Audigy External 24 Bit Sound Card By Yangmun Choi on Dec 03, 2007 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

The Creative Labs External 24-bit Audigy Sound Card (USB) is a very nice addition to your computer entertainment system. It boasts 2, 2.1, 4.1, and 5.1 technology. It also has Line In, Microphone and Headphone jacks, along with DIN, SPDIF, and Optical ability. It is also IR remote capable, and has a MIC volume and MASTER volume controls on the device itself. It also features CMSS technology.

The sound quality is definitely a step up from pretty much all built-in sound card technologies. It may not be as good as studio-quality sound systems, but it is pretty much all one needs for a decent home theater system.

The downside of the Sound Card is the software. But this isn't product specific, most Creative drivers are heavy (take a good amount of memory and CPU) and sometimes useless (but that opinion is personal). Also, the card cannot do 5.1 Surround in 24-bit and sometimes just can't seem to handle 24-bit at all (like when one is adjusting the CMSS levels).

A problem that I ran into were these clicking noises coming out of my right headphone/speaker. It appeared whenever my laptop was doing something CPU-intensive or USB intensive (it is DPC-latency based, but I am not THAT tech savvy so I do not know). However, on my desktop, the device ran without clicking problems, thus if you have a crappy computer, there might be this clicking problem, otherwise it should be fine.

For the most part, this card is definitely good. Worth the money. But get it on eBay.