USB sound cards have recently been introduced to the market, mainly as products for laptops. They provide an easy way to improve the sound on laptops and provide support for surround sound speakers (or headphones) that would otherwise be incompatible. However, USB sound cards can also be used with standard desktop PCs if you don’t have any PCI slots free.
Model |
ZM-RSSC |
Input |
1 USB Connection Port(USB 1.1 / 2.0 Compatible) |
Output |
3.5mm Stereo Jack x3(Front, Rear, Center/Subwoofer)
0.6W
per channel, 1 Digital Port (Both Optical & Coaxial, capable of outputting 5.1 channels) |
Chipset |
Sonix 5.1 Sound |
Sampling Rate |
24bit 96KHz D/A & A/D Converter |
Size(WxHxD) |
80x15x108mm |
Power Consumption |
Minimum 3.3V, 150mA (Standard 5V, 500mA) |
System requirements |
SOFTWARE |
Operating System |
Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP |
HARDWARE |
Notebook |
Pentium III 700 MHz or higher (1GHz or higher recommended) |
Desktop |
Pentium III 600 MHz or higher (800MHz or higher recommended) or Celeron 1GHz or higher |
Memory |
256MB or more |
Extra USB port (compatible with USB 1.1/2.0) |
1) |
Small and Compact |
2) |
Easy-to-Connect - Plug-n-Play USB Interface |
3) |
Digital & Analog Output
This product supports both optical and coaxial types of digital outputs along with analog 5.1 channel outputs. |
4) |
3 Volume Controls
3 Volume controls provide independent level adjustments for the Front, Rear, and Center/Subwoofer output channels.
(For digital output, the volume can be controlled by a volume control on a speaker.) |
5) |
Amplifier included
A built-in amplifier provides full sound and ease of use. |
Testing:
The Zalman ZM-RSSC was tested over a 3-week period with the Zalman Surround Sound Headphones previously reviewed at eXtreme Reviews and a 2.1ch Altec Lansing AS300 speaker set. Testing was conducted with PC games, DVDs and a variety of music CDs.
Test Setup:
- CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz (800MHz FSB)
- Motherboard: Gigabyte 8IK1100 (875P)
- RAM: 512mb Corsair TWINX3200LL
- VGA: 128mb GeCube Radeon 9800 Pro
- HDD: 80GB Maxtor SATA 7200rpm 8mb cache
- Operating System: Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 1a
Results:
This sound card provided true 5.1 channel surround sound and did deliver better sound than the onboard audio output of the Gigabyte 8IK1100 motherboard. However, it was not that much better. To add to this I noticed a slight buzzing sound in the background during periods when no sound was playing. This was not evident when the sound card was in use.
Issues:
Setup was very simple as you would expect but I found that the sound card had to lie completely flat to operate.
Conclusion:
This isn’t an excellent product but it does the job. With desktop PCs I believe there are better value solutions but as a product for a laptop it offers much more being a cheaper and better-value alternative to the competition.
