Laptop Studio!usb Soundcard?

[polaroid]

Hy.

I m a musician, and i work a lot with my Laptop. The internal soundcard of my Lap is very bad, like in all Lap´s that i know. It captures all noises from HD, and from the digital clock of the optical digital output.

Now, i have some money (not to much) to spend in a USB soundcard.
I was interested in Creative Extigy cause it has a great choise in digital and analogue in´s and outputs. But, Asio drivers for that soundcard can t put the midi feature of the souncard on.
Anyone has any opinion about this soundcard? Any link where i can find more information about this?

After many searchs, i found EDIROL UA-20. Great and cheap USB soundcard. 24 bits converter, etc..

http://www.edirol.com/products/info/ua20.html

Is this soundcard better than Extigy?
Is there any web page with a UA-20 testdrive?


And EDIROL U-3D?
http://www.edirol.com/products/info/ua3d.html

Is there any others souncards, with this price, and at this nivel?

I need help for chose my future USB soundcard...thanx!


Polaroid

PS: The principal use of my future soundcard is to record and play audio, with the maximum quality, at a low price. (I know that i´m asking too much )

 

[Eric Best]

A friend of mine uses an M-Audio Quatro and it works well for him. I can't attest for the sound quality, because I haven't listened to it for critical listening he uses it as his portastudio for Ideas and then he comes to me to record the final. I use an Echo Layla with the PCMCIA adapter and it works great, but it will cost you about $1000 US.

 

[Rochey]

I'd second the call on the quatro. But i'd also chuck the OMNI I/O on top.

THat'd make a sweet little setup you'd have then, with a couple of decent mic pre's (not great, but they aint bad neither!) a few insert points (just in case you wanna add some compression etc)
as well as phantom power.

But let's wait for some other opinions too

Cheers

R