Surrond Sound from a Laptop?

minor incident

A while back I picked up those Gamecom 777 headphones that come with a little USB sound dongle that enables "virtual surround sound."

Eventually I decided I hated those headphones and moved on, but kept the usb dongle as an easy way to plug in headphones in addition to my regular speakers, since the dongle accepts a 3.5mm headphone and mic input.

That got me wondering if there's any sort of similar usb dongle type sound card that puts out true 5.1 surround sound. I don't currently have any surround sound speakers, but I wouldn't mind picking some up if it's possible, AND I've got a pair of Razer Barracudas that I picked up on closeout that do true 5.1 surround.

So, does anyone know of any external sound card thingy that'll do this? With real live actual 5.1 outputs? Oh, and it needs to be Mac compatible. And yes, I'm well aware of what a tall order this is, but I haven't owned a desktop computer in years and have no plans of doing so again any time soon.


PS - Yes, I found the Firewave thing which seemed to be a firewire version of what I'm looking for, but it seems to be long discontinued (can't find it for sale ANYWHERE) and I doubt the drivers have been updated since OS 10.4 or so.

theclam

Try here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100008658%20600011978%20600011890&IsNodeId=1&name=5.1

minor incident

Thanks for the tip, but I just looked through those and only two of them are true 5.1; the others are "virtual" surround sound. And out of the two that are real 5.1, one is discontinued/out of stock, and the other is full of reviews that say it only works with XP/ME. Not gonna fly for me (80% Snow Leopard, 20% Windows 7).

Blah. I would have thought something like this would be a pretty common thing.

General_Win

USB might not work, but express card might work, here's an example of what you might you want to look for.

http://www.amazon.com/Creative-ExpressCard-Blaster-Xtreme-Notebook-70SB071000000/dp/tech-data/B000QRV3NU/ref=de_a_smtd

minor incident

Damn. That's something I was afraid of. I just "upgraded" to the new MacBook Pro (from a 1st gen unibody), which means I traded away my ExpressCard slot for an SD card slot. =/

corky842

Maybe an expresscard and something like this?

minor incident

corky842 wrote: »

Maybe an expresscard and something like this?

Now that's intriguing! And I'm almost excited by the idea of a bizarre Frankenstein's chain of peripherals rigged up from my USB port just to get surround sound working.

I'll have to research this some more. Thanks for all the advice, all.

DHS Odium

You have a recent MacBook Pro? You already have 5.1 Surround capability built in, the headphone jack doubles as a mini-toslink jack (optical cable). All you need is this: http://www.amazon.com/Toslink-To-Optical-Mini-Adapter/dp/B0002MQGRM/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1278684011&sr=8-4

As well as a pair of headphones that support an optical cable. Or, maybe your good headphones already count as a mini-optical plug and you can skip the converter altogether. If they don't however, some headphones can do what you want, like my Tritton 720: http://www.amazon.com/TRITTON-Digital-Surround-Precision-Headset/dp/B002ZS6Y64/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1278684168&sr=8-1

Optical goes into mini-amp, and headphones plug into that. I get 5.1 on My Mac or PC.

Unknown

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minor incident

I had totally forgotten about the optical-out on the MacBook Pro. Although, none of my current headphones have optical connections.

Further complicating this, I sold off the Barracudas, and bought a pair of Razer Carcharias that I am completely in love with. I think I'm ditching the idea of surround sound (for games, at least) since it seems far too tricky to get a setup in place for that and a good 5.1 headset that is ALSO a good gaming headset AND is under $100 is hard to find, but I may look into some speakers that'll work with the optical audio-out port in the future for movies.