usb sound card on Linux

[Xel'Naga]

Anyone knows any usb sound card (for my lappy) that SURELY works on Linux? I use fedora 9 with gnome, but it shouldn't matter. I don't care for any fancy settings, I just want to use it as a simple DAC. A usb DAC that can be bought from Europe would also be good. I will be pairing this with AKG K701 and LittleDot MK2 amp. I want 24bit/96khz, good quality and price <200$. Don't care for 5.1 or other crap. I will use it for music with my headphones.

[Xel'Naga]

I have been looking for quite a while, before I made this post. Now I have decided. I case anyone else wants to know, the best bang for the buck (by far) is the Behringer UCA202 U-Control. The only detriment for some (not for me) is that the output is line level at 2x3.7mW. So you will not run anything without an amp.

[Xel'Naga]

Since I have received some questions on private about the Behringer UCA202 U-Control and maybe others want to know so I will add some comments about it.
I don't yet have the LittleDot MK II, so I will compare the AKG K701 with and without the DAC.
Today is the first day I tested it.


Price:

The price is only 30 euros and it's an insane value for the money. Although it uses high-end components, if you want something really high-end look somewhere else since 16bit/48KHz might be a bottleneck.

Installation:

It doesn't need any drivers. You need to modify a few files to make ALSA use it instead of the integrated sound card. With OSS, it doesn't work since it has no support for USB sound. As such some applications like Firefox (due to the flash player) don't work. VLC doesn't either, but in theory it should and I haven't tinkered with it. Amarok even if forced to use ALSA, also doesn't . XMMS works fine and if you want youtube, just plug the headphones into the PC headphone jack and voila.
I don't have Windows anymore but Behringer says that it works flawlessly.


Volume:

Output for the headphone jack is 2x3.7mW. For some high sensitivity headphones like mine, this is quite loud(109 DB in theory but sounds lower that that).


Sound quality:

First the bass, which was underpowered, muddy, boomy and overall crap has greatly improved. The K701 are known to demand a standalone amp for good bass and indeed is not as good compared to the mids and highs but much better than integrated sound. The really nice thing is that integrated sound would clip a little in songs with high bass at max volume. No clipping now:up:.
The humm has been completely removed except, of course, for some poor recordings or 64kbps mp3s. The sound is more clear and has more separation between instruments.
The soundstage has greatly improved. In "Yellow Submarine" by The Beatles you clearly hear the voices to the right and drums to the left, a few meters in front of you. In Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Overture" the sound moves very clearly from left to right as the notes get higher. In Sting's "Spanish Guitar Solo" you can hear more clearly the strings resonating and for the first time I heard the faint second harmonic for each note, which brought chills down my spine. Linkin Park is actually enjoyable and doesn't sound like a mad man screaming his guts out while rubbing a radiator with a spoon.
I think the best way to put it is that today, for the first time, I LISTENED (with my eyes closed and concentrating 100% on the music) for 5 hour and didn't get bored at all.
My roomate's Z5500 and discrete sound card sound a lot worse, so I think that apart for some RME or Lynx sound card or a hi-fi DAC, it can't be beaten. But if you want to 200$+ quality maybe look for a 24bit and 96KHz or more DAC.

[AndrewZorn]

I just ordered one, but didn't expect it to sound as good or better than a discrete sound card. Surely it wasn't a good one?

[Xel'Naga]

I just ordered one, but didn't expect it to sound as good or better than a discrete sound card. Surely it wasn't a good one?
This is just a stereo DAC, much simpler that a sound card and uses Burr-Brown PCM2902 CODEC which is not hi-fi but quite good. The op-amps are pretty bad, but have tube like behaviour (higher even harmonics) due to the caps at the output and if you set the volume at a small value and use a headphone amp, it will be better than any of-the-shelf sound card.

[AndrewZorn]

This is just a stereo DAC, much simpler that a sound card and uses Burr-Brown PCM2902 CODEC which is not hi-fi but quite good. The op-amps are pretty bad, but have tube like behaviour (higher even harmonics) due to the caps at the output and if you set the volume at a small value and use a headphone amp, it will be better than any of-the-shelf sound card.
Received it sooner than expected... and wow.

The sound is exceptionally clear, and I'm using an Ebay-built Cmoy amplfier that gets the volume to a good level without maxing out the dial (out-of-box, it's medium-low at highest setting).

I don't have a real sound card to compare it to right now, but I don't understand how something so simple (no drivers!) and cheap ($30!) can be so cool... the inputs are just a bonus!

One question though... I can only get this to work with OSS. You can only get it to work with ALSA! What files did you modify? I found a guide online for, incidentally, the same device in Ubuntu (which is what I use) but it only made things worse... a "device in use" error.
Because I can only use it with OSS, applications are limited, and I like ALSA more anyway.
I also can't get it to work with VLC. Sucks, because I really loathe totem (EDIT: at first I had 'mplayer' here, but I was confused, mplayer is good but also does not work), and am having to use it. Good thing Quod Libet and XMMS are both able to use OSS though.

[Xel'Naga]

Received it sooner than expected... and wow.

The sound is exceptionally clear, and I'm using an Ebay-built Cmoy amplfier that gets the volume to a good level without maxing out the dial (out-of-box, it's medium-low at highest setting).

I don't have a real sound card to compare it to right now, but I don't understand how something so simple (no drivers!) and cheap ($30!) can be so cool... the inputs are just a bonus!

One question though... I can only get this to work with OSS. You can only get it to work with ALSA! What files did you modify? I found a guide online for, incidentally, the same device in Ubuntu (which is what I use) but it only made things worse... a "device in use" error.
Because I can only use it with OSS, applications are limited, and I like ALSA more anyway.
I also can't get it to work with VLC. Sucks, because I really loathe totem (EDIT: at first I had 'mplayer' here, but I was confused, mplayer is good but also does not work), and am having to use it. Good thing Quod Libet and XMMS are both able to use OSS though.

I used Volume Control 2.22.0 to change the card to "USB Audio Codec (Alsa mixer)" and then add a file ".asoundrc" to my home that contains
"
pcm.!default {
type hw
card 0
device 0
}
ctl.!default {
type hw
card 0
device 0
}
"
Device is always 0, card is the number in the Volume Control panel.

[AndrewZorn]

Still no luck for me with ALSA. Works totally fine in OSS though, which is the opposite of what I want.

Got it to work in VLC by going to the Audio section of Preferences, switching it to OSS (because that's what works for me) and typing /dev/dsp1 for the device... the default was /dev/dsp and I'm surprised I was able to figure this out.

Also, I was using an amp to add to this before, but after finding out that XMMS/Audacious were attenuating the volume 9db, it's more than loud enough without the amp...