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Comment by dvh | Hacker News Reader

I bought $3 USB soundcard and it sounds better than onboard sound card. PC16046 V2.0 (just checked, it's $1.22 incl. shipping)

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I bought a few of these (different brands) off Amazon a while back while trying to get my desk audio setup sorted and the audio output on them usually sounds okay. Some of them have noticeable background hiss at any volume.

The four-pin versions (with mic input) tend to fall down pretty hard, though. Either the volume is so low you have to yell to get anything into the PC at all, or there is severe cross-talk where any audio coming out gets induced into the input. (Turns out people on zoom are not fans of hearing echo of themselves with a 1-second delay!)

My google skills are letting me down - do you have a link for this?

PP probably refers to those very cheap USB soundcards, usually shaped like a dongle, with two mini jacks, sold pretty much everywhere. I tried a couple in the past (can't confirm if the chipset is the same) and they definitely sound better than expected from a device that cheap, however be aware that manufacturers often save on parts number or quality to reduce costs therefore it can be a hit and miss, with some of them making noises or offering inferior quality.

A few I would make about this:

* USB soundcards used to work on Android but in recent tests they failed again for some reason

* Avoid any dongle that supports "special effects", "gaming", etc. Even if they can be disabled, it's such a pain.

* Dynamically adding/removing soundcards can affect your computer's notion of "default microphone", particularly relevant for video chat. Some apps this takes effect immediately, some after quitting the app.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000598865391.html

Works out of box in ubuntu, this is how I use it: https://files.catbox.moe/755gbr.jpg

Where? I tried searching and not many hits. In fact, this comment was #4

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