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StarTech.com 7.1 USB Audio Adapter Sound Card with SPDIF Digital Audio

$50.99
Mfg # ICUSBAUDIO7D CDW # 1839538 | UNSPSC 43201502

Quick tech specs

  • Turn your laptop or desktop computer into a 7.1-channel home theater-ready sound system
  • USB External Sound Card
  • USB Sound Adapter
  • USB Sound Card
  • Laptop Sound Card
  • USB 7.1
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Know your gear

This versatile External USB Sound Card/Audio Adapter offers a high quality solution for upgrading desktop or laptop sound.

Providing a robust USB audio experience, the USB sound card connects to a host computer through a single USB 2.0 connection, to deliver impressive external audio capability that can instantly be swapped between systems, without having to open the computer case for installation.

Supporting analog and digital audio for 2 to 7.1 channel audio applications, the external USB sound card provides a cost-saving upgrade from built-in/on-board sound that turns desktop/laptop sound into a home theater-ready audio solution.

The external USB sound card features easy-to-use volume control and two external microphone inputs - a convenient solution for any audio application requiring high quality sound with multi-input capability with support for 44.1 KHzand 48 KHz sampling rates for analog playback and recording or 48 KHz for SPDIF.

A more than suitable solution for home theater, gaming or multi-media presentations, the External USB Sound Card is easy to install with plug and play support in Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems.

Designed to deliver a long-lasting and dependable sound solution, the External USB Sound Card/Audio Adapter is backed by our 2-year warranty and free lifetime technical support.

Note: The audio adapter’s SPDIF optical pass-through port supports two-channel audio, this port does not support 5.1 or 7.1 audio.
$50.99
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Availability: 653 units In Stock
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StarTech.com 7.1 USB Audio Adapter Sound Card with SPDIF Digital Audio

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StarTech.com 7.1 USB Audio Adapter Sound Card with SPDIF Digital Audio is rated 3.90 out of 5 by 34.
Rated 5 out of 5 by from When you get it working it's great! I got this to reuse a 7.1 surround sound system that was collecting dust in my loft. I plugged it in on my Win 10 machine (Version 1909) and it seemed to auto install. Problem is it would only output as "headphones" no options to output in any other way. I then installed the startech drivers from the website, still nothing. After half an hour of troubleshooting I contacted support, long story short you need to install the drivers from the Startech website which will install the app "Cmedia Xear Audio Centre", open the app, right click on the "Headphone" icon, select the second option "headphone settings" then in the top right select the drop down box that says "Headphone" then you can select "speaker" or "SPDIF Out" . once you select "speaker" the "headphone" icon will grey out and "Speakers" will be selected. You can then output in 5.1, 7.1 etc! No mention of this un-intuitive "feature" in the manual but support were great!
Date published: 2020-12-14T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from 5.1 sound Rocks I had purchased a new computer but it didn't have the output for 5.1 for my speakers so I purchased this nifty item. The disk that came with it didn't have the drivers I needed so I downloaded the software for it and I got my 5.1 sound back. I am a happy camper rock'in out to my tunes.
Date published: 2018-09-28T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from buzzing sound and only stereo is working I bought this external card to be able to use my Logitech Digital Audio controller for my 5.1 speakers and my new Dell Optiplex 7060, which apparently offers no internal sound card option with a digital audio connection. No problem, except that I get an annoying buzzing sound at any volume, and it's only working in stereo mode and pretty low quality from what I can tell, Something isn't right, but I can't figure out what to do to fix it.
Date published: 2019-01-28T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Bought for the wrong reason, but supprised. I have an old Klipsh computer sound speaker system (whose sub is also an amp.) that was paired to a (at that time) high end gaming computer's sound card. Computer long gone now. Found a convoluted way to hook up these speakers to a retired HK receiver using only the pre-amp functions as the amp portion was dead. HK amp fully died. Needed solution to use speakers system. PS: this is still a very good sounding system for my bedroom. Found your 7.1 USB Audio Adaptor. Hoped I could just use it without the computer. No go. Disappointed. Used my notebook. Worked, sort of. Only 2.1 and no headphones. Hmmm. Drivers down loaded automatically were generic. Try the disc, not compatable with Win 10. Went to you web site, got Win 8/10 drivers. WOW. Impressed for such an inexpensive item. Everything works,. Controls the amount of speakers to use and can even use other audio players via the input. Still checking it out, but happy now. Can't run it without the notebook, but for the price, that's OK.
Date published: 2018-11-15T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Win 10 keeps messing up this device I have used this device since Feb 2016. It works great when the drivers are correct. However Microsoft updates keep messing up the drivers and it's next to impossible to restore the driver settings. Until a better driver install is available, I suggest avoiding this product or be ready to waste hours upon hours installing drivers.
Date published: 2019-05-11T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from powerful and simple I broke my headphone jack on my laptop and this product fixed all my problems quickly with no effort other than to plug it in and change a couple of settings in the sound options. Very happy customer right here!
Date published: 2015-05-27T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Not working at all I got this as a Christmas gift from my parents last year. I'm finally getting around to using it and it is not sending a signal to my receiver. I can see the blue light blinking on top of the box but there is no red light coming from the S/PDIF.
Date published: 2017-08-27T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Better than any internal audio card I have had one of these for over a year now. Best thing about this card is the ability to have more than one input working at the same time. Windows DRM since Vista has disabled the ability to have Line in and Microphone working at the same time. Since I have two computers, one connected to line in on this and a microphone for talking to friends it does exactly what I need. I have purchased several audio cards and spent hundreds on some that couldn't perform as well as this one.
Date published: 2014-05-26T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Just what I needed - Line In I have my own preamp and needed something to digitize line-level signal. Startech does it fairly well, with excellent low-frequency response - which is great for my application.
Date published: 2020-10-18T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Easy install, no added software Was installing this on a Windows 2008 Server, and was concerned about having to install extra software that might cause some issues with the software we are currently using. Thankfully, the driver was already in Windows, so no added software, which meant that no ill effect to the system. Just, now we have sound. Very nice.
Date published: 2016-02-25T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Raspberry Pi My mate bought this for his windows system and I had my raspberry pi with me... Plugged it in and it worked without installing additional drivers... It doesn't say in the manual anything about Raspbian OS so thought I would let everyone know it worked...
Date published: 2018-04-23T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Really good upgrade Bought this card to take advantage of my Logitech Z506 5.1 Surround audio, however the drivers have not been necessary in my case since windows handles this device so far without problems
Date published: 2019-07-07T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Works as promised! This is an excellent audio addition with a 5.1 or 7.1 speaker set. I can work much longer when listening to music through this unit.
Date published: 2014-04-30T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from for the audiophile turns your laptop into a sound studio. am able to control so much
Date published: 2015-10-11T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from device can only play stereo This device cannot and will not output anything more that stereo 2 channel.
Date published: 2019-10-05T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Fantastic Customer Support!! I had a connection issue. I contacted customer support and first chatted with "Chris". I am not computer savvy like I'd like to be, so he took over my computer and installed the software that was necessary. That didn't completely solve my problem, so I re-contacted them and got connected to "Justin". He troubleshooted my problem and figured out my issue was a setting on my computer. I am now enjoying fantastic sound form my laptop. This sound card is a MUST HAVE if you enjoy music!!
Date published: 2021-07-22T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Perfect (once I got new drivers online) I just this box and, so far, it's been working great. I needed to download new drivers off of the Startech website to make it work with Windows 10, but once I did, no problems. I have a Dell laptop and I got some 5.1 speakers secondhand so I needed a USB solution to give me 5.1. This was exactly what I needed. The sound quality seems fine, although the speakers I'm using are not great. Works nice with games, Netflix. Very pleased.
Date published: 2021-05-06T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Startech, a smater Choice I bought this USB sound card a week ago, its amazing!
Date published: 2014-03-28T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Stereo on win10 only Win 10 only works with stereo. It only seems to use 2 channels making the product pointless. The software from cmedia 2012 doesn't seem to do any difference. Im using SPDIF in
Date published: 2019-11-05T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Average product with hidden limitations I purchased this unit because I use a Small Form Factor PC with limited upgrade options. On the photos I could see it has a lot of connections. I wasn't interested in the 7.1 features, but more for recording purposes, especially the optical input. The C-Media Audio chip in this device is quite basic, limited to 16 Bit and 48 KHz. So it won't do 24 Bit or 96 KHz or any of that. The specifications and manual mention that the S/PDIF optical input is only pass-through, yet it shows up as an input in Windows 10 and you can record just fine with software such as Audacity. The specifications mention dual microphone inputs. Yes there are 2 ports, and you would assume that you can connect two microphones, but this is not the case. Windows audio properties show only a single microphone input. The way this USB audio device is setup is that the left mic port is for the left channel, and the right port for the right channel. Rather than have a single mic port that does Stereo. Very strange and means if you have standard Stereo Mic you need to get a Y-cable. Finally the device has optical-in, line-in and mic-in. On a standard sound card you can use all the inputs simultaneously. For example receiving music from the line-in, while doing a voice over through the microphone. But this device only supports on of these at a time! So it's either optical in, either line-in or either mic in. But you cannot use two or three inputs at the same time. I'm amazed at this limitation and that this is not mentioned. The driver seems to be quite old and mixer has just two sliders for volume and CD, which makes no sense. There are no sliders for the other ports. The software and driver doesn't seem to add much compared to the built-in functions that Windows 10 provides. On the positive side the build quality seems solid. The buttons on the unit as handy, but most keyboard have the same volume and mute button. The mic mute button though can be very useful. The power LED blinks all the time which is a bit strange. All in all the product didn't meet my expectations, especially that you can only use one input source at a time and that this wasn't mentioned anywhere.
Date published: 2018-11-22T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Imac user Got this so my Imac could get my (G51 Surround Sound Speaker System) to work like it did with my Pc
Date published: 2022-08-21T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Very happily surprised! Sound is on par with the famous name PCIe card, best of all I don't have to uninstall drivers/software then reinstall every few boots like I did with that expensive card. Sound is def better than the OEM/Intel/Realtek offerings--not to mention it's a snap moving from 1pc to another (try that with an internal card)...I downloaded the StarTech zip file rather than the enclosed CD, installation was a breeze, the program has plenty of tweaks to keep me busy. i should have bought this usb StarTech years ago!
Date published: 2021-10-01T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from dont buy this the audio station that comes with it decided it will no longer recognize 5.1 - no support articles, etc. speakers are fine, used different usb ports, uninstalled and reinstalled - only a few months old.
Date published: 2021-04-25T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Windows 10 Build 2004 Breaks Aduio Great device - however the new 2020 Windows 10 Build 2004 the device stopped working - no audio - uninstall - re-install drivers / usb audio drivers - still no audio - device appears in sound control panel and device manger.
Date published: 2020-06-10T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Perfect First Time I lost all sound to my computer a week ago. Saw this item on you tube.Set it up today.Didn't need any instructions at all.Though I might need a new internal sound card replacement or motherboard.Up and running perfectly in 10 minutes.Thanks guys.Saved me service call that would or could have cost hundreds.Highly recommended.Purchased at Future Shop Thanks Again Wayne
Date published: 2014-04-17T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Wow finally plug & Play Bought this fix a Realtech audio problem that wasted MANY hours of my time I plugged this in and it M$ Win 7 picked it up immediately and the volume nightmarish issues are gone the lack of vocal clarity is gone For 20 years as a tech been happily using Startech products but this was a sweet easy and could not be faster install. For anyone wanting an optical out - stop right here this is the one. Outstanding
Date published: 2017-12-16T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Customer service helped solve my issues with the e I am here writing again because i left a decent review of this little device. It almost didnt work for my DJing applications as the line in port didnt work. They contacted me and i was able to work out EVERYTHING on how to get this item to work. I would recommend buying this product and if you have issues, contact their customer support. They were very helpful and amazing at their jobs. I thought this was going to be some cheap product that would only partially work but they have put work into this device and drivers even for Windows 10. Please. Get this thing if your sound card doesnt work.
Date published: 2020-09-25T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Brilliant! I wasn't happy with the whole Realtek/Windows 10 thing & the fight to get a 5.1 speaker set working properly. I recently bought a set of Logitech Z607 speakers and have been disappointed with the output. There were flashes of goodness but it was inconsistent. The main complaint was the subwoofer seemed pretty capable but never seemed to get utilized. After hunting around a bit for sound cards, I came across this one. I just received it today, and following the advice posted by DaveE1 on this site got things plugged in & tuned up. Now the drum and bass actually has some bass (OK, the speaker set isn't great, but at least it's being fully utilized now.
Date published: 2022-03-22T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from WORKS GOOD BUT NEED UPDATE FOR WINDOWS 10 i bought this item for my pc who doesn't have a very good sound card, this product is the response for that work beautyful but the software for windows 10 is difficult to install or is missing and my sound card it's not working the way should be
Date published: 2020-06-07T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Sound works amazingly, drivers are hard to find. I've had this for about 3 months now and it works great as my PC's built in sound card did not work at all when I built it. The quality of the sound is great, however there are some caveats. I am using Windows 10 as an operating system. The drivers are not on the disc for Windows 10 and on the website, the drivers do not fix the issues that are present. Line in doesnt work, the speaker output doesnt work, and the microphone inputs are annoying to deal with as i am a DJ and need ONE direct line in, but since the line in doesnt work, I have to split the audio in two ways just to get Stereo sound, and even when i do set it up, every little sound going through the inputs will sound clipped and too loud on the outputs no matter WAHT KIND of adjusting you do in software. I have not tested the fiber-optic inputs/outputs so I can not give a definitive response on that front. However if we can get a driver update to make sure that this device works wholeheartedly, this review will go STRAIGHT to 5 stars. The only output that works are for the headphones and while the quality is great and it does partially what i need it to do, the lack of Windows 10 driver support and the fact that i can not use a Line input for my DJ mixes takes this to a 3 star. Practical and usable, but you will need something better to record any form of audio with it.
Date published: 2020-09-21T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from null this item is pretty much useless when using the spdif output as it only supports 2 channels
Date published: 2020-04-15T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from New Driver is HORRIBLE The whole reason I use this USB sound card is that the Line in and Microphone could be activated at the same time. The disabling of this "feature" in the new driver is unacceptable. I have 2 computers and have my audio connected from the other computer and I use the mic at the same time.
Date published: 2022-05-26T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Just need to know what your doing! Works Great I have a Surface Pro Book and I have two docking stations, one for my car and one for my office. I have the Logitech 5.1 surround system and I bought this switch to utilize this system. This thing was fairly straight forward to hook up. I have the best surround sound I have ever had including my full desktop systems with Soundblaster cards. The tech support is awesome so If you cannot figure it out, call them and you will not be disappointed.
Date published: 2020-03-12T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 by from Burnt out two computers We plugged this soundcard into an Intel NUC USB port and within five seconds could smell something burning. We unplugged it immediately, but within a minute the NUC had gone down. The sound card remained functional afterwards but the NUC was permanently damaged. We have not had the same problem with other sound cards or with this sound card on other computers. Unfortunately we were able to replicate the problem. Note that the sound card was fresh out of the box and the NUC had only been in operation for a day.
Date published: 2022-06-07T00:00:00-04:00

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