Sound card upgrade

I sort of hate to get into this because there are so many choices. A lot of it depends on your price range and how big of a upgrade you want. You could have mentioned which ones you are considering or have ruled out. Your laptop can use several different types of devices.

> usb audio jacks or adapters. These are basically an external headphone/line-out jack plus a mic jack. No line-in. You can get one for under $5 from places like Amazon. You might consider one of these devices to be an "upgrade" if your laptop's audio has degraded noticeably.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=usb+audio+jack

> If you go up to the $25 range you can get similar usb devices that also include a true stereo line-in. Probably better quality.

> usb sound card. Basically the same idea but in a box shape, with more connection options. The most well known brand name here is SoundBlaster by Creative Labs. Quality can vary from device to device.

> expresscard sound card. Several companies made these -- I don't know if they are still in production but there are plenty available. A convenient form factor but again quality can vary.

> audio interfaces. These are a step up from "sound cards". The cheaper ones are popular with musicians who do home recording, and the expensive ones are used in commercial studios. One of their chief advantages besides higher quality is the increased number of inputs/outputs for multi-track recording.

> DACs (digital to analog converter). All of the above audio devices have dac's but many audiophiles prefer to have a stand-alone unit. The Inspiron 1720 model has a hidden s/pdif port (you need an adapter to access it through the tv s-video port). That might be an option for getting digital audio out of the laptop to a DAC, but might run into complications.

Hey thanks Jim, that's really helpful. I'll do some research and proceed from there. Thanks again, Andy