Sound Cards for Laptops Mini-Review [4/6/97]

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Please e-mail me comments, suggestions, corrections etc, thanks. Forgive my bad english.

You can find this file at my current Web page : http://www.pacher.net.

Contents

1. About Laptops sound cards
2. Sound device reviews
   1. Microsoft Speaker device (and Sound Mapper)
   2. Dsp Solutions Portable Sound Plus
   3. Mediavision PCMCIA Sound Card / Eiger Labs PCMCIA Sound Card
   4. New Media Wavjammer/SCSI-Wavjammer combo
   5. New Media Gamejammer/Gameport Basics
   6. IBM PCMCIA 3D sound card
   7. Fujitsu PCMCIA sound card
   8. I/O Magic Tempo
   9. Exp Cd multimedia combo
   10. Argosy PCMCIA sound card
   11. Turtle Beach Audio Advantage

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1 About Laptops sound cards

This review is about sound devices for laptops which don’t have sound built-in. There are three types of devices, Microsoft Speaker device which is a software only upgrade, Dsp Solutions Portable Sound Plus which plugs into the parallel port, and numerous PCMCIA sound cards.

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2 Sound device reviews

2.1 Microsoft Speaker device

This is a software upgrade which allows you to play back wav files under windows through your pc speaker. It works under Windows 3.1 or Windows 95. It is better than nothing, especially if your laptop has a good speaker. Here is a link to speak.zip.

Note that you’d likely want to install it anyway, even if you purchase another sound device (ie: when you boot your computer without the other device installed). In that case the Sound Mapper control panel which let you choose your sound output device could be handy (it’s installed when you install Video for Windows from Microsoft).

2.2 Dsp Solutions Portable Sound Plus

This device plugs into the parallel port of the laptop. It is a 16-bit stereo sound card, with Adlib like music. Its soundblaster emulation is only compatible with old games without dos-extenders but under Windows 95 a fair amount of games work with sound and music (ex: Duke Nukem 3D, Doom!). With the latest drivers, every game that I tried which worked under Windows 95 works with it with Midi music and Sb sound. Please look for the Mini-Faq on the subject by the same author.

You can go to Dsp Solutions Web Site for more info about this sound card.

2.3 Mediavision PCMCIA Sound Card / Eiger Labs PCMCIA Sound Card

This is a 16-bit sound card, OPL-3 music compatible based on the Mediavision Jazz 16 chipset. It’s a PCMCIA card with a dongle with audio line-in, headphones, microphone, volume control, midi/joystick port. It has drivers with or without socket services.

Unfortunately, Mediavision doesn’t support it (does they support anything now ?), it hasn’t got any Windows 95 drivers, and its Soundblaster Pro Emulation (like bmaster for the Portable Sound Plus) is fairly bad, but unlike the Portable Sound Plus, its adlib compatibility is not an emulation and works with everything.

In one word, great hardware shame about the support. I managed to get it work under Windows 95 though, but it’s buggy. Just read \"Mediavision Jazz PCMCIA Sound Card and Windows 95\" about it. (I end up always using my Dsp solutions sound card anyway).

The Eiger Labs sound card is the same, perhaps one day there will be new drivers coming from this company (already theirs are a little more recent than Mediavision’s, but you still have to use Mediavision’s setsound.com as the Eiger Labs one check for the card name).

You can try to go to Mediavision’s Web Page they have some files available for their card but no windows 95 driver according to their Win 95 Faq. Eiger Labs Web site doesn’t have drivers for their soundcard yet but have an interesting method for making it work under windows 95.

2.4 New Media Wavjammer/SCSI-Wavjammer combo

The one i regret not buying. On paper its specs looks like the Mediavision’s. But it is supported under Windows 95 and a lot of recent games work with it. It has dig and hma drivers so almost all recent games work with it. It emulates soundblaster only under windows, but i think this emulation certainly work as well as the Mediavision’s one under dos.

I would like to know if it has manual volume control, but in one word this is the card to buy if you want to get the one that work with the highest amount of software.

One advantage for buying the combo (with scsi-2) is that when one day you upgrade to a new laptop with sound built-in (almost all new ones have it), at least you’ll still have some use for it.

You can go to Newmedia’s Web Page for more info about this sound card.

2.5 New Media Gamejammer/Gameport Basics

Here are two new PCMCIA cards for laptops from Newmedia. The first one is a 8-bit mono sound card (so it is a step back from the Wavjammer) with a tiny integrated speaker. It has a joystick/midi port though and the sound portion of the card can be disabled of you only need joystick/midi I/O. Problem is support as it is a new card, I’m afraid all the games which supported directly the Wavjammer won’t work with this new card but I’ll like to have some feedback about this one. The Gameport Basics is just a joystick PCMCIA card, and looks ok (perhaps the only joystick interface for laptops supported under Windows 95).

You can go to Newmedia’s Web Page for more info about this sound card.

2.6 IBM PCMCIA 3D sound card

This card is reported to work with lots of games with music and sound (even Doom) because its hardware and software emulation for soundblaster is one of the best. It has also Wavetable music, and can get an extension to use joystick/midi. Its drawbacks are high price and no Windows 95 support yet ... If i had a choice for games, i would get New Media’s Wavjammer though, becoz direct support under recent games will always be better than emulation, except if i wanted to play doom, or other old games. Its price has fallen recently at 100$ though so it’s certainly a good buy (but the midi/joystick expansion is reported to be still costing 200$ !).

You can go to Ibm’s Web Page for more info about this sound card.

2.7 Fujitsu PCMCIA sound card

This is a new 16-bit PCMCIA sound card, based on the ESS1688 chipset. It has Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 support. It supports MIDI only in DOS (no digitized sound). Under Win95, native games are alright but DOS games have no sound (no MID nor WAVE). Guess it’s fine if you don’t need digitized sound for games under dos.

You can go to Fujitsu’s Web Page about this sound card for more info.

2.8 I/O Magic Tempo

Not much to say except i saw support for it in recent games. So perhaps one day, it would be as good as New Media’s for compatibility.

2.9 Exp Cd multimedia combo

This combination of cdrom and sound card is reported to has true Soundblaster Pro compatibility unlike all the other cards above. I wonder how they fixed the DMA under PCMCIA problem ? Anyway, i saw it once in a shop, and it looked great, with two dongles, one for the sound with a tiny speaker, microphone etc, and another for the cdrom.

According to the writing on the box, it has Windows 95 drivers and you can use either cdrom or sound card or both at the same time. And all that can be powered by the laptop’s battery, AA batteries or power supply. The only drawback is that the cdrom is quite bulky, something like 1,25 kgs i think (ie it doesn’t look like a nice portable unit like Sony PRD-150 or Panasonic KXL). But then, if its Soundblaster Pro compatibility is true, it would be a great sound card.

There is also a version of the sound card without the cd-rom interface around I think.

2.10 Argosy PCMCIA sound card

I thought this one was the version of the Exp sound card without the cd-rom because the dongle looked very similar. Now I’m not sure but a user reported it to be slow with dos games.

2.11 Turtle Beach Audio Advantage

Most of the people who have it advise others to avoid it because of installation problems. It works only under windows too.