Anyone tried those cheap usb sound cards?

[Westerp]

On dealextreme there are a few starting at $ 2.26 up to $ 10.79
and I wonder how they sound when the output is taken before the earplug
amp which I guess is also in there. I ordered three different ones just to play
with 🙂 Maybe a clean 5 volts and some decent caps clean them up and make
them into real cheap dac's.

 

[jkeny]

I think the cheaper one is based on a C-media CM108 chip which is quiet interesting:
SPDIF & I2S output
external 12MHz clock
USB2

Might be good with external 5V supply & I2S to external DAC & good clock

Datasheet here: http://www.qsl.net/om3cph/sb/CM108_DataSheet_v1.6.pdf

Let us know how it sounds & if you do open one up?

Edit: some posts here: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=721341#post721341