TOOGOO(R) 7.1 Channel USB External Sound Card Audio Adapter

Superb value product and I'm delighted with it.I bought this to use with a Raspberry Pi. I wanted better analogue audio out than was possible with the built in RPi sound and this was the cheapest option. It just needed to work and sound OK and I would be happy.I can report that it works seamlessly on the RPi and is about the only RPi accessory I have bought for which this is actually true (I hear it said a lot but it's rarely that simple). No faff, no reliability problems and no messing about with weird software configs (any more than any other audio in Linux of course).I did initially have great problems but they were not related to this product, but in the process of diagnosing the problem I did comparative testing with other audio outputs and this scores surprisingly well. For reference I used common AAC sources (128k radio streams and 250k-ish VBR files) and an Arcam amp. I found as follows in increasing order of cost and quality:1. Raspberry Pi audio out was poorest. I found it better than FM radio but without trying I could tell the difference between this and other DACs. This was much better than I expected based on the poor reputation of RPi audio. It's really not that bad.2. This product. Far better than the RPi and more than adequate. I could happily sit and listen to it for hours and would have no complaints (in fact I do this a lot with Radio 3 on iPlayer and it's great). The radio streams do sound marginally better on the more expensive DACs but I only noticed this because I was switching back and forth testing and listening carefully for audio glitches.3. A USB PCM2704 board I got from eBay (£13, loose PCB no case). This sounds *amazing* and my higher rate sources did sound better. Since my application was radio and Bluetooth streaming anyway I stick with item 2 with my RPi, however for my general music applications which I run from a laptop I go with the PCM2704.4. A Cambridge Audio DACMagic. This sounds wonderful of course but with the source and other kit there was no discernible difference from the PCM2704. Naturally I await the sarcastic comments from self-appointed audio gurus outraged at my not using FLAC. But the use case is AAC.So I conclude that if you want a USB stereo audio DAC in 90% of cases this product is the best possible answer. If you are really uptight about your music get a 2704 or similar, it is better but it is 10x the price and not 10x better. I put a bit of black electrical tape over the LEDs as they were literally the only thing I didn't like about this item.Not "3D 7.1" in any way useful to me but I don't care about that. Best of all the seller actually sent me 3 so they are almost free.

I got this so I could use a headset with any of several macs which are a royal pain to hook up to microphones in particular as the older ones only work at line level and required some proprietory powered microphone to work.This little marvel enabled me to use a standard hesdset in full duplex mode.I tried it on the hifi too and was blown away. O.k. it's not right up there with the audiphile kit but if I didn't know I doubt I'd care.I am VERY impressed with these soundcards --dongles? adapters?-- particularly at the insane price.They're practically giving these things away so they probably have alien mind control devices embedded in them ready for the big invasion.......... so I always skype wearing an earthed tinfoil hat and never, ever tell anybody that I live in London. Marmalade stops the waves tooI don't see how anybody could be disappointed with these things. I've not unlocked the 5 to 1 surround capability yet and I'm sure there'll be driver issues with the Mac but for what I want the headset and occasional audio router from my older machines, they are astonishing.Highly recommended.

I took advantage of the buy one get one free offer, and the ridiculously low price. Plug n play perfect on Windows 7, not sure why it is described as a 7.1 device as it only has a stereo 3.5mm jack output and appears as a 2 speaker device in windows.I also bought this because another user mentioned that this device provides a high enough microphone supply voltage to drive a condenser microphone ( BTSKY™BM-800 Condenser Sound Recording Microphone + Mic Shock Mount, Ideal for radio broadcasting studio, voice-over sound studio, recording and so on (Blue) ). One of them did, providing around 4.4v of phantom voltage and the mic actually worked, as long as the 'agc' option is enabled in the microphone properties. Unfortunately the second device only provided 2.4 volts, the microphone did work but with low volume levels, noticeable distortion and noise.Still for the price, a bargain.

The functionality is alright, I use it with my raspberry Pi and whilst it seems to work fine, I have a problem in setting it up with Raspian OS. Works immediately on OpenElec, though. However, it might be my Pi or it might be the product, but sometimes (albiet rarely) it'll suddenly output static at the loudest it can, almost bursting eardrums.It says "Buy One Get One Free" and I only got one instead of the two I'd expected, which while annoying, isn't too bad considering the low price in the first place.The worst thing was the delivery though. It took around two months to arrive, which is absolutely ridiculous.