how to get good music from laptop?

[gychang]

I am not a gamer but interested in getting good clean sound on my Grado
headphone with my 1.5G Celeron laptop.

Is the USB Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit External a way to go? for under
$100?

anyone have experience with the device?

gychang

[B. Peg]

Don't know about the external, but I bought the PCMCIA (slot-jobbie)
Creative Audigy 2 ZS Notebook card. Was around $125 or so at Circuit City.
Works much better than the stock setup. Has 5.1 (or is it 7.1?) via the
three jack cable, optical in and out, headphone out, and a line (or mike?)
in.

That said, I do note that with better phones there are times when the audio
comes on there is a slight click. I'm wondering if this isn't some way of
making the SNL numbers look better by shutting off the amp outputs until
needed, hence the click (pop)?

B~