Greetings,

Quick question: I'm using the Sennheiser HD497 headphones. I'm pretty fond of them... not amazing... but good. They were the most I could afford on a student budget.

I'm powering them with a Fujitsu-Siemens notebook headphone (amplified) jack. Unfortunately, this has the (seemingly increasingly) irritating result that I hear constant background "whining" whether or not my audio is muted. Ie. I'm figuring it's just a poor sound card or port that's producing noise.

I listen to classical regularly... and this is beginning to get under my skin.

Question is this: do you think the Echo Indigo PCMCIA soundcard would be over-kill for my cheapy-style headphones? Should I expect any kind of sound improvement besides noise elimination?

The $129 that I'd be paying in my country for a 2nd hand Indigo is pretty crazy for my budget... but this thing is driving me up the wall a bit. I was hoping I'd get used to it... but no

General opinion: do you think its even worth my effort? I can drive out to the supplier to demo the Indigo but its quite a drive from me to them and I won't bother if you think I'm being unquestionably silly


Thanks for any help. Appreciate it.


Sorry - quick edit:
Comparison between the Indigo and the AudioTrak OptoPlay? I can get the Opto play here new for about $92.

eshylay
eshylay@hotmail.com

i have the same problem and same question, and how much is echo indigo?

Anyone?

Hi. I love my Echo Indigo. It was completely worth it for me, and there was an audible difference with the specific problem as described. I discuss the "noise" problem in some detail in a review I did a few weeks ago here. Whether it would be worth the price...it's a matter of how much the improvement will be worth to you. I paid full price in the US ($129) when I could have bought it for about $99 (I believe), but I still have no regrets. Know that the Echo Indigo is no gamers' card, though the system performance is still quite good as the PCMCIA bus is fairly independant of the main system bus in a notebook PC. You get very few amenities...no included-game, no fancy utility software, there's no input stage (get the IndigoDJ if you need one), and even the mixing console is spartan compared to others. But after having one for several months now, I can say I'm very happy with the product quality, and it's without a doubt the best sound card I've ever owned.

I'd recommend it for just about any type of headphone and notebook PC. The Echo Indigo is well-renowned for it's silence with no input (compared to the "hiss" of many adapters) and for an outstanding integrated headphone amp (it drives my Sennheiser HD-590's very well with no external amp). I haven't compared it to other PCMCIA or external (USB) sound cards, unfortunately, so I can't comment there.

Here is the webpage for the Indigo (if you haven't already found it).

I just got my echo indigo a few days ago and the improvement in sound quality is somewhere between marked and startling. Perhaps there was a problem with my old drivers or the internal sound chip settings, but I am now hearing high frequencies that I could not hear through the laptop headphone jack. I tested this with a 15 kHz test tone, after locking the sampling rate at 96K (same tone was inaudible without indigo).

I have been listening with Ety er6s and Koss R/100s. Besides the dead quiet between tracks, there is a subjective sense of improved clarity and richness in the middle and lower registers. I have no idea how much of this is related to the output amp of the indigo, and I have no other experience with headphone amps.

In my view it was good value judged against the cost of pcmcia computer peripherals or portable audio components (like an amp). My primary portable listening is via my laptop while travelling, so for me it was definitely worth the price.

Alan

Thanks to the both of you. I'll be checking out the supplier first chance I get - maybe end of next week. Will give it a listen on my own equipment and see how much money I can find

Cheers

eshylay

I'd like to take advantage of the thread to ask if anybody knows about any online store that will ship the Echo Indigo to Mexico. I've been wanting to buy one for myself, but haven't been able due to the fact that it is pretty unavailable here. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

I found this site that describes the Indigo line of cards, and at the bottom of the page they have contact info for Echo across the world.

The contact e-mail for Mexico (Top Music) is ventas@topmusic.com.mx