I finally got back yesterday after a nice long weekend in NJ with Bunky. It was my first time making the long drive, but everything worked out pretty well. Snow was bad on the way to NJ and our xA looked disgusting from all the snow/ice crap crusted all over the car. On the way back to PA, however, the weather was good up until about 1 hour outside the city. The last part of the trip involved hell fog and annoying driving rain.
I was happy to see the cats when I got back, and it looked like they had been really good while we were gone. However, when I sat down to watch some anime (finally), I was dismayed to find that Toby had rung in the new year by biting through the cord of my headset. I liked the Plantronics GameCom Pro1, even though it was a little wiggly on my head and the headset felt cheap. Now, it’s dead. This is the second or third headset I have replaced due to cat damage (I also lost a set due to Bunky/vacuum cleaner damage).
I like USB headsets because my sound card’s drivers suck. However, the selection of USB headsets can be pretty limited. The silver lining of this disaster is that I was able to do a little research and make some positive changes.
- USB Sound Card: Duh, I guess I could just order a cheap USB sound card and a regular headset. The StarTech ICUSBAUDIOB seems to fit the bill. It took some research to figure out what this doohickey was called.
- Better Headset Selection: Since I have the adapter now, I was able to snag a nice Plantronics GameCom 367 headset on sale for only $27 (thanks to the $13 coupon at Newegg). I’m excited to go back to Circumaural, and headsets with regular connections are generally cheaper.
- Wire Loom Management: I know cats like cords so I had gotten a plastic sheath to go around most of my wires (obviously not the headset wire). Yesterday, I finally found out that these are called wire looms. I thought I needed another loom because of where all the wires go, but thanks to this page I was able to get all the wires in the loom and hide the whole loom behind the table leg/back. Thanks for the suggestion about cable ties, and sorry it lost you a sale cableorganizer.com.
The really sad thing is that I am leaving the remains of the chewed USB cord plugged in for now, so that the computer does not beep with every keystroke (since I don’t feel like getting the right RealTek drivers for the soundcard and trying to set that up again. I’m still pretty excited to get the new stuff, though.
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Hmm, I have Realtek HD Audio also (over the past week, I’ve been building my first computer! I must say, its been really fun! =3) , but it doesn’t seem bad at all. Then again, I don’t really play games where I need to hear where the sniper fire is coming from, but yea, later on I plan to upgrade to those Creative Fatality sound cards (or any new sound card they release cause I’m a fanboy
). Thats when I get serious about gaming though.
I also plan to buy those wire looms when I wall mount my monitors, but I’m getting too ahead of myself… no money in da bank D: ! Speaking of cable management, I used to be very interested in those Cable Turtles, but they cost too much! I have no luck find them in dollar stores (they definitely look like dollar items… BUT THERE JUST SOOO CUTE! :3)
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Even though I just have the boring black one, I was amazed that wire looms came in a variety of pimptastic colors.
I have Realtek HD Audio on my netbook and it works fine, but I had a lot of problems with the integrated sound card that came with my desktop. The USB sound card is very cheap, so I just went for it.