USB headphone adapter

[samdale]

the headphone socket on my laptop has stopped working, anything plugged into it gets no sound to it (the sound just comes straight out of my laptop speakers)

only solution i seem to be able to come up with involves buying a USB headphone adapter.
i have no experience of these so not sure on quality/ what to go for etc

any other possible solutions?
how much would we be talking to fix it?
i do quite a lot of long train journeys so i might annoy quite a few people if i just use the speakers.

if it matters my laptop is a dell inspiron.
cheers.

[plg101]

samdale said:

the headphone socket on my laptop has stopped working, anything plugged into it gets no sound to it (the sound just comes straight out of my laptop speakers)

only solution i seem to be able to come up with involves buying a USB headphone adapter.
i have no experience of these so not sure on quality/ what to go for etc

any other possible solutions?
how much would we be talking to fix it?
i do quite a lot of long train journeys so i might annoy quite a few people if i just use the speakers.

if it matters my laptop is a dell inspiron.
cheers.

Plenty of USB headphone / mic setups for Skype, etc. Depends on you budget; I found the Sennheisers are okay - can get a stereo headphone/mic for about £30. Not quite as good as regular headphones but not bad.

Oh, and if you use speakers, I can assure you that you WILL annoy everyone.

[Dave^]

If you want a cheap fix...

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.22475

I can't imagine the SQ to be much cop, but it'll be better than laptop speakers no doubt...

[samdale]

Dave^ said:

If you want a cheap fix...

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.22475

I can't imagine the SQ to be much cop, but it'll be better than laptop speakers no doubt...

this is the sort of thing id seen but did worry about sound quality. anyone know any more? seems the cheapest fix i've found so far as im not TOO worried about sound quality

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

Soundblaster Play would do the job.

http://uk.store.creative.com/products/product.aspx...

[Dave^]

Another thought...

Does the Laptop have Bluetooth? (I'm guessing not or you'd have already thought about Bluetooth headphones...)

[S6PNJ]

Slightly higher price than a $2 usb jobbie, but how about a pcmcia card?

Sound Blaster Audigy™ 2 ZS Notebook