Most on board sound cards are not worth the PBC they are printed on. They are plagued with low quality chips and interference from other internal components. The best solution would be to go with an external fire wire solution. I and a lot of others in our forum use one of the Echo AudioFire series of sound cards. These primary application for this series is professional audio but they make an amazingly crisp sound experience, but for your desktop.

I guess it would be possible to tote around the AudioFire2 but it is not an elegant little device like the Turtle Beach Audio Micro USB sound card. It is small enough to almost be considered a dongle or even a larger headphone jack adapter that will rival the sound quality of the pro audio FireWire sound cards. Though there are a few caveats- read on for the full scoop.

We are moving fast into a wireless world but it will be quite a few years till we can get rid of those pesky cables completely. In the mean time we are find ourselves struggling with cable management. We wrap our cables around the device, use twisty ties, purchase special velcro cable wraps, or even haphazardly throw loose cables into our gear bags to get later tangled. Velcro or other rubber cable wraps always produced the cleanest results but it was just another thing to keep track of or loose.

Here I will show you my solution to the problem for cables on the go. By using a little bit of cable origami, you can neatly and securely wrap the cables up in themselves.

Our only amp review so far was about the $7 FiiO E3, so it might be time to step things up a bit. Enter the Three Stones MiniBox-E+.

Peculiar brand name… After a bit of sleuthing I’m still not quite sure who is behind the brand “Three Stones”. It seems to be a Chinese one-man project that’s being distributed internationally by US-based Hi-Fi vendor Head-Direct. Three Stones have been in the business for quite some time with several portable amp models, and the MiniBox-E+ I’m writing about in this review is their current top-of-the-line model.

Read on after the jump - especially if you feel the need to drive your 300 Ohm phones properly on the go.

The new Sansa Clip+ is one of several players that come with support for microSDHC cards. While smaller than SDHC cards, the capacity is also lower at 16GB max - although 32GB is coming. This means that while SDHC players like the Cowon D2 can get up to 32GB of extra storage, the microSDHC players are limited to 16GB for now. Or are they?

A few weeks ago I ran across an SDHC to microSDHC adapter on DealExtreme. Unlike most adapters between the two card types, this one actually gives you a microSDHC card from a bigger SDHC card instead of the other way around. Since the SDHC standard is the same regardless of size and the adapter simply takes the pins from the SDHC card and transfers it through a ribbon cable to a dummy microSDHC card, you can use any full size SDHC card as long as the player you use it with supports the SDHC standard (microSDHC counts). This means you can get 32GB of extra storage on your Sansa Clip+, Sansa Fuze or any other microSDHC player.

Still not convinced it works? Our forum moderator no9 ordered one of these and now have it fully working with a 32GB SDHC card in his 4GB Clip+. 4GB shy of the 40GB maximum you get with a 8GB Clip+ and this thing, that's still a LOT of storage on a small player like that. The downside? The adapter sticks out, and refreshing the media library with a full card takes close to 15 minutes. If you use this with a bigger player like the Sansa Fuze you should be able to fit the adapter on the back and tape over it or whatever, and the slow refresh is only after you put the card in for the first time or after you've connected it to manage your music. Regardless of the downsides, the capacity we're reaching with players this small is quite astonishing and make for very attractive players for people with large music collections. Hit the jump for a couple more pics.

I recently had an unfortunate mishap with the Zune HD review I have been working on. Quite discouraging so I thought I would boost my spirits by posting this Zune accessory review.

DLO is an official accessory maker for the Zune and maker of other accessories beyond cases for a few other players. These two particular cases are among three DLO makes for the Zune HD. Featured in this review are the "Action Jacket" an arm band sports case and the "Jam Jacket" which is a silicon case featuring a cord wrap. The third case absent from this review is the HipCase which is a leather flip top case with a non -removable belt clip. (...holding out for a Noreve leather case)

Portable speakers can be very nice little accessories to carry around, but the "little" part often extends to the sound as well. Forum member Dobson did his own thing and instead put speakers in a backpack.

Dubbed the "sound bag" by its creator, this thing is quite impressive with 2 large speakers powered by a 50W amplifier that runs off a 7000mAh battery, which gives the rig a battery life of about 15-20 hours. This will definitely play louder than anything even an army of normal portable speakers can spit out and might not be too bus-friendly, but it definitely has style. Great work! Hit the jump for more pictures.

[ABi>> Forums]

If you've ever wished you had a wooden box which was shaped like a handbag and had a speaker in it, Japanese artist Yoshihiko Satoh has just the thing for you. The speaker—which is available in maple and mahogany—features a built-in amp, a 30W driver and enough room to carry your MP3 player, but that's probably about it.

If you decide to fork out the ¥31,500 ($336) for the speaker, be sure not to puncture your completely unprotected woofer. Also, you will be laughed at, there's no avoiding that.

Kicker and I go way back to my early days as a car audio enthusiast. Even before I had my license, as a 15 year old I started packing Kicker subwoofers in my trunk paired with various amp and crossovers. Yes, I will admit, I was one of those obnoxious kids with more subwoofers than wheels- the one who rattled your window sills from a mile away. It turned into quite the hobby/obsession even entering a few local car audio competitions and even winning a few first places.

Being no stranger to car audio and Kicker products my interest was piqued when they introduced the ZKick. So I have had my eye on the ZKick dock for quite some time only having had a chance to preview it in the stores. It may be helpful to demo a dock like this in the store for features and build quality, but it can be hard to get a sense of sound quality and output in a big box store with kids screaming and Guitar Hero being played in the background. I finally got a chance to pick one of these units up and have been using it daily for the last two months.

USB has been the standard for charging pretty much any small electronic gadget for years now but there is still some confusion about both what USB charging means in regards to compatibility and how you can charge USB equipment without a computer. Read on for a breakdown on USB charging.

When I travel I end up taking several devices with me since battery life may not last the entire trip. It poses a few problems such as having to take multiple bulky cables and sometimes multiple chargers. Also I end up having to sync multiple devices with the same media. The multiple device solution works well, but not everyone has the luxury of owning multiple MP3 players or PMPs.

Perhaps the easier solution would be to use an external battery. Enter the Callpod FuleTank. This on the go battery solution will allow you to charge two devices simultaneously and is good for 5-10 charges depending on the device.

Along with the FiiO PS1110 portable speaker I reviewed last week I also got a FiiO S3 portable speaker. While the PS1110 is exclusively a portable speaker, the S3 steps up the game and adds an integrated MP3 player that plays off SD(HC) cards.

FiiO has taken the portable audio world off guard with the high quality E3 and E5 headphone amps, disproving the rumor that everything cheap and Chinese is crap. What many people might not know is that FiiO also makes other products and one of them is the PS1110 WalkBox portable speaker.

The Sony X Series is recently the most expensive MP3 player reaching $400 for the 32GB version. After dropping that much money for a player you may be interested in a bit of protection. I-nique makes a few different versions of leather cases and a nice silicon case kit with a screen protector and lanyard. All of these are reasonably prices between $19 and $28.

The important thing to pay attention to in these various cases is the accessibility of the hold switch. I love that Sony made this very accessible large hold switch on the back of the player since I found it to be a much used feature while using this player on the go.

Here is a look at two differ cases from I-Nique: the Tuff-Luv leather case and a standard silicon case. The first leather case is made of genuine leather that is nice and soft to the touch. All of the necessary ports and buttons are exposed and are easily accessible so you don’t ever have to remove the case in order to charge it or operate any of buttons. The top buttons are covered when the flap is down, but I found it pretty easy to individually press each of the top three buttons while the flap was closed.

Having players rendered useless due to a broken headphone jack is annoying. As we speak, one of my players is in for repair as the jack got loose and started losing audio on the left channel. The same thing happened with another player last fall when I was working a lot out in the woods and the cable got stuck on every single tree I came across.

There really isn't that much to do about such a problem once it has happened, but luckily there is something you can do to prevent it. Replug is a range of cables and adapters that are designed to break off naturally if the cable is yanked. I bought their basic adapter to see if it would help save my players. Read on for a review.