Trust Sound Expert 510EX USB 5.1 Sound Expert External

I came across the trust 510ex when hunting for an external sound card for my new laptop, id never looked at such a product group before now and so chose to rate the various offerings the only way my little Yorkshire self knew how - price.

If, like me, you are out there to get portable 5.1 sound compatibility for the lowest price possible then you really can't go too far wrong with this. After a quick session on the usual price comparison ...
...for the need of the Trust 510EX, or as it is sometimes known the Trust SC-5500p. As I have previously mentioned, I chose the trust over the offerings from the like of SoundBlaster purely on price. Whilst i'm sure the more expensive rivals may beat the 510 on quality, they can't hold a torch to it on price, and in the grand scheme of things, under £20 to pay for portable 5.1 sound on whatever computer/laptop you plug this into, is very reasonable ... more

I came across the trust 510ex when hunting for an external sound card for my new laptop, id never looked at such a product group before now and so chose to rate the various offerings the only way my little Yorkshire self knew how - price.

If, like me, you are out there to get portable 5.1 sound compatibility for the lowest price possible then you really can't go too far wrong with this. After a quick session on the usual price comparison engines Amazon proved to be the cheapest option by some margin, so much so there could be a nice business opportunity for anyone wanting to flog these on using eBay! £19 is the sum they require from you to obtain this shiny box so what actually is it?

To give you a bit of background and hopefully highlight the possible uses/advantages of this product ill explain why I wanted such a thing.
As a University student I recently got a lovely new laptop - my first ever as a matter of fact so I hadn't ever had experience with the possible downfalls of such a thing. As an 18 year old student at university I have a fair bit of free time and I like to spend a large part of that listening to music. I brought with me my old 5.1 speaker set - for anyone who isn't in the know the 5.1 refers to the number of speakers you actually get - 5 so called 'satellite' speakers (normal ones to you and me) and the .1 bit refers to the subwoofer - the part that annoys the neighbours and makes all the bass. Now, to get sound to play through all these speakers you need a 5.1 sound card. If your computer is roughly under 2 years old then it's highly likely it will have a 5.1 sound card in it already, indeed some already have 7.1 cards built in - anyway I'm straying away from the point and even further from the actual product.

My laptop being new, came with 5.1 sound capability built in; however, here is where my problems began. My old set of 5.1 speakers were relatively cheap and plugged into the computer with just one plug, I recently treated myself to a set of rather more substantial Logitech x-530 speakers. Still 5.1 but considerably more beefy and with extremely increased sound quality over my old speakers. Being the more advanced set they were however, they came with 3 different jacks to plug into the computer. Ohhhh dear. After a bit of very un-male instruction manual reading it became clear that each group of speakers had its own plug - the front ones, the back ones and the central speaker all had their own plug - I had only one socket for speakers on my laptop however. Now undoubtedly this was due to the cheapness of the laptop rather than the complexity of the speakers and i'm pretty sure more expensive laptops, and nearly all desktop pc's have the appropriate sockets. Not mine however.

And this is where I finally get to the point. The lack of appropriate sockets on my laptop, despite already having 5.1 sound lead for the need of the Trust 510EX, or as it is sometimes known the Trust SC-5500p. As I have previously mentioned, I chose the trust over the offerings from the like of SoundBlaster purely on price. Whilst i'm sure the more expensive rivals may beat the 510 on quality, they can't hold a torch to it on price, and in the grand scheme of things, under £20 to pay for portable 5.1 sound on whatever computer/laptop you plug this into, is very reasonable indeed.

Getting it out the box you're immediately struck by the lightness of the thing. I was quite shocked at just how entirely un-heavy it was! You have to say it's bordering on the cheap and flimsy. Now obviously it was never designed to act as a table centerpiece or paperweight, but there's something mildly disconcerting about paying £20 for something and finding the actual product to be barely heavier than the note itself!

One area you can't criticise however, is its size. Again, I was expecting a rather large, cumbersome object yet was pleasantly surprised to find a compact box roughly half the size of a sheet of A5 paper which is also only marginally thicker than a deck of cards.

The design is simplistic but id certainly say it's a nice looking thing. Again, it's not something you'd buy it for, but it is definitely nice to know you don't have to start re-arranging things around your pc or laptop in order to hide it away from view. There are a row of 6 sockets on the back and one mute button on top of the unit which the surround of glows blue when plugged into a computer, and as a quirky touch, flashes when you're playing a song. If you ever do choose to hit the mute button the surround then glows red. It's worth drawing attention to such a button and giving trust their dues for incorporating it. It doesn't strictly need to be on there - they could have made a thoroughly uninteresting beige rectangle with a strip of sockets scattered across its sides, what you do get however, is a smooth, slightly oblong, rectangle with smoothed edges and a matt silver finish. There's also that mute button, its tempting to forget about it as a pointless touch but it can be really handy whenever you want to instantly kill the sound - rather than trying to find your media player in the sea of programs you might have running or give yourself an injury trying to find the speaker power button, providing its within reach, just tap the top of the 510 and everything falls quiet. A nice touch if ever there was one.

Onto the sockets, and ultimately, the reason I purchased it. The selling point for me was the fact that the Trust comes with a full array of 3 speaker-in sockets. All are labeled clearly as well as colour coded which makes it very difficult for even the most inexperienced technophobe to plug the wrong thing in the wrong place. As well as the front, rear and centre speaker sockets, you also get a microphone socket and a line in socket - extremely handy if you want to connect up your ipod to your 5.1 speaker setup. The final socket is for the USB connection - the means by witch the sound card is connected to your computer, so it is essential you do have a free USB socket available. The USB cable is supplied with the product, as well as the installation CD and user manual, what this means is your not left pulling your hair out at the lack of the correct cable to connect everything up, and you can just plug it in, run the cd, restart the computer and get listening to those tunes like you've never heard them before.

Onto the downsides. That last sentence is probably a bit of hyperbole. The 510's selling point is obviously its price; this is an external 5.1 soundcard without the frills. I'm sure if you forked out the extra £20-30 for a more expensive model from SoundBlaster then with the right speaker set-up you really would notice a difference in quality, but I have to say i'm not left wanting any more, and with my mid-range Logitech speakers am more than happy with the results - its certainly easy enough to get the neighbors seriously seriously annoyed, so its best to keep those volume dials down kids!

One issue I have come across however, is that my microphone which is inbuilt in my laptop now no longer works. Now i'm not making a big issue of this as I'm not entirely sure if this is the fault of the 510 or my laptop - there may even be a way to get it working yet and I just haven't found it. I suspect however, that if like me, you have a laptop with an inbuilt microphone it will be wired straight to the onboard sound card, and with overriding that by using the 510, the mic suddenly becomes redundant. If your microphone plugs into the computer with a regular plug however, then you're catered for with a microphone socket on the unit.

So to sum up then, despite the lack in perceived quality, and the possible lack of quality over a more expensive rival, the Trust 510EX really is very good value. If you like your music, DVD's and games to be played through a comprehensive set of speakers but find your laptop or pc lacking a few sockets, and fancy something you can unplug and take around with you to other computers, then it's certainly a worthwhile buy.

So go on, put your trust in to the 510. (Apologies for the horrifically poor pun)

Thanks for reading
Tom 

...less