ASUS has a good all-around unit in the U7. The amount of functionality that has been squeezed into this small device is amazing. It, besides being a 7.1 sound card, also has a very decent-sounding, although not insanely powerful, headphone out. The headphone out sounds really good with most efficient headphone sold today but can't power any of the demanding headphones around. For $99, the U7 is hard to fault—the sound quality is more than good enough to warrant the price and you get a lot of connectivity options in a very small device.

That it is only powered by USB is both a pro and a con in my book. It is a pro because hooking it up is extremely easy, and you can run it off a laptop or other portable device. The con obviously is that USB severely limits what components can be used under the hood, but ASUS managed to create something that sounds great without the need of a wall wart, which makes the U7 a real hassle-free device to use.