[BillyT]

Steve,

The benefit, from my perspective, is the external sound card will decode and process music much better than the average laptop soundcard. It does give you the ability to increase the signal to the amp, but in my experience the songs sound terrible when you crank the volume up on the external soundcard. I use the Exitgy and the music sounds crisp and clear.

One of the other benefits of an external soundcard is the ability to be able to use two channels on your mixer instead of one. Instead of using the laptop headphone jack, you can use a USB port for your soundcard.

Hope that helps.