The sheer number of choices for USB sound cards tells us there's not much room for innovations, but someone manages to teach the old dog new tricks. Rather than a dongle form factor, the USB Tube Delight Audio is a vacuum tube-lookalike whose LED glows in blue when plugged in. 3.5 mm headphone jack and mic-in are elegantly placed opposite to the mini-USB receptacle, and the mic-in can be disabled to switch to line-in via software.

Granted, this isn't exactly designed for portability and the fade-in and fade-out effect is also a minor annoyance when watching movies. The "sound tube" deserves credit for bringing us a small surprise. Like many USB gadgets, the USB Tube Delight Audio is sold exclusively at Brando for $32.
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