Turtle Beach's Audio Advantage Micro is a little USB device that plugs into your laptop. Though the company suggests the product performs all kinds of wild feats, it does two things very well, and for $30 that's something.

Its main function is to take over the sound processing in your PC notebook, giving you a new headphone jack/audio output. Most older laptops, and even some currently on the market, have awful sound. If you're all too familiar with the frustration of straining to hear your music on an airplane, give Audio Advantage a try. The additional amplification is also a huge boost if you want to split your headphone jack into two (using a cheap Y-connector from RadioShack) so that you can enjoy a DVD with a friend.

Speaking of DVDs, the other great feature of Audio Advantage is that it also as an optical output. That means that if you have a receiver with an optical input (and the appropriate cable) you can run the DVD's digital surround-sound signal directly from your laptop into the receiver. The device also provides a digital, generally clearer, signal to the receiver for regular stereo sound, too, so you can pull up an iTunes playlist and rock out digitally. It's basically a convenience thing: If you're at home watching a DVD on your laptop and want surround sound, you'd probably just pull out the disk and put it in a DVD player. But if you're a combination road warrior/stereo nut, you could do worse than add an optical output to your laptop on the cheap.

As I mentioned, some of the Audio Advantage's talents are exaggerated by the maker. The 10-band equalizer is okay for tweaking sound, but it doesn't provide the control audio geeks expect. The system boasts virtual surround sound that supposedly makes two-channel audio feel like home-theater 5.1, but it's too weak, and ends up being more of a novelty. The device's ambience settings let you experience music in different environments, including on a mountain, under water and, of course, in a concert hall. They're fun, but in the end, you like your music plain, so that particular setting gets switched off.

Speaking of gadgets for your gadget, here's another: Sakar's Sound Effects Sound Case for MP3 players ($20; sakar.com). Lately, iPods get so many accessories that owners of other MP3 players may feel left out. A padded-case with a built-in speaker, the Sound Case is compatible with any MP3 player out there. By no means a boombox—power is provided by a single 9V battery—it puts out just enough to be background sound in a hotel room or (mellow) camp site.