Broken Headphone jack - Get external sound card or get it repaired?

[Riviera122]

I called up Apple today about my problem with the headphone jack. The problem was was that the sound was only coming out of 1 earphone/speaker. They ran through some quick tests then said that the problem was with the Mac itself, not the speakers. They told me to go to a local Apple repair company to get it repaired.

Now, the problem I'm having is the cost of getting it replaced vs. an external sound card. I was thinking to keep costs down and to keep it simple, I would get an external sound card, but the problem with that is I'm not sure of the quality of the external sound card. Obviously I would love to get my mac repaired to save the space of a USB slot, but I don't know about the price of getting it repaired.

Is the sound quality of an external sound card on par with the onboard sound?

Links that could be helpful:

External sound cards I was thinking of purchasing: http://www.amazon.co.uk/LINDY-USB-2-...pr_product_top

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Griffin-iMic...1489943&sr=1-1

Other information that you may need:

My iMac: http://shopping.yahoo.com/p:Apple ...qfiZVlNEqgn7sF

Thanks in advance,

Justin