A seperate sound card would be nice for stock HL tankers, but remember that with elmod, you do NOT have to buy the IR extras for the system to work correctly. You can buy the drive board and the sound board and have a hobby grade eelctronics package without IR. IF you decide to go IR battling at a later date, then it is an easy plug and play install to the existing elmod unit. I cannot give nay feedback on the SLU, as I have never used one. My honest opinion for a heavy tank is to either install Tamiya or elmod. Unfortunately Tamiya does not have anything remotely resembling an Abrams sound set.