Creative Labs Sound Blaster Play! 3 External USB Sound Adapter for Windows and Mac. Plug and Play (No Drivers Required). Upgrade to 24-Bit 96Khz Playback

I researched budget external sound cards extensively before purchasing this one. This has better audio quality than cards 5 times the price. 2 caveats: I dont use the microphone input and have disabled it. Some users have reported a slight hissing at high volume when using the monitor function. You have to install the control panel to change settings, and youre going to want to to disable the default EQ settings (totally unnecessary IMHO). Crucially, this device doesnt store settings offline, so you HAVE to use the software (Windows/MacOS only) to load the correct profile onto the device. This could be an issue for Linux users. Wish I didnt have to have another piece of software that autoruns when I start my machine. This device would be perfect if those settings persisted across machines!

I bought a new gaming PC ( prebuilt ) but had many problems with sound . The volume was at 100% with all settings maxed out and they couldn’t hear me and, In many of my games I couldn’t hear behind me , like call of duty, apex , and minecraft. Bullets flurring by me , grenades landing behind me but no audio. I put this bad boy in, and from 100% to 48 % volume , meaning this boosted my sound level ! And I have the extra 52% I can add for max volume . Also turned on sonic for headphones and it just made it better. On my old PC I used the creative labs sound blaster Z . But now this proves to me I want a sound card in every PC . Internal or external . Planning to upgrade to a bigger external sound card that they sell. THABK YOU CREATIVE ! <3

Very please just perfect plug and play no drivers no software thanks Creative

For what you pay, this works well. I bought them for my laptop, and it definitely improves the sound on it. The 2 onboard EQ are OK, but very basic. A vast improvement from onboard.

This product is literally nothing. I suppose you get what you pay for and the price was low, but Soundblasters flowery and overly optimistic marketing is very, very misleading... This thing literally sounds like a bucket of mud. Its got nothing, It lacks detail and has very low gain, I used it with speakers but I cannot see how this little thing is supposed to push a set of high impedance, high quality headphones. The other more upsetting thing about this item is the way it portrays music. Basically its pacing is way off. I have no idea what type of chip theyre using for the DAC inside this dongle, but it doesnt sound good tonally & like I mentioned, it really messes up the timing and pace of the music...it literally speeds up and slows down the music at different points and I say this referring to music I regularly listen to, on a variety of equipment, so its music I know very well. Im sort of annoyed with Creatives Marketing people on this item. Its not a good idea to generalize and say that this piece is better than onboard sound because it isnt. The Realtek ALC4080 thats in my ASUS ROG Strix motherboard blows this thing out of the water in EVERY WAY!! On the good side, it does do the Plug & Play thing perfectly, so if you just want sound on a phone or laptop (it my not be better than the onboard laptop audio and the DAC is junk), then this could do that but thats about it. The sound quality overall, I found to be way below average. I was thinking of just keeping this as a spare audio device because its very convenient, but the way it sounds make me lean toward just returning it.

Thank You Creative for this Sound Blaster ,I wondered if 96/24 bit would be noticable I got it August 2019 and it is truly amazing I can set it if I want to use it differently ,it is very customizable and my Sony AW-45 is also 96/24 and it was over $150 but this is the one I still keep on my Computer it replaces the not great Sound Card from my NUC or Dell Inspiron Duo sounds great now ,for the price it is amazing I would advise anyone who doesnt have DAC yet to get this one for $20 I see DAC running for $100 for 192/24 bit and when you get to 768/36 bit over $200 even Thousand plus I have a DAC now that is stronger but this one is for my Computer still Creative is a very good Company I would and have told a couple friends about it and definitely advise it ,I do not think Computers have good sound cards but this becomes the Computers sound card Thank You rsdno Update ***** This has lasted and sounds almost like my much lamented Kunlun ,it does take 15 or 20 minutes to set up but Creative almost gave me a gift for the price and that is great deal but this helped me to enjoy youtube and I hear music made specifically for a movie or TV it sounds awesome so if you dont have DAC or want your PC to sound great this Creative for well under $30 is a great buy and great sound but use the control panel and instructions rsdno

And the sound quality is, uh, really surprisingly good considering the price! I use a buffered preamp rig with my guitar so its easy to get the levels within a range that the device loves, and within that range as long as I set up to avoid clipping (an important part of using any sound card, not just one youve MacGuyvered into some weird stuff) it delivers ASIO-low latency and allows me to record my guitar simultaneously with other audio sources as configured in my DAWs per track input settings. I honestly didnt expect this to work and Im delighted. OH! Also! It has great sound quality with high impedance headphones. I love this about it. No hiss, no issues at all, and more volume than youd expect too. For a bit over $20 Im blown away, its awesome. Dont be afraid to treat it weird.

So I wanted to be able to use a non USB gaming headset across several computers I switch between during the day using a USB KVM. This was cheap, a known brand with good reviews and works perfectly for the task I needed and sounds great as well. Switches between Windows, Mac and Linux with no issues, love it.

Audio jacks on motherboard stopped working. This product works normally without issue and I have sound and mic input again.

Does exactly what I need it to do perfectly. Good quality, good value, easy setup.