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

Used it with both my laptop and desktop. Other than occasional audio pops and distortions from time to time, it works good.

I run my macbook pro through a Dell 38 monitor (U3818DW). Its an amazing setup. Only drawback is that you cant control your speakers with the keyboard unless you plug them directly into the headphone jack on the side MBP. Forget that. Its so nice having all video, internet, charging and other peripherals working just by plugging in the USB-C connection that comes with the monitor. A USB audio adapter ensures the audio works through that connection too. Only drawback is that Ive tried 2 different USB sound adapters and neither of them worked. My monitor is using firmware ver. M2B106 which is the latest version for that monitor. This Sound Blaster adapter works perfectly. Volume and quality are excellent. No lag. As a side FYI, dont attempt the firmware update to the monitor on your own if yours doesnt have it. My first attempt torched the monitor and by the admission of Dells own tech support, the only fix was to replace the monitor. Once they did it worked super well.

muy bueno

Necesitaba tener una entrada adicional de sonido en mi macbook para poder evitar el loopback

Minor hastle to set up for the first time other than that it works great. The fact this thing uses a USB and not a pcie slot is amazing for saving space on the mother board.

Recently purchased a decent 2.1 speaker system to use with laptop in my office. Plugging the 3.5 into the headphone jack just wasnt cutting it with the laptops built in sound card. Sound was weak and almost no power to the sub. This fixed that! Download the software and youll be very pleased. Now my 2.1 system sounds like it did when I was running everything through a A/V receiver. Love it.

I had a poor external sound card which made popping sounds from another company who will remain nameless, but I needed a solution for my issue. I did not want to open up my PC, so I was looking for another external sound card, and found this one. I read a few reviews which were good, and for $18, I took a chance on it and I am blown away with the quality. I have a Windows 10 desktop PC, and it was plug and play, no software drivers needed. I remember back in the day in 1990, I paid over a $100 for a Sound Blaster card for my first PC. Highly recommended product. Thank you Creative Labs.

Sound quality is what I have come to expect from Sound Blaster, having owned the SB16 back in 94, the AWE32 a couple years later, and eventually a SB Live! PCI card in the late nineties. I eventually took a hiatus from A/V and PC gaming until recently when I decided to pick one of these up to use for teleworking. It has a decent level of pre-amplification for minimal distortion playback of video and/or video games. Anything I play back sounds as good as the source permits (obviously, a 128Kbps MP3 cant be made to sound any better than it can; garbage in, garbage out). Its just that this overcomes limitations present in most inexpensive onboard sound chipsets included in the vast majority of PC systems and/or motherboards.

Night and Day. Night and friggin day! I never fully grasped what an utter POC my onboard soundcard was until I plugged this baby in. The sound is so big and pure it makes my teeth hurt! (Who knew mouth pain was a good thing?) Under twenty bucks for this life-changer. Highly recommended.

Going from an older computer with a top end ASUS sound card, I was disappointed with the sound quality on my new computer. My audio listening habits have changed, and a real expensive sound card didnt seem worthwhile, so after a couple of hours researching on-line and reading Amazon reviews, decided to give the Play 4 a try, mostly because of the amazing specs and low price (I should know better, but...). At first, the sound improvement over the 5.1/7.1 outputs and built in sound on the new computer was dramatic - the Play 4 DAC really brought the speakers to life. But then it died - lost connection with the usb C port. Unplugged and tried again, and after as longer period, did the same thing. Used a different C port, with the same failures. Researched some more, checked all my computer sound settings, switched the Play 4 between mode 2 to mode 1 and back, installed the creative software which supposedly wasnt needed - nothing made a difference. Strike one. While all this was happening, the computer kept displaying a message from Creative that firmware and software needed updating. This was annoying, because that was the first thing tried after loading the Creative software and getting the message . Annoying, because the firmware uploaded OK, but the software kept popping up cant upload at this time, try later. This message would pop up every time I started or re-started the computer. Strike two. So I decided this was a defective device, and I would exchange it for another Play 4. Having read the instructions, I knew that the Play 4 would need to be in the computer to uninstall the software, so I followed the manufacturers instructions. A 3 step process for Windows 11, unlike most software packages: First, with the Play 4 plugged into the computer, right click start, go to device manager>sound, and click on Attempt to uninstall software. After that was done, go to Control panel>Creative, and click on uninstall software. Then, with the Play 4 still plugged in, turn off the computer, and unplug the Play 4 after the computer shuts down and before starting again. Strike three. Instead of an exchange, I am returning the Play 4, just too needy for a long term relationship, and my time is worth more than the Play 4 is worth. The one good thing out of this 6 hour struggle is that the device confirmed what my ears suspected - I need a decent (but reliable) DAC.