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

Like other reviewers, this is an excellent choice when picking a USB audio adapter after failure of on-motherboard audio on a Windows desktop PC. This Creative SB adapter delivers great sound at a nice price. Unlike cheaper USB audio units, this SB adapter is quiet during PC bootup and shutdown -- other inexpensive units can produce loud popping noises as the USB gets power, loads driver, etc. Recommended.

Originally I bought this tiny DAC to improve PS4 sound output and IT DID significantly!! **BEWARE**, you need PC (Windows 10/11 only, Mac is not supported) to install creative app and update its firmware to get full benefits it offers. Here is my story, when I received the product I immediately plug it into my PS4 to test it following instruction. The actual sound coming from my headset was REALLY LOW, actually lower than original. So I unplugged it and then went to my PC to update its firmware. I downloaded the firmware and installed it accordingly. I thought this should do the trick, NOOO it did not. When I plugged it back to PS4, it was acting weird by disconnecting itself and blinking. I surely thought I BRICKED it. I wend back to PC again and this time, I downloaded & installed Creative App for Windows. The creative app immediately recognized my device after unplugging/plugging and there was a setting for update its firmware. I did the update process again through app and I tested it on my PC for sounds and noise cancelling features. I did end up NOT using noise cancelling features since it seems these settings distort sound output on my headset, but overall sound quality was better than the original. Then finally I went back in to test with PS4, it WORKED!! New volume control, EQ, muting button, and everything worked well. The new volume control which comes with a new firmware is A MUST HAVE for making PS4s ouput as loud as possible. Im pretty sure it will work on PS5 as well when I finally get ONE!

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

I installed this USB sound card plug and play on my Windows desktop. I immediately heard an improvement over the computers stock sound card, better clarity, more solid bass, wider soundstage. But I mainly bought the card to help me listen to my headphones at a stronger volume level and with just plug and play I got minimal volume increase. You need to download the Sound Blaster Play! 3 software (App). Then click on the Speaker/Headphones tab and at the bottom select High Gain. That gave me substantially more volume. Now I can listen to my power-hungry headphones and get a good listening volume.

Plug it into a USB port and you have very adequate sound. Works on Linux and Windows effortlessly.

USB connection, simple install.

Plug & play worked great. But beware: Windows required user to explicitly allow Apps access the new audio interface. Yet another I really mean it button!

This little device surprised me, it sounds even better than my Sound Blaster Audigy Rx card, which costs twice as much. Originally I bought it just to use it on my phone but now I use it on both my pc and my phone.

The sound is great if your audio and mic are separate. However, if you use the TRRS (audio+mic) jack, there is a constant static noise. I verified this with 3 pairs of headphones. So you need to use an audio splitter to split TRRS into TRS (audio) and TS (mic) to avoid the static.

I downloaded the Play 3 control panel and must say It sounds Awesome!!! hooked up to my Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 speakers!!!! The dedicated equalizer is perfect!!! Sounds as good as my old Audigy 2 ZS card, which I cant use anymore. WTG Creative!!!