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

The price is right on this one. The sound quality is better than your average motherboard. Its super easy to use. It supposedly can drive a 600 Ohm set of cans, but I dont have any to test with. It does sound better if you put it at that setting, but youre likely to damage your headphones permanently if they cant handle that.

I have several sets of headsets for gaming, and a problem I had with all of them was that I could never get the microphones set at a good level. All of them had to be turned up to 100% in control panel with mic boost on just so you could hear your voice, and they tended to sound horrible with tons of background noise. After my 3rd set of headphones, I started thinking, maybe its not the headphones at all, but the built in sound card in my computer. I went searching for external sound cards, and came across the Sound Blaster Play 3. For 16 bucks, you cant go wrong, so I figured I would give it a shot. Im now hitting myself for waiting so long! First, it makes your microphone work so much better with no background noise. I have the mic level set to 75%, and it is so much louder and clearer! 2nd, the driver lets you use sidetone with your headphones. This was a feature that was not built into several of my headsets, but you can turn it on with the software. 3rd, the sound is night and day better with this Sound Blaster than my built in sound card. Really impressed with this product, and I recommend it highly! Worth every penny.

Makes loading the Fire Stick way easier and the movies play non stop with wired internet

I bought this to use with a PS5 since its marketed as compatible, but there is a low volume issue where all but the easiest to drive headphones will be way too quiet. I saw a Reddit thread where a Creative employee said this was a known issue and they may be working on a firmware fix. Sony consoles have had this issue for years with external DACs needing special firmware to function properly, so I dont know why a company like Creative wouldnt have done testing on it since they have plenty of gaming focused products that do work like the G6. Im not sure if I want to wait for a possible update or just return it and try something else. Apart from that its a good dongle for its price point. Using it on my PC the sound quality is solid (pretty much on par with my $10 HTC dongle, not quite as good as my Fiio K5 Pro which is much more expensive). I dont hear any noise and it can drive all the headphones I own well. There are a lot of sound adjustments in the App but I turned them all off. All in all I would say its worth buying if you need better audio for a laptop on the cheap, but if your goal is PS4/PS5 use I would look elsewhere for the time being.

A lot less expensive than the $100 sound card. This works perfectly and attaches to my Logitech surround system

Using Koss Porta Pros on an Acer Swift 3 314-43 this sounds better than my Audio Quest Black.

I needed an audio interface to feed into a Rigblaster for Amateur Radio use. Any direct connection to the computer sound card was causing significant hum from a ground loop. Bought this given the price, figuring I had nothing to lose. Pleasantly surprised to find out that the audio from this device is very clean, and all traces of hum are gone on digital modes. Plus, I dont need to switch cables. Keep this permanently connected to a second Rigblaster and spare rig, and when I need it, plug it into a USB port, change my audio selections in MMTTY or WSJT, and off to the races.

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.

Solid all around and produces great sound as soon as you plug it into anything, Im very happy with this. Its a cheap fix (and upgrade!) for my mostly broken built-in headphone jack and I would buy it again in an instant. Unfortunately it comes with a few enhancements enabled by default, all of which sound terrible if you are picky about audio at all, and you of course have to install the custom drivers to change this. The drivers/UI are fine (heavily custom UI of course (why???), but its easily enough understood), but it is a bit of an annoyance. It seems like this setting might stick once changed, from other reviews, but I havent yet tested that.

Bought this stick for a cost effective way to have good recording quality and be able to use it on multiple devices. The quality definitely beats the other USB audio devices I own that were between the $10-$17 range. To me its definitely worth the extra cost. Its still really cheap nowdays because of the Play!4 that offers better quality and a wider compatibility. Pros: - the expected SB playback and recording quality that beats cheaper competition - very attractive pricing - plug and play on all our windows (10/11) PCs chromebook and mac - virtual surround works well in games and adds a lot to titles like War Thunder Cons: - could have a line input - recording limited to 24-bit / 48khz - playback is limited to 24-bit / 96 kHz - no physical mute button or volume control (doest bother me but worth nothing the Play!4 has mute and EQ buttons)