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Best sound card in have ever had Easy to setup

Easy install. Good sound quality for what I use. App makes setup easy

Sound Quality Build Quality Portable

Motherboard sounds chips are such low quality! I Remember the good old days when Sound Cards were something we all wanted and for good reason No POP sounds when we boot up no crackling and hissing. The software to control this DAC also makes it possible to switch between my amp and speaker and a pair of headphones with a click of a button no reboot required any more due to sound stuck in one mode. One of the best features though is the volume nob that also has a mute option build in.

I brought this because my mother board sound card was dying and was unable to install an internal card due to my graphics card being mounted vertically in my case preventing access to the card slots. This little device was easy to connect and use having noticeably better sound quality than the original mother board audio before it developed issues.

Accessibility. Reliability. Trustworthy manufacturer. A name you know is good. Audiophile quality.

- My headphones actually sound like they should now, despite my motherboard having a pretty decent sound chip on it, with isolation in the circuitry, all that good stuff. - The breakaway control panel is really nice due to how it controls the audio even when explorer exe is disabled for gaming stability. Disabling this will break the volume control on my keyboard due to how explorer exe controls the audio slider. This fixes that for me. - The different impedence settings are really nice too, because while these headphones should technically only be set to the neutral 32 ohm setting due to them being 32 ohm themselves, they are an odd pair of cans that can handle the 600ohm range as well; though with altered audio levels to ensure no damage is being done. This setting used for high end headphones mainly, makes my 'supposed to be high end' headphones actually sound like it. It's really nice. - The SBX software/hardware stuff they have included is nice as well, since virtual surround via windows is kind of hit or miss; where as this is (so far) quite accurate about positional audio. I have not tried the scout mode yet it includes, but I suspect that will come in very handy during some other gaming sessions aside from the usual MMO stuff I have been doing as of late. - Double points for the SBX for watching my shows and movies as well. - I am sure the other outputs are quite nice as well for high end audio setups. I do not have one right now. I am certain that when I do get one, I will very much like how this suppliments it in conjunction with my computer being hooked up to it. - Has the red and yellow RCA inputs for auxillary input, and included cable for use with headphone jack split into said RCA inputs. This is super useful for me, because I have a Sega Model 1 with the volume slider that I will be needing to use to reroute my audio from it, due to the TV I have to use with it, not having its speakers included anymore. (External detachable speakers, so of course they got lost.) But that TV also has a seperate output panel as well, so I can make use of that instead if I want. But due to sound timng/latency reasons, will probably go with the stereo output jack on the front of the sega instead. I am hoping this will also fix some of the audio issues it has, as I suspect it is not quite powerful enough to drive these headphones. Again, they claim 32 ohm, but use with multiple jacks now makes me wonder otherwise. Rear headphone jack on the motherboard was kind of bad as well, while the front case jack using the HDaudio port on the motherboard did better. Which makes sense, since it's rated for up to 300 ohm instead. (I wonder if whoever entered the impedence data for these headphones put in the wrong data.) Anyways, this is just pondering on my side. Moving on to cons.

Got this because it's compatible with Windows 98 Upon boot, Win 98 detected it, it installed a PCE-E to PCI bridge chip driver. I had to install the driver manually after, but that's just Windows 98 being bad.

If you want the best sound card on the market then this is the one to buy. Sound blaster been around for a very long time and know what there doing. Easy to install, great software. My headphones have never sounded better! It supports dts for my home theater, which was a must have in a sound card for me. The evga nu or the nu pro does not support dts and is why i never gave it a chance. I upgraded from my old soundblaster z and i am very happy that a did.

Amazing sound

Comes with low profile bracket. Sound is great compared to onboard sound component.

Nice upgrade over my onboard sound Software suite is easy to understand

Finally got this to work on my Linux system. Always tried the analog outputs, never dreamed of using the digital, tried that and wallia....daggone good sound.

Coming from years of using audio cards (PCI & USB) utilizing C-Media chips i can say this is an upgrade. The C-media were always plenty loud to drive high impudence headphones and sound quality was great but i could not tweak the EQ too much because i would get sound clipping, the amps on the chips were simply not able to handle much more headroom. This sound blaster has the head room and the volume. After installing the driver \ software from creative site you get options for bass boost, virtual surround effect, sound enhancement (works well with music and movies alike) and Equalizer. The software also includes a toggle switch between low impudence and high impudence headphones (Large driver headphone usually equal high impedance which requires more power for the sound card to push through). The sound maintains clarity even when tweaking the Equalizer although i found that out of the box i only needed a light boost at the 16k and 60hz (old ears). The mids are perfectly tuned for my taste with plenty of bite, presence and clarity. Your experience may vary depending n the headphones you use.

- Sounds great - Easy to set up (Win10 users, LOOK AT Quinn M's review! Don't use the ) - No static or other sounds, even with a 6ft USB extension cable, I have a desk PC with pullout drawer) - SMALL! (Can be a con I guess if you want a giant DAC?)