'creative Sound Blaster Play' Usb Sound Card

[jaideeguy]

I was shopping online thru thaivisa links for a new sound card and found this............. Creative Sound Blaster Play! - USB Sound Card for around 800thb. can be used with notebook or pc and supposedly boosts your sound. Sounds 2good2btrue, but creative makes decent cheap products. It's new and haven't found any reviews yet, but maybe someone out there in thaivisaland has tried it and will comment.

a few details......

Interface: USB 1.1

Signal-to-Noise Ratio: 90dB

Connectivity: Microphone in (1/8" mini jack)

Headphone out (1/8" mini jack

or go to

http://www.thanni.com/index.php?main_page=...roducts_id=5348

Thanks in advance......

Edited March 15, 2010 by jaideeguy

[lothda]

Here is a less than professional review - the guy seems to like it. His info is complete nonsense, though - this is a 16 bit device, CD quality sound. The surround output is headphone surround. This may give a cheap and cheerful sound boost to older machines (USB 1.1!) but newer ones have much better sound cards built-in or available as upgrades. Not for 900 Baht, though.

[ricklev]

I bought that exact product when the earphone jack on my Toshiba Satellite disintegrated and I discovered it couldn't really be repaired. It works pretty well and I would recommend it without hesitaiton.

[jaideeguy]

But, will it be an improvement on my onboard sound card that seems to be low quality and starting to fail?? and how would it sound thru my amplified speakers on my pc?? Don't really use headsets...

[d0ndela]

It may very well be an improvement over your onboard sound card. I have a similar USB soundcard, not the soundblaster one but a Steelseries that came with a headset, and it allows me to get much higher volume out of my laptops.

It's a tad cheaper here by the way.

[JSixpack]

But, will it be an improvement on my onboard sound card that seems to be low quality and starting to fail?? and how would it sound thru my amplified speakers on my pc?? Don't really use headsets...

Yes.

It would sound good.

I have one of these and like it a lot for what it is (i. e., not really an $$$ audiophile-grade sound card). Another nice thing about this device is that if you need to use Skype at an internet cafe, you can bring this along your own decent headset and plug in for great sound & mic volume. (However, you may need a short USB extension cable, as it's kinda fat.)

Edited March 16, 2010 by JSixpack

[jaideeguy]

Well, I went for the Creative X Fi-Go @ twice the price thinking i would get better sound.....but not. It has a lot of bells and whistles in the software and takes forever to download and I tried tweaking all the adjustments, slightly higher volume, but still distortion at high volume. Hindsight tells me that I should have gone for a real sound card for my pc. Have yet to try it on my notebook, which has terrible sound and hope that it improves that and will report when I have the time to download again.

[JSixpack]

With mine, the cheaper one, I don't use the software (Creative notoriously bad in that area), just plug it in and go. Sound tweaking I do via equalization in the music player.

Mostly I listen through sensitive high-quality headphones suitable for low-power MP3 players. However, my Logitech speakers also have their own amp. So volume's never a problem. No distortion, clean good sound.