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Creative Sound Blaster Omni Surround 5.1 External USB Surround Sound SB1560

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#1 ·
Creative Sound Blaster Omni Surround 5.1 External USB Surround Sound SB1560

Description:
Hear the power of sound blaster technology on your PC and Mac with our SBX Pro Studio and Crystal Voice Technologies Advanced audio technology that delivers 5.1 discrete channels of vibrant sound for your digital entertainment Easily converts the PC into a cinematic entertainment system by providing a compelling 5.1 Surround sound Built-in dual microphones with Crystal Voice Technology to enable optimal performance of headset-free use

Details:
DetailValue
ManufacturerCreative Labs
Conditionnew
Model NumberSB1560
ClassificationSound Card
 

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#2 ·
This is the best USB sound card you can buy.

review by thready

I am a cheap audiophile. I will use what sounds the best for the price. You will never see me wearing those wooden Audio Technica headphones. At the same time, I will pay $200 for a really nice set of speakers or headphones if I can find a way to steal the money. Just to mention my set up: I have a pair of $50 Logitech speakers, a $60 pair of headphones from Audio Technica (ATH-M30), and a Turtle Beach XP 500 headset. The speakers and the heaphones use 3.5mm and the headset uses optical. My motherboard can't handle all of these devices being plugged in at once. Windows craps itself when I have 2 3.5mm devices plugged in at once. And I do not have SPDIF on my motherboard and I have been wanting to use my XP 500 headset for a while on here since I don't play console games anymore. So I had 2 choices. I could either buy an internal sound card or an external sound card.

I looked at the Z series from Soundblaster and they looked nice. But the problem is that I do not know if I can physically fit anything on my motherboard because my video card heatsink almost hits the 3rd PCI-e slot. So I looked around and decided to get this. I actually didn't know Soundblaster made an external sound card until I just Googled "USB sound card." I looked at some reviews of this and decided to get it. I have heard that PCI-e sound cards sound better, but I honestly don't think my ears are so sensitive that they would be able to tell a difference. After reading some reviews, I got this and hooked that bad boy up.

Specs: The front of the unit has a beamforming mic that lets you talk to people while typing, but doesn't register your typing unless you manually adjust the settings via the control panel software. The front has 3 inputs, headphones, mic, and audio in. Those take priority over the back. If you have your headphones plugged in, your speakers will go off. Then when you unplug your headphones, the speakers will come back automatically with no delay. There is obviously some hardware on the circuit board controlling that because if it were simply software controlling it through Windows, you would have to wait 20 minutes for it to register the change. On the back there is an RCA output that you plug your 3.5mm speaker connector to via an included adapter. They did this to increase connectivity options. Then on the back there are 2 3.5mm rear and center outputs as well as an optical out. And the entire thing is connected to the PC via micro USB. Onto my review.

Cons: 2 small cons. First, the optical device must be selected in Windows via Playback Devices. I was actually hoping to be able to skip ever messing with Playback Devices. When you select the optical device (called SPDIF-OUT), you have to stop all sound and reload the sound. If you are on Youtube, you have to reload the video. If you are in a game, you have to restart the game. This part is obviously not the Omni's fault, but I think the included software, which is beastly in a good way, should take care of this automatically. Second gripe, The volume knob only controls the sound through Windows. I would have liked to see the volume knob control the volume through the device itself. It is like if you use the volume control on your speakers. You expect your knob to control the speakers and not the sound through Windows. This is only a problem because sometimes when I turn my PC on, it might take a few seconds for the volume control to register.

but those are small complaints, now, onto the good.

Pros: I will get to the sound quality in a minute, settle down. I want to start small and end big. This thing is super convenient. It is a one stop hub for all of your sound devices. All of those connectivity options I mentioned are very nice to have when you have multiple devices, and the fact that they all play nice with each other is another plus. People tend to miss these little things but I don't. I think Creative put a lot of thought into the convenience of their device. It also has rubber pads on the bottom to keep it on the desk.

The beamforming mic is nice once you set it up in the control panel, which brings me to the next point. I paid $70 for this. If you were to tell me that half of the cost of this was on the software, I would be ok. This has ALMOST everything you need. I say almost, because I still use Razer's surround software for my Audio Technica M30s. I am not the most technical guy when it comes to sound, but if you are very technical, this thing has many options in it for you. Here are some screenshots of what the control panel looks like:





The control panel obviously has a few dollars worth of software in it.

Now, on to the sound. This thing sounds so good. I am not going to get into the specs and numbers, rather, I will just say that listening to this song here is amazing. And I don't even like dubstep. I heard this song in Far Cry 3 and now I have it on my phone.

And for my next test video, I used a song my dad and I used to listen to in the car.


With the headphones on, I am able to listen to things louder and every different sound is distinct. When I used the headphones with the on board audio, they hit the highest volume and I could not tell different drums apart in certain songs. The highest volume was too low as well. I turn the Omni on 1/4 of the way high with my speakers and I turn war tapes mode on in Battlefield 4 and I get nasty calls from my roommates, aka mom and dad, to turn it down. With my Turtle Beach XP 500, I am able to finally use these on my PC. In order to utilize these in 5.1 mode, I have to enable Dolby Digital Live in the Omni control panel and make sure the light on the XP 500 receiver is on above the D symbol (there are 2 lights, one has the Dolby symbol with PL IIx and the other one has the Dolby symbol with D following it). The PL IIx is stereo converted to 5.1 on the receiver I believe and the D is for 5.1 output from the Omni. I do not have to use Razer's surround software on this, only on the 3.5mm headphones.

And that is it. This thing was well worth the money. Realtek seems to spend 5 cents and a used cigarette on the on board audio, but anyone who wants amazing sound like this needs to spend money.

Oh, and this works on your laptop too.

4 and 1/2 stars for an amazing product. Minus half a star for the volume control being through Windows and not through the device, and for the optical device needing to be selected in Playback Devices and not just on the unit. It would have been nice for there to be a small button on this near each plug for the different devices that I could just press when I wanted to use the device.

ProsCons
Allows for much better sound than on board, sits firmly on the desk, great software, convenienceoptical is finicky, volume is controlled in Windows

Ratings
Overall4
 
#3 ·
This is the best USB sound card you can buy.

review by thready
Were you able to control the balance of your speakers with the software? I am at a loss of how to do that.
 
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