Customer Reviews

Creative Labs USB Sound Blaster MP3+ External Sound Card Sound System

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I own a laptop computer which has decent onboard sound capabilities, but I recently discovered that it only has one audio input -- a microphone jack -- which is mono, and therefore is not suitable for recording stereo sources. Due to the fact that there is no way to install a "real" sound card in it, I needed an external solution. This USB sound system from Creative fits the bill. It didn't make a dramatic -- or even noticable -- difference in the quality of the audio coming out of my speakers; however, it did allow me to digitize my old cassette tapes and vinyl records, which is the main reason I bought it. If your computer can't accomodate a real sound card and its audio abilities aren't good enough for what you need, this might be the solution you're looking for.

My Dell PC has an integrated soundcard, which provided mediocre-at-best sound quality whenever I tried to listen to Internet radio stations through my compact stereo system. I researched a whole slew of internal sound cards but read too many complaints about software glitches/slowdowns which made me balk at forking out $80 and up for them.

This USB external card does what I need perfectly: at a very reasonable price, I now get CD-quality sound from online music radio stations (the corporate FM stations here in Houston are just too pathetic for words) and without ever having to install any additional software on my PC, so zero noticeable resource drain. Sure if I ever decide to do surround sound (unlikely in my already-cramped home office) or do some cross-medium recording (unlikely due to my lack of time) I may regret not buying a more expensive card---but in the meantime I'm VERY happy with this sleek little baby. Simplicity, functionality, and cost-effectiveness...I couldn't ask for more!

And yeah, the sleek silver casing and flashing blue light are pretty cool too.

BTW, some awesome Net stations with zero commercials, awesome playlists, and free too: di.fm (the classical and modern jazz channels), kexp.org, radioparadise.com

I bought this unit simply as a replacement for my Dell laptop sound card, which was very noisy. What I got was much more.

I use my PC when I am learning new tunes on my guitar, so I usually have my sound card line out going to a small mixer where I mix in my guitar effects unit then ultimately out to a set of powered speakers. The MP3+ fits perfectly into this set up with no noise. I can also change my setup by dropping the mixer and running my guitar effects into the MP3+ line in. This allows me to record my own rhythms to play against.

An unexpected bonus was the fact that I can create tunes using Finale Guitar and then record them to mp3 format simply by selecting midi as the recording source in the media source software. Recording to mp3 is not an option in Finale Guitar, but with the MP3+ it becomes one.

The software that comes with this unit is great for folks like me. Wave Studio and MediaSource Player allow me to record from albums, mp3 players, cd players, XM radio...whatever and trim, fade, cut, loop, slow down, speed up etc.

Not having to deal with a power chord is icing on the cake. I highly recommend this unit to anyone that enjoys playing around with music as a hobby.

I have had my MP3+ for a while now, and have no real gripes about it. When I first got it, I was running Windows 98, which detected it and set it up without a problem. I later installed Windows 2000 Pro, which also detected it and set it up without a problem. I did not experience any problems with getting it to work. After 2000, I used the sound card with XP, which also supported it no problem. All the versions of Windows that I used the sound card with had no problem detecting the card, and all automatically used it with the generic USB sound card driver, which worked for most applications. Unfortunately, I did experience some trouble with the sound not working every once in a while. Especially while using XP and 2000, sometimes I would boot up the computer, and no sound would come from the card, although the blue light would flash when I played stuff. My solution was to unplug the card, reboot with it unplugged, then plug it in after Windows was loaded. It would then work fine. The final test came when I switched from Windows to Mac. OS X correctly detected and installed the MP3+, and I am still using it to this day. Of course, I don't benefit from the included software, but I never used it that much in the first place. It seemed to do its job, but was kind of clunky and annoying in some aspects. That is why I usually just used Windows' own drivers and software to use the card. One aspect of the drivers (and card) that should be mentioned is latency. The card does not have ASIO drivers available, and using DirectX drivers in sound programs, I could only get the latency down to about 50 ms before the sound started cracking or distorting.
As for hardware, it isn't too fancy, but the RCA jacks are very nice for recording records and such. I wish the line out had a hardware volume control, but it works as it is. I've never had a use for the optical in and out, so I can't say how well they work.
Overall, it is a good deal for the price, and I recommend it for people who maybe can't afford a hundred dollar sound card, but want something better than the noisy internal card that came with their system.

I've tried this ($), a M-audio mobile-pre USB ($), and a Tascam USB122 ($) on an emachine 5310 laptop. So far it's the best performer of the lot. The others (at more than 3 times the price, minimum) exhibited drop outs in record and playback audio, and had much quieter and distorted headphone outputs.

Pluses for this over the others also include a smaller, lighter housing, digital (on optical) I/O, dolby 5.1 pass through on optical.

minuses include a mono-only microphone input, no simultaneous digital input with analog monitoring at 44.1khz (seems fine at 48k--there's a mutually exclusive hardware switch governing this behavior). And the driver install puts and AOL trial icon on your desktop. Absolutely infuriating. Oh, and it's 16-bit only, and the timing drifts a bit when doing overdubs in a multitrack recorder like Adobe Audition (cool edit pro). I've yet to try this digitally, I suspect it might work better in this mode.

All that said, install was so easy XP didn't even need the drivers installed to recognize the card (albeit as generic usb audio) for basic operation. The drivers were only required to be able to select inputs for recording and for the tone shaping controls.

My intent for this device is as a tiny input in the tape loop of a stereo system--yep, the final nail in the coffin of my cassette deck : ), and maybe for some rudimentary field recordings using an external microphone preamp.

Bottom line, the thing sounds good, it's nice and small, and hey, it's only ($).

Although not as good, as the Creative Labs USB Sound Blaster Audigy2 External Sound Card, it gets the job done. My only problem is the lack of a SPDIF output for speaker systems. If you have a receiver that supports optical or even speakers it does transform a laptop into a stereo system. I only use it for input from games, and for that it works very well. Buy this instead of the Audigy2 if you already have optical speakers or a receiver that supports optical input.

I work as a disc jockey, and I couldn't be happier with this little sucker. Liked it so much, I not only bought another, but on other systems I've custom built for clubs that have their own internal system, I've gotten it.

Your pc, yes, including the aforementioned Windows 2000, will see the device as a "usb sound"... no installation of ANY drivers has been necessary on either my SHOW pc, or my three HOME pcs! I absolutely love this, and highly recommend them to others. It's not the "GO!" unit, nor is it the hated ver2, which doesn't even have RCA connections!

I also use this for recording items ONTO the computer, such as live audio from an outside mixer!

I had acquired my laptop through a friend without documentation and without a driver cd, and had no idea what soundcard was installed, my computer would only tell me found new hardware- pci multimedia devide detected. When I bought this external sound card system, sound returned on all levels almost like magic, plus, it's got all of these extras for inputing/outputing any device through RCA cable plugs or the regular speaker/mic plugs.
I am very pleased.

I recently bought a Dell 9200 Inspiron, and it seems that even Dell's "high end" laptops are not free from cheap components. Already, my headphone jack has gone bad. Naturally, I'm not sending back a $1600 laptop just to get a headphone jack repaired (even though I know people who would). It would just be a waste of my time and money, because 1/8" headphone jacks break all the time like this. There's one particular angle that you have to pull it to the extreme because the contact is bent the other way and the left or right channel stops functioning unless you strain the cord in the opposite angle to make the contacts touch. Eventually, this man-handling solution makes the whole jack useless. I knew this would happen the moment I bought the laptop. I just wasn't expecting it so soon.

There are other external USB options out there, but this one provided the best solution for me. First of all, it's smaller than the other choices. Second, it's the least expensive. Third, since I'm not looking for a 24-bit 5.1 surround-sound solution, this fits the bill. Fourth, it's got RCA jacks, which are much heartier than the typical 1/8" stereo headphone jack. This way, I just pick up an 1/8" coupler at Radio Shack (a $4.00 component), and a RCA-to-1/8" connector cable (or just use the included adapter) and replace when necessary, barring the need for expensive return shipping on a laptop that needs no more repaired than to have a little metal contact replaced.

Now, what I don't like is that the RCA jacks are not amped through the card like the 1/8" headphone jack is on this device, making it much quieter, even with my laptop volume at it's loudest (hence the 4 stars). But I can live with that, so long as I can use my headphones with my laptop.

PROS:
+ Optical Connectors
+ Windows XP can install a default driver
+ Applicable in slow notebook
+ Bass-Boost and graphical equilizer
+ Real-time Audio Clean-up from external sources

CONS:
- Only two channels stereo
- Only 88-DB Single-to-Noise Ratio
- Expensive for two channel sound card