Review on Creative Sound BlasterX G5 7.1 HD Audio External Sound Card: Enhance Surround Sound on PC/Mac/PS4/Consoles by Kevin Elliott

The sound card on my laptop lacked functionality and a decent volume. I'm a musician and I needed adequate playback, especially when the signal was split with a Y-adaptor. When using the built-in device, unplugging the headphones further reduced the volume. This device really upped the output volume. So much so that with my laptop I sometimes had to turn the volume up to 100 to hear it and now I can't turn the volume up past 15 without my ears bleeding. So it works as an amplifier. What can I complain about: (1) The software has a leveling feature, but it doesn't actually level anything. I was hoping I could tweak this feature in the software so I don't have to mess with the volume when mixing songs. Not that, you still have to tinker. (2) After installation, there was no volume at all at first. I spent 15 minutes messing around with the settings to figure it out, another 15 minutes reading the FAQ (which didn't help) and I took a chance by changing the USB port and voila! It worked. Still annoying. (3) It would be great if you could listen to headphones and use the output at the same time, but you can't. It's either one or the other. (4) I think it would be pretty easy to add some features for the music listeners here. There's a setting for music, but that's about all the options if you're not a gamer. nothing really) is worth the money I spent here. I bought the G5 and not the G6 because as a non-gamer I didn't need the extra features. There were other sound cards on the market, but I don't want to download a new player or add something else just to get what this one already did. It was easy to install and use.