Review on Enhance Your Audio Experience with Creative Labs USB Sound Blaster MP3+ External Sound Card Sound System by Edward Taylor

Contrary to what I've read, some sound card buyers say they definitely compare to the built-in audio commonly found in laptops and other computers with built-in, non-upgradable audio sounds great. I recommend playing uncompressed audio files such as .wav, .aiff, CDs or Apple lossless files to really demonstrate its capabilities. I was listening with decent headphones and a stereo receiver with two regular bookshelf speakers. The sound was as good as a high quality home audio device like a CD player. Plugging this or any other computer into cheap desktop speakers probably won't make a significant audible difference. You must be using a good quality home or computer audio system. A good sound card can also reveal the quality limitations of compressed audio files such as .mp3 or .wma. Some casual listeners might think that .mp3 audio is indistinguishable from a regular CD. This is probably because they're listening through small computer speakers, which I think are appropriate at best in an office cubicle at low volumes. Although it's not advertised that way, it works for Mac. I found it to work very well with my legacy Apple iMac G3 500MHz. Line-in for recording also works. In summary, my advice is that if you use your computer for music or even DVD playback and you enjoy it enough, I would definitely upgrade the USB audio or sound card if the original lacks quality. Most, but possibly the latest, laptops will likely include audio as an afterthought. I checked and found that several USB audio devices work well so you can't go wrong. Have fun while listening!