Creative Labs USB Sound Blaster Audigy2 External Sound Card Sound System (70SB030000000)

First off, I have no major complaints with this product. I use it with my laptop and 5.1 setup and it works fine in that it plays audio and sounds pretty good. The remote it comes with is an extremely cool feature, although good luck using it with iTunes as it becomes limited to prev/next song and a scroll (which is useless because you can't select). However, with Windows Media Player you will get more functionality, and with the bundled program all of the remote's buttons work. I should point out that when I first received this product, it would not power up, so I had to order a replacement. Just a fair warning, even though the tech support guy said he had never heard of somebody with that problem. When I first tried to install the replacement, my computer had a tough time recognizing it, and I eventually had to disregard the installation instructions that came with it and agree to Windows XP's driver installation window, but then it worked fine. One more thing, I figured that I would be able to play surround sound audio with this (as in all of the channels functioning seperately), but apparently my PIII 1GHz, 316MB memory laptop isn't up to speed. So now whenever I want to play DVDs or DVD audio, I have to unplug the Audigy and use my headphone jack to connect my speakers so the audio doesn't get choppy. Anyway, I almost feel like a lot of my issues with this product are more or less not going to be the norm, so I went ahead and gave it 4 of 5.

The sound quality seemed pretty good, it has lots of functions and decent software,plus digital outputs. Most of it is pretty unnecessary though, especially if you have a dvd player, i have a cheap one Apex-$40 which sounds as good if not better on the same speakers. As for recording, i only have a bad computer mike so its probably its fault. As another review will tell, this card seems to have a tendency of ceasing to function completely at for me 15 months of use. Search other options or risk an okay soundcard with a 7.5 month half-life----skip it.

The external sound blaster was just what I wanted and works perfectly. The only thing I didn't like about it, is that you cannot have both line in and mic plugged in at the same time otherwise one wont work. Otherwise I can change connection without having to pull out my computer and struggle with making connections. and I do alot of changes because of a varity of equipment I'm using

For the price it would be nice if USB Audigy 2 NX were full duplex for major electronics items input devices of more expensive models. Sounds Polish real good and in other local dialects. No joke.