Back when I was a wee lad, installing a sound card onto your MS-DOS-powered computer would require you to pull out the toolbox, take a screwdriver, and start to tinker around with the motherboard as you slot in a dedicated sound card into an available ISA slot, followed by having various games configure the sound card afterwards. Over time, the humble sound card has been miniaturized and embedded on most motherboards which works great for most folks unless you were an audiophile. Now, we have a USB sound card that is as easy as it gets to use, and the Creative Sound Blaster Play! 2 is one such device.
The Creative Sound Blaster Play! 2 USB sound card might be small in stature, but it is capable of delivering a true-to-life 3D audio soundstage, not to mention offer noiseless recordings for podcasts and video conferencing. It will play nice with the slew of analog headsets and earbuds, while offering powerful audio via SBX Pro Studio technology, full audio settings customization via Sound Blaster Play! 2 Control Panel, and optimized profiles for select earphone brands.
Gamers will be pleased to hear that the Creative Sound Blaster Play! 2 has been designed with them in mind, as the proprietary Scout Mode technology would let you hear your enemies before your enemies do (unless they are also using a Creative Sound Blaster Play! 2, which I suppose, would cancel each other’s advantage out), so that you have a slight tactical advantage that you can leverage upon. The asking price is a highly affordable $23, so what are you waiting for? [Press Release]
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