Soundblaster Omni External Soundcard

[threadysparrow]

This is a review I posted on Overclock.net but I want yalls to see it. I also updated it.

 

I am a cheap audiophile. I will use what sounds the best for the price, and I have no money so you do the math. You will never see me wearing those wooden Audio Technica headphones. At the same time, I will pay $200 for a really nice set of speakers or headphones if I can find a way to steal the money. Just to mention my set up: I have a pair of $50 Logitech speakers, a $60 pair of headphones from Audio Technica (ATH-M30), and a Turtle Beach XP 500 headset. The speakers and the heaphones use 3.5mm and the headset uses optical. My motherboard can't handle all of these devices being plugged in at once. Windows craps itself when I have 2 3.5mm devices plugged in at once. And I do not have SPDIF on my motherboard and I have been wanting to use my XP 500 headset for a while on here since I don't play console games anymore. So I had 2 choices. I could either buy an internal sound card or an external sound card.

 

I looked at the Z series from Soundblaster and they looked nice. But the problem is that I do not know if I can physically fit anything on my motherboard because my video card heatsink almost hits the 3rd PCI-e slot. So I looked around and decided to get this. I actually didn't know Soundblaster made an external sound card until I just Googled "USB sound card." I looked at some reviews of this and decided to get it. I have heard that PCI-e sound cards sound better, but I honestly don't think my ears are so sensitive that they would be able to tell a difference. After reading some reviews, I got this and hooked that bad boy up.

 

Specs: The front of the unit has a beamforming mic that lets you talk to people while typing, but doesn't register your typing unless you manually adjust the settings via the control panel software. The front has 3 inputs, headphones, mic, and audio in. Those take priority over the back. If you have your headphones plugged in, your speakers will go off. Then when you unplug your headphones, the speakers will come back automatically with no delay. There is obviously some hardware on the circuit board controlling that because if it were simply software controlling it through Windows, you would have to wait 20 minutes for it to register the change. On the back there is an RCA output that you plug your 3.5mm speaker connector to via an included adapter. They did this to increase connectivity options. Then on the back there are 2 3.5mm rear and center outputs as well as an optical out. And the entire thing is connected to the PC via micro USB. Onto my review.

 

Cons: 2 small cons. First, the optical device must be selected in Windows via Playback Devices. I was actually hoping to be able to skip ever messing with Playback Devices. When you select the optical device (called SPDIF-OUT), you have to stop all sound and reload the sound. If you are on Youtube, you have to reload the video. If you are in a game, you have to restart the game. This part is obviously not the Omni's fault, but I think the included software, which is beastly in a good way, should take care of this automatically. Second gripe, The volume knob only controls the sound through Windows. I would have liked to see the volume knob control the volume through the device itself. It is like if you use the volume control on your speakers. You expect your knob to control the speakers and not the sound through Windows. This is only a problem because sometimes when I turn my PC on, it might take a few seconds for the volume control to register.

 

but those are small complaints, now, onto the good.

 

Pros: I will get to the sound quality in a minute, settle down. I want to start small and end big. This thing is super convenient. It is a one stop hub for all of your sound devices. All of those connectivity options I mentioned are very nice to have when you have multiple devices, and the fact that they all play nice with each other is another plus. People tend to miss these little things but I don't. I think Creative put a lot of thought into the convenience of their device. It also has rubber pads on the bottom to keep it on the desk.

 

The beamforming mic is nice once you set it up in the control panel, which brings me to the next point. I paid $70 for this. If you were to tell me that half of the cost of this was on the software, I would be ok. This has ALMOST everything you need. I say almost, because I still use Razer's surround software for my Audio Technica M30s WHEN I'm IN A GAME! I wouldn't dare dream of using that software to listen to music. I am not the most technical guy when it comes to sound, but if you are very technical, this thing has many options in it for you. Here are some screenshots of what the control panel looks like:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The control panel obviously has a few dollars worth of software in it.

 

Now, on to the sound. This thing sounds so good. I don't have the best ears so I probably wouldn't notice a difference between a nice Realtek chip and a Soundblaster chip, but I'm not comparing the 2. I'm reviewing the single product on its own. I am not going to get into the specs and numbers, rather, I will just say that it sounds great. This song I used to test it was a song I used to listen to with my dad when I was little, and it would be a crime not to include one of my favorite songs of all time in a review of a sound product. I mean, what is this, Afghanistan? East Germany? New Jersey? No, this is America and this is what we listen to here in America! This is the Youtube video of it, I have the vinyl and the MP3 of it at my house because I'm cool. I compared the sound of the MP3 to the vinyl and it only sounded a bit crappier, not much though.

 

 

With the headphones on, I am able to listen to things louder and every different sound is distinct. When I used the headphones with the on board audio, they hit the highest volume and I could not tell different drums apart in certain songs. The highest volume was too low as well. I turn the Omni on 1/4 of the way high with my speakers and I turn war tapes mode on in Battlefield 4 and I get nasty calls from my roommates, aka mom and dad, to turn it down. With my Turtle Beach XP 500, I am able to finally use these on my PC. In order to utilize these in 5.1 mode, I have to enable Dolby Digital Live in the Omni control panel and make sure the light on the XP 500 receiver is on above the D symbol (there are 2 lights, one has the Dolby symbol with PL IIx and the other one has the Dolby symbol with D following it). The PL IIx is stereo converted to 5.1 on the receiver I believe and the D is for 5.1 output from the Omni. I do not have to use Razer's surround software on this, only on the 3.5mm headphones.

 

And that is it. This thing was well worth the money. I don't know if Realtek uses the same quality chip as Soundblaster, if it's better or worse, but who cares? I like this product better than my on board sound.

 

Oh, and this works on your laptop too.

 

4 and 1/2 stars for an amazing product. Minus half a star for the volume control being through Windows and not through the device, and for the optical device needing to be selected in Playback Devices and not just on the unit. It would have been nice for there to be a small button on this near each plug for the different devices instead of having to mess with Windows sound devices. 

 

 

[Guest Kloaked]

RIP dark theme users.

[Enderman]

RIP dark theme users.

Damn copy-pasta-ers

[threadysparrow]

Damn copy-pasta-ers

 

RIP dark theme users.

 

What?

[Guest Kloaked]

What?

 

All of your text has a white background to it since it was copied and pasted without clicking the 'paste as plain text' option.

[threadysparrow]

All of your text has a white background to it since it was copied and pasted without clicking the 'paste as plain text' option.

 

Is this bad? How do I fix this? I added and deleted some stuff in the original review so it's not word for word.

 

Instead of saying RIP DARK THEME USERS all obnoxiously, it would be nice if people were a bit more helpful on what the hell they're talking about and what the problem is. 

[dragoon20005]

Is this bad? How do I fix this? I added and deleted some stuff in the original review so it's not word for word.

 

Instead of saying RIP DARK THEME USERS all obnoxiously, it would be nice if people were a bit more helpful on what the hell they're talking about and what the problem is. 

try to recopy the whole text and use the right click and select the paste as plain text

 

 

interesting review of the Omni 5.1

 

I have the original Creative 5.1 USB External

 

I need it because my onboard sound for my desktop and laptop were not working 

 

the USB soundcard allows me to use on both desktop and laptop