StarTech.com 7.1 USB Sound Card - External Sound Card for Laptop with SPDIF Digital Audio - Sound Card for PC - Silver (ICUSBAUDIO7D)

I bought an HP EliteBook 755 G5 with a docking station and wanted to connect it to my existing Logitech 5.1 analog speakers. These speakers have three 3.5mm stereo jacks: Front speakers (green), Rear speakers (black), and Center/Subwoofer (orange). The laptop contains two built-in sound cards. One is only capable of 2.0 stereo and works through the 3.5" audio jacks. The other built-in sound card works only through the DisplayPort connection. For example, if you connect the laptop to a TV with audio capability or to an A/V receiver, that sound card handles that audio output. Since I have a monitor with no audio jacks or processing, I cannot take advantage of that built-in device. (There is another kind of product that could. I’ll talk about it at the end of this review.)I chose StarTech because I had luck with their products in the past. This external sound card is more expensive than the cheap Chinese ones on eBay and it supports 7.1 as well as 5.1. I did NOT have to use the driver CD. I have Windows 10 1809 and it recognized the card immediately. It shows up in the Device Manager as “USB Sound Device.” Don’t be alarmed if you check the properties and see a message under the “Events” tab claiming "Device requires further installation." If you look at the list, you will see that even though the entry in the list of Events might be the top one, the Timestamp is older than the entries below. This means that this message is normal and has no significant meaning at all, even though it can be confusing and previous Windows versions did not show something similar.Configuring the sound card for 5.1 (or 7.1) audio is simple. Go to the Control Panel and select Sound. Under the Playback tab, click on the “Speakers” for the USB Sound Device and click on the Configure button. Choose 5.1 and click the Test button to make sure everything is connected properly. Click Next. Make sure all optional speakers are selected. Click Next. If you have a satellite speaker system with a subwoofer like me, you do NOT have full-range speakers. You can verify this by plugging in the green plug into a 2.0 stereo source and listen to the sound quality. If it’s sorely missing bass, then they are NOT full-range speakers. Uncheck these options. (BTW, sometimes the front speakers are full-range, but the rear speakers are not. If the rear speakers are smaller than the fronts, uncheck the rear speakers only.) Click Finish.Another option I could have tried would have been to use a device that converts the digital audio supplied over HDMI to analog. Amazon sells such a device: SKSL HDMI Digital Audio Converter. However, I would have needed to buy a DisplayPort to HDMI cable. Also, I would have to get RCA to 3.5mm adapters, too. And, that option costs a lot more.UPDATE 2019-05-15: Just wanted to say the sound quality has been superb!

TL;DR - Works great for a PC that does not have 5.1 output or laptop going to analog speakers, just make sure of use case.I ended up returning this item because it worked great but was impracticable given limitations of streaming services. I have a "nice older" computer 5.1 speaker system I got long ago and it still sounds great, but I wanted to use it with "TV" as that is where the stereo to surround makes more difference to me. I had tried a number of permutations and machinations before to get 3 x 3.5mm plug based (analog) speakers to do surround without success. The worked fine connected to a PC with the proper output plugs on main board just nothing worked with any of the "TV" output option that supposedly bridged the digital to analog.So connected it to my "small infotainment" PC as an external sound card, got latest software, and after install, I ran the suite of tests and confirmed everything was setup and working. Then I loaded various streaming services and did not get the expected results. Played some owned content with surround and again everything worked. After some digging I determined that most streaming service titles that state the provide surround do so only in app on streaming devices while same app on PC will not. I assume some anti-piracy or other restrictive reason to limit the ability to enjoy the content more,Device is great for a specific use cases, just not mine.

Overall, a good device. It has all the right inputs/outputs. Worked out of the box with Windows 10 (don't bother with the old drivers on disk or at the web site).It works well with my powered analog 5.1 speakers.It only lost a star because its volume range is very limited. If I adjust my volume control at the speakers to get the 100% windows volume level loud enough, then the 1% windows volume level is too loud. On the other hand, if I adjust the volume control at the speakers so that the 1% windows volume level is quiet enough, then the 100% windows volume level isn't loud enough. The windows volume level stops getting louder at about 30%, which seems to be a limitation of the device since it is USB bus powered and probably just uses the on-chip amp, which can only put out so much. If the device could put out a wider range of volume levels, then maybe the 1% volume level would be quiet enough *and* the 100% volume level would be loud enough.It's only a minor annoyance that I occasionally have to fiddle with the volume knob on my speakers.

I guess this is for laptops that don't have a sound card. I bought it to provide a couple of stereo mic inputs into my laptop using USB instead of the lame mic jack that comes standard.First things first, the drivers on the disc don't work. You have to go to the Startech site and download new ones, and they are very well hidden. After searching for twenty minutes, I finally found them and downloaded them and they installed just fine. But there is also another piece of software that loads itself and is pretty important to the thing working right and neither the manual or the website says a single thing about it.The main problem is that I simply couldn't get it to pass a signal from any input into my copy of Sound Forge. It was a day wasted trying to configure this thing before an important gig, and I ended up just sending it back and recording using...the lame-ass mic jack I was trying to avoid.Startech's tech support was amazing. My rep was patient and knowledgeable, and with his help, we did get it to pass a signal one time. But the next day, the day of the gig, it never worked again.Not sure who this is for, but trust me...its probably not you.