The Sound Blaster PLAY! 3 is a USB DAC and Amp that provides an instant audio upgrade from motherboard audio. It works with PC and Mac, and houses a powerful amplifier that will drive a whole range of headphones, from basic mobile phone earbuds to gaming and studio-grade headphones. Audio card maker Creative today announced the release of the Sound Blaster Live! For Macintosh.The PCI card enables Mac users to attach four-channel speaker systems, plug in MIDI devices, and more. Creative’s Sound BlasterX G5 is a flexible sound card, adapting to both high-end audio lovers, and gamers alike. Previously was using the Sound Blaster Z card, but my model was missing the 600Ohm headphone amp, so I decided to get this instead of another PCIe card, also, the Z card just wasn't able to run my Beyerdynamic DT 990 250Ohm.
Amazing sound coming from this portable DAC/AMP sound card! Previously was using the Sound Blaster Z card, but my model was missing the 600Ohm headphone amp, so I decided to get this instead of another PCIe card, also, the Z card just wasn't able to run my Beyerdynamic DT 990 250Ohm headphones without having to adjust the volume higher, and even then it sounded like it was missing some details in the audio. Overall, this has been working very well! The 7.1 virtual surround sounds much better than the Z card, with the virtual surround set to around 25/100. Even with my speakers, the surround sounds better than the Z card.Had a couple of hiccups with the setup though. Windows 10 was able to recognize the device as a sound card right away, but even after downloading the software from the Creative support site, it still wasn't outputing audio. Doing a quick forum search, someone suggested going to Device Manager, have it check for Hardware Changes, then I manually went to the Sound drop-down and had Windows manually check for new drivers, which it found. I then restarted the PC and it booted with audio! Can confirm it works with Windows 10 Home Premium. Very happy with this device!
Creative released a Sound Blaster Omni Surround 5.1 firmware update that allows the SB1560 to work with macOS Sierra. Despite the notes claiming it must be installed from a computer running either Windows or a version of OS X older than macOS Sierra 10.12, I was in fact able to install it directly from within Sierra. This entry serves simply to document that fact.
I wrote last year about my search for a surround sound solution for Mac OS X and then about how I settled on using a Creative SB1560. I have not used the Creative device since reformatting to build my dotfiles project, but now that I tried, I found my computer did not seem to recognize the SB1560 as an audio device. It did show up in System Report under USB, so thankfully it was not due to more hackintosh USB problems.
A quick search for “SB1560 Sierra” led me to Creative’s support page with drivers. I did not think I needed drivers in the past, but I saw a note regarding Sierra, so perhaps they are only now required and I didn’t accidentally omit that step in my previous blog post.
The support page for Sound Blaster Omni Surround 5.1 shows under Latest Downloads:
Sound Blaster Omni Surround 5.1 Firmware Update for Mac
Filesize : 3.09 MB
Release date : 5 Oct 16
File Name : SBOMMACFWEN_160916.dmg.zip
This download contains an updated firmware for Sound Blaster® Omni Surround 5.1. This firmware includes support for macOS™ Sierra 10.12. Important: Install this firmware update before upgrading to macOS Sierra. For more details, read the rest of this web release note.
This download supports and is applicable for the following hardware:
- Sound Blaster Omni Surround 5.1
What’s New:
- Added support for macOS Sierra 10.12
Requirements:
- Mac OS X 10.6.8 to Mac OS X 10.11
Notes:
- If your computer has been upgraded to macOS Sierra, update your device firmware through another computer running Mac OS X 10.11 or Windows (requires the latest Sound Blaster Omni Surround 5.1 Firmware Update for Windows).
- To install this pack, do the following:
- Download the file onto your local hard disk.
- Ensure that your device is connected to your computer.
- Double-click the downloaded file to uncompress it.
- Double-click the uncompressed DMG file.
- Double-click the SB_INSTALL icon.
- Double-click the Install icon and follow the instructions on screen.
Creative Sb Drivers
I initially tried to use my Parallels based Windows 7 instance, but it was not able to detect the SB1560. Before booting into a my real Windows 10 installation, I tried the installer on Sierra even though it was supposedly going to fail. Well, it worked. I was then able to negate the few minutes that saved me by writing this blog post, which of course took longer!
Creative Sb X Fi Software
For reference, I installed the drivers by command line: