Thank you Creative Labs for sending us this Sound Blaster G8 to review!

I've had a soft spot for Creative Labs and especially Sound Blaster for many years. I owned several over the decades from the early 1990s through the early 2000s. I stopped using their products for a while because I had gotten a great deal on another brand sound card, but it stopped working with Windows 7, so I had to go onboard again for a while. As my foray into audiophile land increased, I found myself in need of a much better sound card for the more expensive headphones I was buying. Before I purchased my Focusrite Scarlett Solo because of its XLR interface, I had found a positive review of the Sound BlasterX G6, and bought that for my personal use. Its super-low noise and feature set impressed me. If it had a better microphone input or support for XLR, and better Linux support, I might still be using it!

This Sound Blaster G8 takes virtually the entire feature set of the G6 that I liked so much and adds even more on top. First and foremost, the Sound Blaster G8 is a USB DAC and amplifier. A DAC is a digital to analog converter; at the most basic level it takes a digital audio signal and outputs analog electrical waveforms that speakers and headphones expect. DACs are everywhere, and all computers, phones, game consoles, really anything modern that outputs audio has them. A standalone DAC is presumed to be of a better quality than integrated ones, and the Sound Blaster G8 does a pretty good job in this regard. It supports a wide range of PCM audio formats, and there is mention of DSD over PCM support, though I don't have any DSD files to test this with. (DSD is the digital format Super Audio CDs used. Since SACD is a dead format, DSD files are relevant to only the most dedicated audiophile. While you can buy DSD files directly online, their sales numbers are minuscule.) Most USB DACs are basic audio devices; just enough to output beautiful music. The G8 certainly does that. However, most don't have software with all kinds of features in it, and extensive hardware inputs and outputs like this does.

To control its many software features, the G8 uses the Creative App that works on Windows 10 and 11. MacOS is supported, but not via the app; it's tested to work with all inputs and outputs on macOS, but no digital signal processing (DSP) features are available from what I can tell. While not officially supported, audio output works in Linux, but I had trouble getting the microphone to work. If you set the mixer in Windows to allow you to hear multiple external inputs, those settings are remembered when connected to other devices. This is also the case with SBX mode; it remembers the last-used DSP settings while in SBX mode, so you can enable that with the press of a button. These DSP settings are set up using the Creative App. You can tell that SBX mode is on because there will be a white glowing LED on the SBX button.

While most audiophiles don't really need DSP features, they can certainly be useful if you have headphones or speakers that need mild tuning, or if you like profiles for certain games. Some may also like virtual surround sound features as well. The Acoustic Engine offers most of their features, like virtual Surround, Crystalizer, Bass boost, Smart Volume, and Dialog+. Each feature has an on/off switch, and a level bar where you can set how much of each effect you want. Surround widens the soundstage, Crystalizer brings forth more treble details, Bass makes the lower frequencies hit harder, Smart Volume normalizes volume changes to make everything sound at a similar level, and Dialog+ boosts the vocal range to make it easier to hear. The software supports separate settings for speakers and headphones, making customization easy. While I don't normally use these, they don't sound bad, and I have a pair of headphones that sounds nice with the Bass boost, and another that benefits from Crystalizer. Sometimes having both on sounds nice, and the Surround effect is subtle enough to be worth trying. I try to avoid such effects most of the time, though.

There is an Equalizer feature that offers a 10-band graphical EQ. It also has a Preamp and general Bass/Treble boost sliders where you can set each of them to your liking. You can create or customize presets, and easily dozens are included for popular games if you like using them. There is also a Scout Mode, which highlights footsteps and other shuffling noises. This feature is primarily for FPS games, as it sounds generally unsuitable for most other uses, but it might help you find that hiding opponent. Wins are more important than neutral sound, right? You can tell Scout Mode is enabled when there is a glowing blue LED on the SBX button.

There are also features designed specifically for the microphone. When I first started testing the mic, I assumed they weren't required for good sound, just nice extras. Unfortunately, I was wrong. The mic's input level is far too low out of the box, and mic boost isn't available. I was about to write off the mic port entirely and tell you all that it's bad, but then I discovered that under the CrystalVoice menu there are several features there. One of them is Smart Volume, which is basically required for being able to hear the microphone loudly enough, at least with my test microphones. (It turns out my old G6 has this same problem.) There are other features that are useful also, like Noise Reduction, Echo Cancellation, and useful but less important features like Microphone Equalizer (if you want a boomier voice you can enhance that bass!) or the rather silly (or important for security!) Voice Morph. I know my kids used to love messing with voice changers; Sound Blaster owners can do that without paying for Voice Mod.

One feature targeted at audiophiles is Direct Mode. I like using this, but unfortunately the microphone input is disabled in this mode; I personally find this a big miss on Creative's part and wish they would do this differently. This design choice carried over from the older G6 I owned, so I'm sure there's a good reason for the compromise. Whatever the case, in Direct Mode, all DSP processing is disabled, and from what I understand the circuits are actually turned off in this mode, minimizing all possible noise and whatever else that mode might be doing to the sound. What surprised me with the G8, as the G6 didn't do this, is when you enable Direct Mode (which you can do by selecting it in the software or pressing the 'Mode' button on the device), the sound card soft reboots and reconnects to your computer. If you had anything playing, that gets interrupted as the OS redetects the new G8 that lacks a microphone input port (it shows Disabled under sound devices). But for those who want the purest and cleanest signal, you definitely want Direct Mode.

Outside of the DSP features that many Sound Blasters offer, the real draw of the G8 are the mixing features. These features are so extensive for such a small box, it can almost act like an A/V Receiver for some use cases, except it has an ace in the hole: rather than selecting from several different sources, you can listen to them all at the same time. I've actually been looking for something to be able to do this for my work from home setup, and shockingly few things do. Would you like to be able to listen to up to four sources at once? What about mixing between two groups of them with a knob? You can do both of those things. It's pretty awesome, and something that few audio interfaces outside of a mixing board can do - but this humble Sound Blaster G8 can.

There are two USB-C inputs, labeled USB-1 and USB-2. Each can be connected to entirely unrelated devices, and USB-1 supports the DSP features, so it's recommended that you connect that to your main Windows PC. USB-2 can then be connected to whatever you like; your smartphone, another PC (I tested a work-provided Macbook), or a game console like a PlayStation or Nintendo Switch. (Xbox consoles do not support USB audio devices.) Just a dual USB DAC is already quite impressive. But they didn't stop there. You can also connect a 3.5mm analog audio input signal to the Line In port, and mix that in also. But that's not all! There is a fourth input, though this one has a switch. You can either connect an optical SPDIF connector into the Opt In port, while making sure that switch is selected as your fourth input, or you can move the switch to the Arc selection, and connect an HDMI cable to your TV's ARC port on one end, and to the Sound Blaster G8 on the other. In either case, that's four total audio devices connected to one Sound Blaster. Very impressive! Since we only have one mixing knob, the USB-1 and SPDIF/HDMI ports are bundled together as 'Game', and the Line In and USB-2 ports are grouped together as 'Voice'. So you can fade or balance between the two groups by just moving the knob.

In Windows, you can record from any combination of sources, but not every input available can be recorded from. In particular, the USB-2 source can’t be recorded from on its own. You can record What U Hear, which is a Sound Blaster specific feed that records exactly what you hear from the device, after any mixing. The other sources are SPDIF In, Line In, and the External Mic. While it's certainly unfortunate that you can't mix the four inputs with more granularity, it's still quite impressive what it does let you do. At least you can somewhat mix between the two USB inputs via the Game/Voice knob, so it's not that you don't have any control, but you can't record every single source to separate tracks like some might prefer. Even with that unfortunate limitation, the number of simultaneous inputs usable as they are is still quite impressive and pretty rare, especially at this price.

When I first looked at the G8, I thought it had a rather unconventional shape, and still do, but it's practical and the rubber grip feet on the bottom work well. The incline that it sits on is actually pretty convenient, and makes the knobs on top easy to reach. On the G6, one of my biggest complaints is that the volume knob is a bit loose, and you can turn it faster than it can register. On the G8, this issue is more than resolved; the knob feels great to use, and the digital volume in Windows is directly locked to the position of the knob. What this means is that if you turn the knob to 50%, Windows' volume will be at 50. If you adjust the volume outside of the knob it will change, but as soon as you touch the knob again, the Sound Blaster's volume will instantly correct. It's worth noting that the knob's volume only adjusts the volume on the G8, and no other connected devices.

When you connect headphones, a white LED will light up on the HP/SPK button. It's neat because if you press that button, the G8 will override the presence of the headphones, and will switch back to speakers anyway. In this way, you can leave both your speakers connected to Line Out, and your headphones connected to the front headset port, and switch between them without wearing out the ports or cables. A very nice addition!

I must say that despite all of this praise, there is one notable downgrade from my old G6, that may make the G8 less desirable for the most audiophile-focused among us. In my testing of the G6, I could connect even sensitive headphones and never really hear any hiss or unwanted background noise when turning it up or using the High Gain mode. Unfortunately, this is not the case with the G8. If I turn it up enough, I can hear background noise or hiss. This tells me that the noise floor is nowhere near as good as the G6, and therefore may disappoint some audiophiles in that way. All I can say is that if you listen at a reasonable volume, this probably doesn't matter all that much. Another thing to note is that the SPDIF port claims to support Dolby Digital decoding, but when I connected my old HD DVD player to my G8, I had to set it to PCM to get it to work. The disc did use Dolby Digital Plus, but the player should have sent only the core Dolby Digital signal over SPDIF, rather than the DD+ it would have sent over HDMI. Whatever the case, just be aware that it might not work with everything.

Creative Labs' Sound Blaster G8 really surprised me. It's not a perfect product, especially with that higher noise floor. I also experienced some stability glitches when recording from some sources. Hopefully these issues can be mitigated over time with software updates. Whatever the case, for playback, it's been stellar, and the multiple source mixing is really like nothing else out there, especially at this price. Playback works perfectly on Linux, but recording needs some work. (Again, not an officially supported platform, but we can hope, right?) Whatever the case, for Windows users who want to connect up to four sources and to be able to just hear them all without hassle this thing is seriously great, and unlike anything I've seen, especially at this price. If your main setup is at a desktop, and you need to connect multiple things to the same set of speakers or headphones, this thing is nothing short of fantastic for that use case. Highly Recommended for the right user!