USB External Sound Card with SPDIF Digital Sound for 5.1 & 7.1 Surround Sound Systems, Aluminum Body

It's a widely used CM106. It works and works well. Other reviews say the optical ports don't work, it's because they don't know what they're doing (Google). There other models that are in a small case those have the CM6206 , unless you have at least mid range equipment you'll notice some difference not a lot. Hopefully this helps.

It was cheap and the USB looks like USB 3.0 but the end came off and only 4 wires are being used for USB 2.0. Plus the optical out did not work even after installing the drivers.

Plug and play. My rear speakers i can finally hear them again.

Works fine. Keep in mind that this will be 16-bit audio only.

Used for an older computer that had on-board sound. This was a great and easy upgrade. Plugged in and worked with Win 11, no issues.

I should really have known. This is the third different USB adapter I have tried. All of them look to be based on the 12 year old C-Media chip with 10 year old drivers. SPDIF output shows as "unconnected" in Windows. There is no such thing as output detection for SPDIF (and yes, I did check!!) Just crappy, half baked drivers. If you need SPDIF in/out then don't bother with this one.

Easily cost-effective and simple to install -

This works great with Linux, just plug and play. USB outlet is all you need, no external power source and then an optical audio cable. My only complaint and reason for the return is the compatibility with Windows volume control doesn't work, it just blasts full volume so you have to use the volume control on the speakers. Everything works great on Linux though, there are no problems with volume. This is small and compact and fits anywhere your computer can fit.