[MTCB Hardware Development] Skweebs4gov:
Sound blaster x G5 DOES work on some android devices

Skip to the end to avoid my long pre-amble. Refer to it if you run into issues using the provided steps though. I picked up a sound blaster x G5 on sale at Best Buy for like seventy bucks and was super stoked to hook it up to my moto G4. No dice and after some research and trying it with a powered otg adapter I abandoned the endeavour. Fast forward 4 months and I finally get around to replacing the broken digitizer on an lg gpad f 8.0 v495. Not the entire LCD mind you, just the broken glass digitizer. First attempt doing this on any device ever and it was every bit as hair raising as you might think. From what I understand this is a pretty obscure tablet but it's got great wifi reception and a full size USB port on top independent of the micro USB charging port on the bottom. I can't be certain but I think this is the key to getting the sound blaster x G5 to act as an external USB dac because by all accounts I have come across this should not work. The v495 runs lollipop 5.0.1 and is rooted. Again not sure if rooting is a crucial part of getting this DAC to run as an external USB dac. It was a hassle getting this tablet rooted and supersu installed. I think it was kingroot I originally used to root it but kingroot is crap imho and I wanted supersu on there which I managed to do after quite a bit of hassle. Apparently doing what I did to get supersu can brick your v495 as not a lot has been done with this tablet in the community as from what I gather it is pretty obscure but I'd be happy to help anyone trying to get supersu up and running. Anyhow what you need to do is get a powered USB hub that takes 5v 2amp external power and plug that into the full size USB port. For me I tried three USB 2.0 hubs with external power between one and two amps of external power, no dice on those ones. Ive tried two different USB 3.0 hubs both with 2 amp power plugged into wall socket or power inverter in a car and both worked, even the Walmart onn brand one meant for use with PS4. So far power banks have not worked and I've tried several. It doesn't always start putting out sound right away and I still don't have it 100% figured out, sometimes it takes some unplugging and plugging back in to get audio output from the G5 but once it's going it doesn't cut out and sounds really, really good at least compared to the fiio k1/a1 combo I was using prior though that is still a good combination especially for the price. I use this in my car with a Belkin rockstar 5-way splitter one line going to fiio a1 headphone amp to the aux jack for car stereo and the other line going directly to a Polk audio home theater subwoofer meant for home theater use plugged into a second power inverter. Odd setup? Yup. Cost effective and great sound? Yup. 3.5mm splitters in my experience are notorious for having the timing be off for different outputs and this has been a huge hassle, I've got several and out of two Belkin rockstars only one with two ports of five sync up evenly. Picked up a foil e07k which has two 3.5mm outputs to solve this but it hasn't arrived yet. Possible both line outs on the G5 may solve this too. I am continuing trying to work out the kinks in this setup to have the G5 start outputting the sound without a bunch of u plugging nonsense and just put picked up a high quality USB 3.0 powered hub and will post any further results I get. Here are the STEPS: 1- plug in power supply to USB 3.0 hub. 2- plug in USB 3.0 hub to full size USB port on top of tablet. 3- plug in a flash drive to USB 3.0 hub 4- plug in the G5 to USB 3.0 hub. If it lights up and stay lit with no flashing of the red X you should be in business. If you get no sound output start unplugging and plugging things back in at some point you should get audio output from the G5. Having the tablet charging simultaneously seems to help but isn't necessarily required. Same with having a flash drive plugged into the hub. You can also try having the flash drive plugged into the full size port on the G5, android will be able to access it in either case. Headphone amp on line out(s) from G5 may also help. I'll be updating after further testing. Also, it's a good idea to program some presets on the G5 by using the software provided for windows and Mac, I ran into bizarre sounding music the first time I got this working on the tablet because the WE settings were all over the place when it came to music. Took some trial and error by is easy to correct.