Midi is not sound (and never has been), midi is instructions, you need to send the midi to a synth to generate sound. Could be a virtual synth. Your previous soundcards had onboard synths that took the midi instructions and turned them into sound. It is very easy to just direct your midi to whatever synth (running on the PC) you want. Which is also preferable, as the synths on the Soundblasters are/were not very good.
This is all a step forward, having your D/A A/D convertors and all other sound generating mularky (such as the stage) outside of your PC (a land of massive RF interference and unpleasant gubbins) is a good thing to do. Midi is just a set of instructions, as easily transported via USB as much as it is by a 5 pin din cable (for it is just a protocol). In a perfect sound producing with a computer world the only information going in and out of your PC should be digital signals/instructions, all conversions of the digital signal/instructions into and out of something humanly audible should be done by dedicated hardware outside of your PC.
Tl,dr; Just grab any of the many free virtual synths out there and send it your midi files, then plug your speakers into the audio out (even from your onboard, probably Realtek sound chip).
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