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Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 Reviewed
Julio writes "For some, the Audigy 2 is what the original Audigy should have been, however without trying to underestimate Creative efforts, they are bringing us today a revamped soundcard that is set to raise the bar like the original Live! did, many years ago.
You will be happy to know that Creative has taken care of the board quality from the ground up, newer and better DACs are used to ensure 24-Bit/96-kHz/192kHz playback and among the rest of niceties the card offers you have DVD-Audio playback, full 6.1 surround sound, THX certification and the mandatory (for a Creative soundcard) EAX Advanced HD."
Well, the Audigy 2 (that I pulled from a Dell at work) didn't work properly with SuSE 8.1 or Mandrake 9.1RC2 new installs so I yanked it in favor of my onboard AC'97 sound. Frankly, a sound card is a sound card. If I want high fidelity, the audigy 2 isn't the answer IMHO.
Never mind.
The Digital Output is always active except when playing DRM encoded content, at which point it is disabled. This is a requirement of DRM support otherwise the Audigy 2 would simply not be able to play DRM encoded content, e.g. DVD-Audio, as would be the case for other non-supporting soundcards.
So, no thank you. Also...
Unlike most other Soundcards though, the Audigy 2 can also send a 2, 4 or 5.1 channel signal over it's digital output using a 4 pole mini-jack. For the most part this will only remain compatible with Creative's own Speaker systems e.g. MegaWorks 510D, Inspire 5700, etc. while other receivers are likely to output this signal as stereo.
Sweet. So I also get a crippled Digital Out. Where's my wallet, I must have one of these!
El riesgo vive siempre!
From the interview with Creative's worldwide marketing manager..
Q: The digital outputs are disabled during DVD Audio playback, are there any plans to add more Digital Right Management and copy limitations to the Audigy 2 or any future product?
A: At Creative we don't look at it as adding "limitations" to our technology. We wanted to add DVD-Audio, which we feel (and I am sure all your readers will agree) adds a massive benefit to our product line. However, DVD-Audio incorporates certain copy-protection features that MUST be in place before support of the format is allowed. This is not unique to our card. Even standard DVD-Audio players are not allowed any form of "bit-for-bit" digital output while playing DVD-Audio. Some solutions use proprietary digital connections to deliver the digital content to their amp, etc., which means that you can't plug the digital output into a digital recording device.
Therefore as an "Enabler," we evaluate the benefit of a format against the limitations to the user. For instance, we also support WMA. This has requirements to support their DRM implementation, which we do. Remember that all these technologies do NOT stop you from making personal copies of unprotected media. They simply protect that content using the protection methods of the format.
In short, will we ever add generic "Copy-Protection" technologies to our products that stop users doing what they want with their music/ audio? No.
Will we ever add more formats that may incorporate stringent copy-protection technologies to protect itself? Most definitely, if the format is desirable to our users.
Finally, although there may be very stringent copy-protection formats, it is normally in the field of protecting "exact" digital copies. There is normally flexibility where analog/ low quality copies wish to be made. For instance, the DVD-Audio format does give some flexibility in the areas of 16-bit/ 44.1kHz Digital outputs, or for making analog copies. It was not possible to enable this from day one, but we will work to expose this and provide as much flexibility to our users as we move forward.
Hardly innovative. The Gravis Ultrasound was doing all of that long before the AWE32 hit the market.
Well luckily that will only affect windows users That drm crap is in the software and won't affect Linux users.
But at the same time if you still stuck in Windows-land I'd recommend M-Audio's new budget card to any windoze user who wants something decent without having to deal with Creative.
Personally I'll still continue to buy OEM SB Lives since I've been using them for years and they're supported under every OS known to man.
While I understand what you're trying to get at, USB is far from an ideal solution. First off, USB speakers have indeed been created (Microsoft had some), but the problem is the inherant issues with USB itself. High resource usage, bandwidth usage with multiple devices on the same bus, etc...
;-)
The closest you're going to get to what you're talking about is a solution like the nVidia SoundStorm with realtime DD5.1 encoding. You could output that digital signal over standard coax or optical SPDIF to a receiver to do the sound processing. Of course, at that point you're spending more money than Joe Blow consumer probably wants to spend
Mackie, Alesis, M-audio, Roland, and MOTU (among others) also make professional audio interface equipment for recording and monitoring/listening.
There are a couple of Creative-licensed OEM products (Some of the Alesis stuff looks awfully familiar...) but most of these companies provide far better hardware and software for "real" sound applications. A nice audio interface w/ a pair of active studio monitors will sound worlds better than some cheap consumer surround sound system. The prices are pretty much comparable with Creative's "good" stuff.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Have they fixed their drivers so that they no longer have a file called ctfmon.exe? My SBLive! Value drivers have this and it clashes with something by the same name from Office XP. It causes me no end of grief. Creative Labs will never issue new drivers for my card to fix. Just one of a long line of complaints I have about their poor quality software, and shitty support like with the DXR3. Stick with whatever drivers comes with your OS, or use a product from another company.
There is talk on the web that the Audigy 2 has a hole in its bass response. Sorry I'm too lazy to hunt down a link.
Interested parties, especially home-theater people, should look at stuff based on the VIA EnvyHT chip which does 7.1 and typically has better SNR and lower THD than the Audigy 2, and in some benchmarks has shown to be less cpu intensive for gaming (i.e. higher frame rates with the EnvyHT cards) than the Audigy 2, although it ostensibly does not have as much hardware acceleration for 3D positional audio.
One such card, with *EXCELLENT* bass management is the M-Audio Revolution. See the card at one reseller.
Good Point. Only reasons I'm not still using my old GUS:
1) it was ISA
2) driver compatibility issues
3) was not full-duplex, inasmuch as I can recall.
Like it or not, the AWE32 became the standard, and that's why I still use it today. Everything's backward-compatible with it.
These people looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
Tom's Hardware Review I own one and the problem I have with it is its ASIO access (for low latency with midi devices) isn't very fast, which makes it worthless as a synth.
I bought one of these when they first came out - without a doubt there's no better card out there for the money. However, Creative's still got e VERY annoying software set that may or may not really piss you off... consider:
1. The software on the Creative website (soundblaster.com) are only updates. You CANNOT download full applications or drivers (that only work if you have the card, mind you). So if you lose your original install CD, you're hosed unless you poly up the $25 they want for a new CD
2. The software that gets installed (the mixer, EAX control panels, speaker calibrators, etc.) is a) a HUGE memory hog (we're taling > 92MB on XP Pro with all the bells & whistles loaded) and b) slow, because they chose not to use the standard Windows toolbox to build it. All kinds of unnecessary stuff is in there - transparent drop downs (like OS X), etc...
3. If you install the full software suite - it's ALWAYS there... at one point or another, every 10 minutes you'll be reminded of the fact that you have a CREATIVE card in your rig... and that stupid splash screen at every startup / login is one of the most annoying things... if you can find out how to shut it off the first time in less than 15 minutes of searching, I'll give you a cookie. Chocolate chip, even.
As always, this is My $0.02, so YMMV. Me? I get around this by installing the drivers only and the individual apps as necessary (which is rare since most of their offerings have better share/freeware counterparts).
It's a great card, but I've had it for months already - and it wasn't just released when I bought it either.
A couple of linux notes:
* support was added in early January in the opensource driver
* the newest beta of Red Hat Linux supports the card out of the box.
It seems this needs to be cleared up for the ignorant reactionaries in the audience...
The DVD-Audio protection does NOT cripple the Audigy 2 when compared to other sound cards because the Audigy 2 is the only card that supports DVD-Audio at all! DVD-Audio is not the same thing as audio channels on DVD playback which DO work through the Audigy 2's digital outputs.
The only time digital output is disabled is when DVD-Audio discs are played, but DVD-Audio is such a niche format right now that it isn't likely to seriously affect anyone.
I held out for the A2 Platinum Ex like a good little audiophile, and I am very happy with it in most areas. I do some home recording with some pretty decent instruments, so I wanted to make sure I could do 24/96 recording through S/PDIF. So far so good. I couldn't justify getting a real pro recording sound card, since I still use my computer for gaming and such. A2 Platinum Ex was my "good recording/good gaming" compromise, and it is less expensive than a true musician's card.
:-)
Good speakers can be a mixed blessing. They make a good signal sound great, but they also make a mediocre signal sound awful. I had Logitech's THX 4.1 system hooked up to the motherboard's AC-97 before I got the A2. It took me weeks to get the EQ to sound good. The A2, out of the box with no EQ tweaks, blew away my highly tweaked AC-97 sound. I was so happy! The signals, especially on the low end, are much cleaner than the AC-97. Bass lines that used to be way too boomy are now clean and crisp, yet still powerful.
The audio inputs are the A2's greatest improvement over a stock card. With AC-97, things I recorded rarely sounded the same on playback. A2 is simply excellent in this respect. I am able to get a mix that sounds virtually indistinguishable from some professionally recorded cd's. It's not 100% perfect, but what do you expect out of a consumer-grade card and an inexperienced recording engineer?
The one kicker is that Linux support is virtually non-existant. *grr* I haven't been able to get one peep out of it in RedHat 8 (flame away), and I refuse to pay $40 for a third party driver. So much for pathos.
Bottom line: Audiophiles, aspiring musicians, home theater buffs, this card is for you. You will need good speakers to make the most of your experience, so beware. We're talking about a very pricey upgrade. But if you appreciate great sound, I promise you will not be disappointed.
Most folks, however, will be better served by the stock AC-97 and its plentiful support for both Windows and Linux.
Cheers!
Most true audio geeks would never use a SB Live in the first place, that's why. The Audigy2 is the first consumer card to do true 24/96 resolution for input/output, all the way through the audio path. The Audigy1 *claimed* 24/96, but the internal DACs were still 16-bit so having 24-bit outputs was useless. For comparision, it's the difference between the sound quality of a CD (16-bit) and the sound quality of a DVD-Audio disc (24-bit). It's a quality difference that won't "blow you away" and you may not even notice the difference unless you have a good pair of speakers/headphones or your ears are "trained" to pick up minor quality changes, but if you are someone who enjoys good audio fidelity, it's a great option for a consumer who is a bit of an audiophile, but also plays games so a pro-level card is not an option.
If memory serves, I believe that the Audigy2 onboard processing is also far more powerful than the SB Live, so that enabling Creative's 3D positional effects in games won't be a resource drag on your system, and it supports Creative's newest advances in those kinds of effects (which may or may not float your boat).
Personally, I think audio in games is vastly underrated, by both gamers and developers. Good audio is just as important in games as it is in movies. But I think a lot of people don't want to buy a separate speaker system for their computer, either because they already invested a lot in their home theatre system, or they don't want to seem like a "geek" by shelling out for one of the 5.1 computer speaker setups just to play games. I think console games will really start to overcome this, because the console is already hooked into the home theatre system. For instance, DTS just released an SDK to help developers put DTS into their PS2 games.
But I digress. It doesn't sound like the Audigy2 is something you *need*, but it might make for a more enjoyable experience in Doom 3 because of the increased fidelity and effects processing since you indicated you already had a surround system hooked up to your box.
Acually, the Sharp DX-SX1 SACD player and their SM-SX1 amp have a special connection that let them transmit the SACD bitstream as well. I haven't heard these, but have heard the Pioneer setup this past weekend and it's nice to only have the single cable since the DAC's on the 49Txi are so nice. I was pretty sure that someone else had a player that could transmit a signal as well, but can't remember who (since it was out of my price range).
That drm crap is in the software and won't affect Linux users.
It certainly will affect Linux users. There simply won't be support for digital out at all under Linux, neatly solving the problem.
May we never see th