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."

Comments

DRM?

[the Man in Black]

Any buil-in DRM things or other nastiness that I need to know about? Meaning, can I use the full potential of this card in Linux?

Re:DRM?

[mozumder]

They could have done what Pioneer has done in their top of the line Elite 49Txi receiver and 47Ai universal player- use an encrypted IEEE-1394 output instead of the optical/electrical digital link. They do this using approved standards for firewire audio transmission.

This is the only DVD-Audio or SACD player on the market capable of outputting a digitial audio signal (the article is wrong).

Of course the only thing that would be able to recieve this signal would be the 49Txi itself, but someone has to start somewhere to get high-end digital audio directly to the amplifier.

Actually, with a firewire audio output and a receiver that accepts firewire input, you wouldn't even need a soundcard... Anyone wanna try to write a device driver that can play audio through firewire???

AWE 32

[msaulters]

AWE 32 was the last big worthwhile 'innovation' in sound cards. I'm still using mine all these years later, and it's all I've ever needed. It's a real wonder sound cards are even around these days. Seems to me all the circuitry should be in the speakers, with audio delivered over USB. Reduce noise inherent inside the PC case, and you only have to pay once for some nice, expensive speakers (which you need, anyway). My days of paying $200 or more for a sound card ended somewhere back around 1993-1995. It's just not worth it to me to spend that kind of cash, when you still have to add the cost of speakers on top of it to see the performance boost.

creative drivers still suck

[Indy1]

after the sb live fiasco a few years ago, i think anyone who uses creative is nuts. There are much better alternatives, such as the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, or Hercules Game Threater or Fortissmo III.

I love the Audigy Ex

[tmark]

I bought the Audigy Ex (the first one) a few months ago. The Audigy 2 had just come out, but besides the fact that I got a great deal on mine, the external version had still not been released.

I didn't really care about the sound features that much, so I don't know it stacks up in that department, but what I was really interested in was being able to move all my cables from the back of my PC to my desktop. It drove me absolutely batty having to adjust the headphone volume by either reaching around to the back of the PC, or by running the mixer app. And it drove me crazy having to crawl under my desk to plug/unplug my headphones. Now I can plug in and adjust the volume with barely a reach.

I do wish that there was a master volume control on the panel, though, and I also wish that the damn cables attaching the external panel to the back of the PC wasn't so rigid - makes it really hard to position things. I understand that the Audigy 2 fixes at least the latter problem; I can't tell about the former because there doesn't seem to be specs on the Audigy2 Ex on the creative website.

The final wish on my list would be for them to have put a USB hub in the unit...oh well...

Still not there.

[teamhasnoi]

The problem with the original Audigy was its misleading claim of 24 bit recording and playback. It *seems* that the abillity is now there, but hard to get. Defaults sound like upsampling is still being used. Of course, I like the sound quality of talking out of my ass...

Re:Audio cards

[teamhasnoi]

I must add Aardvark to your list; I own the q10, and it is swell! Built better than Protools (digi001) stuff, and sounds great.

The Mbox from Digidesign is pretty nice too, altho Win/mac only. All do 24/96 without breaking a sweat.

I have a prediction...

[Anonymous Coward]

Creative's days of better-stronger-faster are numbered.

Intel can't get away with it any more than Creative can, I believe, and it won't be long before Creative will have to start advertising real features consumers want, rather than how many speakers the card powers, or how man kHz sampling it's capable of. Noone who is not doing professional audio work NEEDS anything better than 44 kHz. Screech if you want, but who can tell the difference?

Eventually, how high the sampling number is for a sound card is going to cease to be meaningful, if it hasn't already. As it is, I find the Soundblaster Live has TOO MANY features for my needs, which involve good stereo sound, and the ability to capture CD audio, and play it back.

Now, seriously. Are we falling into the trap of just upgrading sound cards for the sake of doing it, because that's what people 'do' with PCs? Unless you're putting in a Dolby 5.1 system, for heavens sakes, for your computer, I just can't see the point here.

Unless you like DRM protected audio.

Huh?

[The Bungi]

Does anybody else find it quite interesting that julio@techspot.com is submitting a review from Techspot.com? And getting it through?

A review that looks like this:

• The (click for page 2)
• Audigy2 (click for page 3)
• soundcard (click for page 4)
• is (click for page 5)
• really (click for page 6)
• cool (click for page 7)
• . (click for page 8)
• ...

And has more ads per square inch than most pr0n sites?

No? Oh, look! A black helicopter!!