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Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 Reviewed

Posted by timothy on from the handy-built-in-digital-out-disabling dept.

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."

76 of 371 comments (clear)

  1. Dear slashdot.... by Phosphor3k · · Score: 5, Funny

    Please advertise my un-innovative and slow-selling product for free. Thank you.

    1. Re:Dear slashdot.... by Telastyn · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Huh? they mentioned their extremely high selling live cards too. It's not Creative's fault that the card is now cheap ($27 oem from pricewatch) and sufficient for even gamers' needs...

      Odd that this market is one where people don't seem to be upgrading to something they don't need.

  2. Wow! Interesting! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    A review of a six month old product!

    Hip hip hooray!

  3. DRM? by the+Man+in+Black · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

    --
    El riesgo vive siempre!
    1. Re:DRM? by the+Man+in+Black · · Score: 5, Informative

      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!
    2. Re:DRM? by br0ck · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    3. Re:DRM? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    4. Re:DRM? by mozumder · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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???

    5. Re:DRM? by edhall · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This has always puzzled me: why is there such an obsession with preventing bit-for-bit copies? Properly done, digital re-recording from the analog output is likely to cause considerably less distortion than MP3 encoding, even at 256Kb/s. And the RIAA will be the first to tell you that MP3's are by far the biggest "piracy" threat represented by the internet. Preventing digital output will only be a minor impediment to copying, while the inability to use digital interconnects is a major blow to functionality.

      -Ed
    6. Re:DRM? by cheinonen · · Score: 3, Informative

      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).

    7. Re:DRM? by edhall · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's a PITA once, for one person. Then everyone else uses the same setup, since they have the exact same card. I agree that there are a lot of variables involved in analog recording, and a lot of complex decisions to be made; a good recording engineer is as much artist as engineer. But virtually none of those variables exist in a simple analog out -> analog in loop. Once properly adjusted, full-scale on the D/A will result in full scale on the A/D -- maximum safe S/N, no clipping, and so on.

      -Ed
    8. Re:DRM? by 0x0d0a · · Score: 4, Informative

      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
    9. Re:DRM? by captaineo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The main thing they're trying to prevent is a home user making a copy-proof disc of their OWN original music. Ever notice how none of the common DRM formats let you encrypt stuff you've made yourself? The industry wants to make sure that all up-and-coming talent has to come through their doors...

    10. Re:DRM? by ngdbsdmn · · Score: 2, Interesting
      the obsession with bit2bit copies is motivated by the same reason behind the obsession that your ver. 2.1 product is now obsolete and needs to be replaced with the ever more cool 2.1.2 product.

      this new product is always "the ultimate" as in "we were so stupid until now but we really got it right this time. we don't know the concept of upgrade and if you bought our shit until know we sincerely trust you're stupid to do so from now on even though we all know that each new time you buy you only pay 10% for new things we added and 90% for shit you already had and hence payed for but hey we always hungry"

      DRM is really a piece of shit. the reason it exists is the following:

      • piratable product's builders realized that their inability to control the price in whatever way they want is a fat killer. they need to aquire non-piratable status in order to be able to ask for a product much more then it's worth.

      • scince they clearly see that it is not posible through software only they're trying to create a new generation of hardware that will be able to constrain any software to their will. this is a very dangerous point in the evolution of hardware and I hope that buyers will give this new Sony, Creative etc. hardware the same fate that Intel's identification methode in the CPU recived.

      imagine that a matter duplicator existed and that you would be able to duplicate hardware (this includes food and women too :)).i don't think that there is a greater nightmare for all the fat people. imagine how it would be to do not need them anymore and instead only need the smart people, the talented people.

      i think it is worth fighting for fat's death through fighting against DRM so i'll give either a big NO or a big Fuck you (*) i know a way around (**)! to any DRM enabled product.

      * - Sony & Friends, Microsoft & Friends, RIAA & Friends
      ** - ATRAC, WMA, DVD, etc.

    11. Re:DRM? by seaan · · Score: 2, Informative

      This has always puzzled me: why is there such an obsession with preventing bit-for-bit copies?

      The real secret -- the digital piracy threat plays great in Washington. At this point, and for quite a while in the future the threat is just a myth. It was certainly true when the first anti-digital law was passed in 1992 (Digital Home Recording Act), and Napster did not change anything.

      The threat than, and now, is low quality copies. Back then it was kids with $50 dubbing-cassette boomboxes, now its 128-bit (or worse) MP3. I really sneer every time I hear the phrase "perfect digital copy" (it was even used in Loefgren's B.A.L.A.N.C.E. act). The real problem is digital distribution, not the act of multiple copies.

      By playing games with digital outputs (not allowing them for DVD video, or DVD-A/SACD Audio; or crippling DAT outputs), the only people they really dissuade from making copies are the very people who are their best customers - the audiophile/videophile (these fools, and I include myself here, have been known to buy multiple copies of recordings). The people the who are listening to copies instead of buying recordings don't care much about quality.

      So why do they keep maintaining this myth? The publishers (ie. RIAA and MPAA) get a bunch of advantages. The advantages of the "perfect digital copies" myth include:

      * Congress thinks this is a good enough excuse to pass laws (publishers have to add money too, but it gives congress some type of intellectual cover) - primary excuse for DHRA, DMCA, and a bunch of other proposed laws.
      * It gives the publishers a stick to control the equipment manufactures with
      * It gives the publishers power to be a gatekeeper, even for media and distribution forms they don't currently use (how else can the MPAA get broadcast flags put in computers?).
      * It slows down the path to direct distribution, and keeps up the profit margin of large media companies.
      * It discourages home grown music (most modern equipment can't record, and if they can it is often with crippled options - aka Sony Minidisc).

      In reality Digital controls do not have much effect on casual copying. The exception is the video arena where the MPAA got mandated MacroVision/CopyGuard, and the wet dreams of other publishers is to get a similar fix for their "analog holes".

      Looking back historically, it is easy to see how congress was "rolled". The publishers tried for years to get new rights and privileges over analog content, but were mostly rejected. When they trotted out the Perfect Digital Copy myth; Congress rolled over and gave them controls past their wildest dreams (the current DMCA). Now they are working backwards, and complaining that they don't have the same control over analog (actually they are asking for far more than they ever asked back in the pre-digital days; but now they have the precedence in the current digital controls).

  4. Audigy2 and Linux don't play well together by kikensei · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Audigy2 and Linux don't play well together by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Use REAL equipment to play REAL music

      That's why i have a string quartet play live for me at home

  5. SB16 by crumbz · · Score: 4, Funny

    Man, I remember putting a SB16 into my 486 dx2 just to play doom. Same reason I installed a NIC into it for the first time too. Head to head on a couple 486 boxen. No audigy for me, I got my $200 odd bucks saved for a 100GB drive.....

    1. Re:SB16 by Malc · · Score: 2, Funny

      Probably had to remove the CDROM drive or hard drive, or knock a whole in the front of the case too. Those cards were big!

    2. Re:SB16 by Sporkinum · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Ahh.. you youngsters.. I bought my first soundcard to play Wolfenstine on my 386 sx16. It was a Mediavision Thunderboard 8 bit mono sound card. After a year or so I got a Pro Audio Spectrum 16, followed by a Diamond Monster Sound MX200, SB128, and finally a CMI8738. Strangely enough, I still have all those old cards.

      --
      "He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
    3. Re:SB16 by Powercntrl · · Score: 2, Funny

      Man, I remember putting a SB16 into my 486 dx2 just to play doom.

      Am I the only one that thinks the SB16 wasn't such a bad card? I don't mean the late-model single-chip crap ones, I mean the old first generation big ass ISA cards with the Creative/Panasonic (or SCSI if you were lucky) interface on them! I mean they have pretty decent audio quality, an actual 4 watt amplifier so you could use a cheap $10 pair of unamplifed speakers, or plug in your headphones and blast your brains around in your head. The bass, treble and volume settings were not controlled by a DSP mixer, so you had to actually exceed the onboard amplifier to cause distortion. The card had jumpers... None of this bullshit plug and play crap... You plugged it in and it fscking kept its IRQ, DMA and hex address settings. Perfect compatibility with old DOS games, Windows 3.1, OS/2, Linux, and hell even WinXP still!

      I mean, seriously... Modern sound cards suck... All the outputs are line-level so if you plug in your headphones you can't hear shit, there's either NO DOS compatibility or drivers that don't work, crash your game, or use almost all of your conventional memory. The volume and tone levels are all digitally controlled inside the DSP... If you max out your EQ or volume and play a MP3 that's been normalized to 99% of the available dynamic range, the stupid DSP will do dynamic range compression on the output. And let's not forget hardware-based wave mixing. The SB16 didn't support it, so if you were listening to a MP3, there'd be no annoying sounds playing over it.

      The only thing that sucks about the SB16 is lack of 48KHz playback support... But you know what? I am going to find a way to write my own realtime downsampling driver, I can't hear the difference between 48KHz and 44.1KHz anyway.

      It's a shame the fastest motherboard I have that still has ISA is an Asus P2-99. But you know what? With a BIOS update and a slot 1 Tualatin adapter, I can upgrade it to 1.4GHz and still keep using my SB16. Muahahahahahahahah! SB16 forever!

      --

      ---
      DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
  6. AWE 32 by msaulters · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    --
    These people looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
    1. Re:AWE 32 by Chmarr · · Score: 5, Informative

      Hardly innovative. The Gravis Ultrasound was doing all of that long before the AWE32 hit the market.

    2. Re:AWE 32 by RebelWebmaster · · Score: 4, Informative

      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 ;-)

    3. Re:AWE 32 by msaulters · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.
    4. Re:AWE 32 by Dalroth · · Score: 2, Informative

      I've got a USB sound card. It's called the Soundblaster Extigy and it's a piece of crap. It skips, pops, and whirs all the time while playing audio. It does the same thing while RECORDING audio, and what really sucks is it does the same thing while playing back that audio so you get double the pops, whistles, cracks and whirs.

      Windows XP system, fresh install, updated drivers for everything.

      No, USB sound cards are definitely *NOT* the way to go and once again have me questioning why I should ever buy a Creative Labs product again....

      Bryan

    5. Re:AWE 32 by Warphammer · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, IIRC the GUS was the first full-duplex capable card, it's just that noone really used it back then. You also had to set it up "split", so that the input and output sides took seperate DMA channels, a pain if you were resource-constrained.

    6. Re:AWE 32 by truenoir · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well, a few things occur to me.

      First, I dunno if this was a driver limitation or what, but I seem to remember decent restrictions on multiple sound streams. As in, I would be playing an MP3 and so ICQ couldn't make sounds. This was with a ISA AWE64 Value in NT 4 anyway. Once I went to a PCI sound card ($17 OEM Yamaha card) I could have plenty of simultaneous audio. I think this was a restriction of the drivers and/or ISA bus more than the chip though.

      The Live and the Audigy that I've had after that have, in my opinion, sounded progressively better. The signal is cleaner (at least according to specs and cranking my reciever up), sound is richer, and they have digital outputs. Not to mention positional audio, which is pretty cool. Needed for basic sound? No. Sound is practically a given nowdays though (and should be). A decent PCI card can be had for $20-50 though. I think the only people paying $200 or more are those buying Audigy Platinums or professional audio cards.

      USB audio is a pretty bad idea in my opinion. Sure, theoretically it works great. However, in practice, not always so. I've seen problems with Macs using them. Macs...machines on which audio has just simply "been there" on for years, now have strange volume drops or muting (with some USB speakers). I can't imagine how bad it can get with PCs with more variety in the hardware.

      Besides, I've been using my old reciever and a pair of Polk Audio bookshelf speakers for 5 years now, and I've yet to hear a pair of computer speakers match them full range (especially at under $200, which is about what I paid). Those of us with more than a dinky sub/satellite combo will always want a real audio output anyway (though a digital optical would probably do).

      As far as the audio chip is concerned, true, most people probably don't use much more than the functionality of an AWE32...or a Sound Blaster PCI/Ensonique AudioPCI as the case may be, since the AWE32 (to my knowledge) was an ISA only card. But newer cards have cleaner sound and more output options...for those of us that want them.

  7. If it�s anything like my live� by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...it'll be about 4 years until they get the drivers right.

  8. creative drivers still suck by Indy1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    --
    Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
    1. Re:creative drivers still suck by 0x0d0a · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think you mean "*Windows* drivers for Creative cards still stuck".

      --
      May we never see th
  9. Sound Cards, the SB-Live-Audigy upgrade train. by stratjakt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ok, consider first that I'm not a hardcore audiophile, and neither are most.

    Once I got positional audio by way of the Live! series, what motivation is left to upgrade?

    I mean I get positional audio and EAX in my games, I get surround sound in my movies. I rip/encode/playback my MP3s. I dont lose CPU time to the audio system, or deal with the setup hell that existed back in the ISA cards era. My PC isnt a media jukebox or lined through a $10,000 stereo, just a 4 way speaker set.

    Why would anyone upgrade past Live, if they weren't an audiophile demanding the very latest (and even then, why would they? Most true audio geeks I know run 10 year old equipment).

    I mean what breakthrough technologies have been developed? Two more speaker channels?

    It's not like video cards. When Doom 3 comes out, and doesnt run on my computer, I can guarantee it will be because of the old Radeon card, not my SB Live.

    So, really, what's been added to these things? Are there any good arguments to upgrade?

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
    1. Re:Sound Cards, the SB-Live-Audigy upgrade train. by petsounds · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    2. Re:Sound Cards, the SB-Live-Audigy upgrade train. by FromWithin · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You could upgrade to the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card.

      IMO, Sensaura's 3D positional audio is vastly superior to the Creative stuff and makes a huge difference with first person games. Really good drivers as well.

      And for the price, there's simply no comparison whatsoever.

  10. I hope by fredrikj · · Score: 2, Informative

    I hope that their drivers are better this time around than with the first Audigy. Or at least, that their tech support has gotten better.

    Can you believe it, when I asked them for a fix to a bug that prevented me from loading soundfont files with my brand new Audigy, the answer was that there "was no such bug"?

    It took weeks before I accidentally stumbled upon a solution in a forum somewhere.

  11. I love the Audigy Ex by tmark · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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...

  12. Works in linux by bigskinnee · · Score: 2, Informative

    Works for me. I have this card in my box running Debian (sid) and it works fine with the CVS version of the http://sourceforge.net/projects/emu10k1 driver.

    Granted I dont use midi digital out or any of the fancy stuff right now but the I get sound from the line out and the headphones (from the live drive) and the fire wire port on the live drive works as well.

  13. Audio cards by mfh · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.
    1. Re:Audio cards by teamhasnoi · · Score: 3, Interesting
      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.

    2. Re:Audio cards by afidel · · Score: 3, Informative

      Consider that the Korg Tritan, possibly the best workstation ever, is based on the EMU 10K chip which is the heart of the Audigy I don't think that CL makes substandard equipment. I love the fact that my $40 Audigy OEM has ASIO drivers that allow me to get latency that is lower than many of the professional cards in apps like Cubase and Reason. Plus monitors suck compared to a good pair of refrence headphones, I personally use super-aureal Senheisers, cost me only $70 and sound better than any pair of speakers I have heard other than $10K super audiophile stuff.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  14. ctfmon.exe?? by Malc · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  15. Re:Progress by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    You've obviously never used my favorite sound reproduction system.

    I call it PC Speaker.

    Get down with the boops and the beeps, yeah!!

  16. Not so hot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  17. Excellent, but buy the budget card. by bushboy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I got the Audigy1 with all the bells and whistles, aiming to venture into the world of electronic music, sound capture, Dolby surround EAX gaming sounds etc.

    All I ever did was the games.

    It's really nice, but overkill - buy the budget version unless you intend to use the card to it's full potential.

    If you have an Audigy already, there's little reason to upgrade.

    --
    A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
  18. Still not there. by teamhasnoi · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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...

  19. 2496? by dmnic · · Score: 2, Interesting

    until it can do TRUE 24bit 96kHz operation(input/output) it will never be nothing more than gaming card.

    dont know about this iteration of Audigy, but the Live Platinum, Audigy and Extigy would automaticlly resample whatever signal was thrown at it to 16/44.1, evenif the original signal was allready 16/44.1.
    needless to say, this resulted in non Bit-perfect digital transfers(from DAT, CD, etc to HardDisc and vice-versa).

    I'll stick with my M-Audio Audiophile 2496 for $130 thank you very much

    --
    the history of the world
    1. Re:2496? by dmnic · · Score: 2, Informative

      16/48...not sure I understand this question.

      yes, the Live(and Audigy and Extigy) resampled EVERYTHING, no matter what bit-rate/resolution the signal was in.
      if you ripped a cd digitally, it was allready at 16/44.1 the Live(etc...) would take that 16/44.1 signal and resample it to 16/44.1(why is beyond me).

      if your source file was 16/48 or 24/48 or 24/96 or anything other than 16/44.1 the Live(et all) would downsample to 16/44.1 without using a proper Dither. needless to say, the resulting sound was very inferior in quality compared to the source

      --
      the history of the world
  20. Still happy with the Live! Value by wayward_son · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I still like my old SB Live! Value. Good clear sound. Does well with games and mp3's. Of course, I'm not exactly an audiophile either.

    For most (90%) of people, a good set of speakers is a much wiser investment in sound quality than a good sound card. On a cheap set of speakers, an SB Audigy, SB Live!, the AC97 that came with your mobo, and even a 10 year old SB16 don't sound terribly different. Only good speakers can truly take advantage of a good sound card.

    1. Re:Still happy with the Live! Value by checkyoulater · · Score: 3, Funny

      For most (90%) of people, a good set of speakers is a much wiser investment in sound quality than a good sound card. On a cheap set of speakers,

      Don't waste your money on a new set of speakers. You get more mileage from a cheap pair of sneakers.

      Sorry, couldn't resist. I love that song.

      --
      Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
  21. Er, the Audigy 2 has been out for almost 6 months by SmirkingRevenge · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  22. It's about bandwidth, too. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    DVD-audio requires more bandwidth than can be handled by a digital coax / optical output. This is the same as on standalone DVD-audio players - they just have 6 analog outputs. Firewire is supposed to fix this...

  23. Great card, but the Software's Annoying... by seigniory · · Score: 5, Informative

    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).

    1. Re:Great card, but the Software's Annoying... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Run msconfig, look in your startup list. There is the creative taskbar that I disable as well as the splash screen. Leave the CSTray.exe as this allows easy access to the settings of the card. Reboot.

      No more splash screen or taskbar. Makes using the Audigy a lot nicer.

      Philip

    2. Re:Great card, but the Software's Annoying... by sllim · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I have an SBLive Platinum.
      I just allow XP to load up whatever drivers it wants and I don't screw with it past that.

      By doing that I have no annoying Creative splash screens or anything else bothering me.

      Any reason you can't just slap the Audigy in and allow XP to handle the drivers?

    3. Re:Great card, but the Software's Annoying... by Cruciform · · Score: 2, Informative

      There is a way to do a full install using the update versions of the driver.

      You can find it here.

      I managed to do it another way as well, but can't remember offhand. My disk was missing from my collection of driver disks when I got the OEM card, but the dealer had extras kicking around. It doesn't hurt to ask for them :)

      And as the parent says, full install SUCKS! Go with only what you need.

    4. Re:Great card, but the Software's Annoying... by ledgeerama · · Score: 2, Informative

      Or you can avoid Creative's drivers by installing the kx drivers available here.

      Those these drivers are aimed more at musicians than gamers.

    5. Re:Great card, but the Software's Annoying... by 0x0d0a · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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

      I don't believe people are making clones, so I can't figure out why they'd have any justification to do this. I mean, so someone downloads the damn driver. Do they really think that that person *doesn't* have the card? Or is it just that their installer is so bloated that they don't want to pay for the bandwidth.

      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...

      I've always wondered about this. There seems to be this big trend in "utility" software to hacked-up bitmapped interfaces. Why, why do companies do this? It looks tremendously unprofessional, it's a pain to use (Well, this menu works sort of like in Windows, and on this one you can't read the text well...).

      There's also a move towards huge installers. For chrissake, it's a drive. All people want is for the damn thing to work. Creative feels like it hired a ton of programmers, and couldn't find anything for them to do except write low-quality pack-in software. People want the 200KB driver. A control panel? Maybe another 200KB on top of it, if a logo is included, etc, etc. There shouldn't be any reason for anything else.

      Creative does this. The Razor Boomslang guys do this. Matrox doesn't do the bitmapped thing, but does pack loads of extra crap in with their drivers.

      --
      May we never see th
  24. why no OS X or Linux drivers? by The+Lynxpro · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I really do not understand the logic of Creative Labs. Why can't they offer up-to-date driver support for these other operating systems? Sure, they (Creative) are one of the featured Microsoft partners on *the Beast's* video ipod, but Nvidia makes the majority of the chips in the Xbox yet their relationship with MS doesn't hamper their ability to offer drivers for Linux, OS X, BSD, etc. Maybe they are just lazy. For all the talk about Linux adoption in Asia, Creative Labs sure is missing the boat, and they are a Singapore based company to boot! Maybe their CEO needs to be cained.

    --
    "Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
  25. Isn't this a couple of months late? by teg · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  26. Re:What a great job by Chemical · · Score: 2, Funny
    There was a story on Slashdot about "naming consultants" many many moons ago. They are the people who came up with all those dot-com era company names like "Agilent", "Accenture", and all those other stupid names by basically scouring the dictionary and inventing a new word out of two existing ones. And I think the fee was something like $50k per name.

    I'm sure most of the people who went into that line of work are now living under a freeway overpass in a cardboard box.

  27. DVD-Audio by Mooset · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  28. I have a prediction... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  29. Re:Progress by zenst · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Whilst its not just there yet on the studio production level with its internal DAC's would it not be most effective as such with its digital out and a comercial DAC! Lets face it if your realy realy serious about recordings then you would do everything digitaly and then when you need that lovely analogue sound then just use the digital output's that have been around since day 1 of the live series and an external DAC. Most hifi shops sell such audiophile components and combined with a nice soundcard and latest PC power. Then it still boils down to the ability of the user to work within the interface bounds they are given. Soundblaster cards have always had there quirks but like the microsoft operating system there fairly common/standard and they are known quirks and workarounds. All this screaming for the perfect dB rating of the outputs and frequency range tetc etc its pointless when you can work totaly digitaly even down to burning onto CD and digitaly outputing the signal to an external DAC. Anybody who has botherd to have speakers worthy of such a quality output will think nothing if not already have an external DAC for the CD player, with its advantage that it cuts down on interferance from the rest of the CD player/components. What I'd like to see is an external firwire connected soundcard that is mainly software based with external DAC for output and the money spent there. Todays PC's are more than capable of doing alot of the work instead of an onboard DSP and a fast connection to an external breakout box with audio in/out and digital in/out etc would be all that is effectivly required from a user. the main cost of such a device would be in software and the hardware costs would be very comparable to todays kit even with a top end DAC included. Still I suspect that most people just play games and use headphones and play mp3's so the quality aspect whilst a plus is not exactly on there priority given there speaker/amp situation and the source of the materal there playing. Everybody I know that does anything else with there soundcard use a soundblaster or some top end unheard of brand and are more than happy. Remeber its a home PC soundcard not RADIO FM's main broadcast headend, though I suspect that it would be more than capable of the job without the external DAC without going to the expense of a £1000+ specilist card like a digigram.

  30. Huh? by The+Bungi · · Score: 4, Interesting
    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!!

  31. Why bother? by cruc · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Bloated software, annoying DRM and uber-annoying splashscreens, all for the priviledge to be offerred another soundcard to end all soundcards a year later-all Creative soundcard trademarks since the Live! My new NForce2 board with built-in Dolby Digital (Nforce APU) really does sound better than my Audigy did, uses less resources, has no compatability/performance issues with DirectX and with no card, blocks less circulatory air.

  32. A2 Platinum Ex... happiness, mostly by IcerLeaf · · Score: 3, Informative

    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!

  33. Sound card technology marches on.. by Nonillion · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While I'm sure this is a nice card I have really no need for 24 bit audio in the computer shack. Furthermore, I have some concers reguarding DRM.

    1. Have the MPAA/RIAA forced DRM into the DAC on this card?

    2. What about CPU resources, is this card totally stupid and require the CPU to hold its hand in the D/A A/D process? Or is it smart enough to do this on its own.

    3. How is support under Linux? I'd hate to plunk down my hard earned cash only to find that it only works under Windows.

    4. Is it really worth it to justify replacing my perfectly functioning Sound Blaster Live! card I currently use?

    Unless I can think of a reason to use 24 bit 96 KHz audio (other than home theater) I'll just stick with what I have..

    yes > /dev/mem

    --
    "I bow to no man" - Riddick
    1. Re:Sound card technology marches on.. by Furry+Ice · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I fail to see how 96 kHz audio is useful even for home theater. The human ear cannot hear 48 kHz sounds...any sampling rate over 44 KHz (= 22 kHz maximum frequency) is useless overkill. The 24 bit samples make a lot more sense than the 96 kHz sampling rate to me.

    2. Re:Sound card technology marches on.. by Furry+Ice · · Score: 2, Redundant

      Yes, and the highest frequency that can be accurately reconstructed from a signal sampled 40 kHz is 20 kHz.

  34. +'s and third party drivers to remedy creative's! by op51n · · Score: 2

    I certainly agree on that much, kinda...
    I have never liked Creative, they're as M$ sa sound hardware can be. But on the other hand I have been quite impressed by the Audigy I picked up. I wanted to get a MontegoII, but couldn't get one across here (UK), so in the end I caved and picked up the Audigy instead (I needed a replacement second soundcard since my 128 with the Yamaha GX daughterboard died, for mixing and music purposes) and the sound quality is the best I've heard yet. Given I'm pumping my soundcards (Live and Audigy) through a mixing desk and good quality 100watt amp, quality all the way through is fairly important, especially when recording the output to get a mix. So on that front I think i'll probably get round to replacing the Live with an Audigy 2, since the Live is noticably worse than the Audigy, and is now essentially my bottleneck.
    Also, the EAX advanced is quite nice in gaming. The games it works with (Mafia, SOFII among others) sound beautiful. Mafia it makes souns remarkably like you are driving through a town, helped by the superb sound work that went into said game. The acclusion programming gives it a great help (nice smooth transitions between say outdoors and driving into a warehouse with echos that sound right, also noticable in GTA3), and SOFII it gives similarly great effects to. It just adds that bit extra to a good game. Playing it with e volume up really high you really do notice it. A friend of mine who came over to play SOFII, he'd played it on his machine with a Live, was blown away by the sound quality and effects.
    Also it can finally support Aureal A3D, which I have to use in iL2Sturmovik, since for some reason it doesn't like using EAXAdvanced (although I will retry it since I've just reinstalled with the latest drivers, and patched iL2 to it's latest version).

    All in all, if your machine can get on with it, it's a great card, but Creative and their support suck so bad that it's a bit of a minefield whether it'll work.
    I am aware that there's a team who made a third party driver for the Audigy, the kxproject. Whether it can now support EAX however I'm not sure of since I ended up not having to use it. But it's worth taking a look at.

  35. Re:provably useless commercial BS by Bassman59 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Stud:

    This is provably useless to anyone who has done any basic signal theory.

    * 24 bit gives a SNR of 144dB. How many people have mikes and/or baffles with such a quality ? 24bit is useless unless maybe for processing, in order not to lose significant digits, but that should be in pure software. Case dismissed.

    The point is that a DAC or ADC with higher resolution is more accurate. 16-bit converters aren't really 16-bit accurate. So, a 24-bit converter gives you 21 or 22 good bits, and while the rest is noise, it's still more accurate than a 16-bit part.

    Besides, the 24-bit parts are the ones the chip vendors are pushing, and they're at the right price. Good luck even BUYING a 16-bit part!

    * Your ears filter out anything above 20kHz. Make it 24 kHz for the so called golden ears. Therefore according to nyquist anything above 48 kHz is useless. Case dismissed

    Um, the whole point of sampling at higher frequencies is so that the anti-aliasing filter doesn't have to be this sharp-cutoff ringing thing that was commment when sampling at 44.1kHz. Instead of having a transition band of 2.05 kHz (between 20 kHz and 22.05kHz in a 44.1kHz system), you have a leisurely 28 kHz (between 20 kHz and 48 kHz in a 96 kHz system). Gentler antialiasing filters == much less time-domain ringing and sampling artifacts.

    Class dismissed. Please do your homework before posting about things you don't understand.

  36. Re:+'s and third party drivers to remedy creative' by cayenne8 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Are there Linux drivers for this new card that let you access all the features? Can you get the 5.1 and such from in from within Linux? I'm looking for a decent high end card for a multimedia computer to put in with my AV system...

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  37. Re:And yet... by dr.badass · · Score: 2, Informative
    If you were truly gonna invest in a high bandwidth digital soundsystem, shouldn't the system be doing something like *firewire* sound?


    It's called S/PDIF, or simply "Digital Out", and it's been on practically every sound card for the past three years. And it is exactly as you describe. The sound card does everything but the DAC, and you get a nice no-hiss signal. A $30 SoundBlaster Live! will do it, assuming you have a speaker system/reciever with a S/PDIF input.
    --
    Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
  38. Why this old review when there is a NEWER one? by detect · · Score: 2, Informative

    The product reviewed is months old now. The Audigy Platinum eX is the card that has just been released which allows for ASIO 2 recording/playback.

    http://www.soundblaster.com/products/audigy2_pla ti num_ex/welcome2.asp

    a review on the NEW card:

    http://www.nordichardware.com/reviews/audio/2003 /A udigy2_2ex/index.php

    --
    // The fastest Alt-Tab in the West
  39. Bus Mastering by msobkow · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The Audigy and Audigy 2 are full bus-mastering PCI cards, while the SBLive was not. The result is that many 2-3 year old VIA chipset mobos have problems with output crackling (and other distortions) when using an SBLive on a busy system. (Other chipsets have the issue as well, it's just impossible to ignore with certain VIA chipsets.)

    Aside from bus mastering, the Audigy 2 Platinum can actually accept the SPDIF feeds under Win2K/XP, while the SBLive software didn't, doesn't, and will likely never work with SPDIF inputs once you stop running Win9x.

    The rest of the "features" are just marketing crap to put on the box in hopes of suckering someone into wasting money. The only way the audio quality could be made "audiophile" is to feed pure digital from the card to a real surround sound amplifier, but it sounds like you lose the DVD-Audio playback when doing so. The RF interference in a computer case, relatively unstable power supplies, and use of chip amps make me laugh when I see companies claim "audiophile" sound quality for a sound card.

    --
    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
  40. Creative Soundblabber, or Noiseblaster by lanner · · Score: 3, Insightful


    I bought a SoundBlaster Audigy card the last time that I upgraded my computer. I thought that Creative would have learned the lessons from making the SB 64, 128, and Live! cards, but no. My SoundBlaster Audigy makes a huge pop sound whenever the system is powered on or off. The sound also sometimes goes away while playing certain games. The AWE 32 Gold really was the last great Creative sound card -- trust those other posters who say so, they know it.

    If it was not for the fact that Aureal went out of business. and driver support under Windows 2000 and XP was so poor (or at least was the last time I knew), I would have never stopped using the Diamond MX300 Audigy 2 chipset based cards that I have. I even use one of the two cards that I have on my GNU/Linux desktop, which gives fantastic sound!

    As a systems administrator who is often purchasing hardware, Creative as a company does a really poor job. The driver nightmare is the worst. You find one of their cards, it has a model number on it, and the Creative website fails to list it -- it is like they don't support it. Sometimes you can find the product by name, but finding the drivers that you need on their website is a terrible. Just figuring out what product you have based upon their model numbers is a real challenge.

    Creative sound cards are heavy on the marketing. What the hell can the justification for a consumer, NOT professional (Ask a pro, they will tell you, Creative = bad) sound card that costs over $80 be?

    Creative is a really good example of a company marketing strategy though. They have really managed to build a demand for a product. It is like printing money, once you convince people that your product is worth more than it really is for the sake of status or whatever the reason is that people continue to buy Creative sound cards.