Price : $250 street
Company Information : Creative Labs Inc.; Milpitas, CA;
www.creative.com; 800-998-5227
For the past three years, Creative Labs' Sound Blaster Live! series of PCI audio cards has dominated the PC market technologically. Not resting on its laurels, the company ups the ante (again) with its new Audigy series—the first consumer-level PC audio cards to incorporate a 24-bit 96-KHz chip. Not only is the architecture different, but the cards have had a software overhaul. The high-end Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum eX ($250 street) improves output quality immensely from previous versions, providing benefits that gamers will notice immediately.
The Platinum eX requires a more complex setup than most sound cards because of its added daughter card and breakout box, which is an external box that connects to the daughter card and supplies many accessible ports to your desktop instead of forcing you to reach around to the back of your system to access connectors. The PCI card fits into one slot, and a daughter card with support for the breakout box slides into a neighboring PCI bracket (although it doesn't actually plug into a slot). The breakout box sits on the desktop and features jacks for SPDIF (Sony Philips Digital Interface) in and out, optical in and out, headphones, left and right auxiliary in, microphone in, IR, MIDI in and out, and SB1394 (Creative's version of IEEE 1394). In addition to the SB1394 port on the box, there is also one on the daughter card, which can be used to hook up a variety of media devices, including digital video cameras. It also allows users to connect a peer-to-peer environment, with transfer speeds of up to 400 Mbps.
Complementing the capable new audio card is one of the largest software bundles we've ever seen. Included among these are Beatnik's Mixman Studio Remixer, SonicFoundry's Acid DJ 2.0 dance music software, Ulead VideoStudio 4.0 SE Basic, and Unibrain's FireNet 2.0 IEEE-1394 networking software. Not lost in the bunch is Creative's PlayCenter 3.0, a handy app that effectively manages audio playback from CDs, MP3 files, and other sources and facilitates the conversion of CD audio files to MP3 and other formats.
In addition to creating music and video with the new Platinum eX card and software, sound quality is noticeably better. Thanks to the 24-bit DAC, digital audio sounds have less background noise when played at high levels than they used to. Gamers in particular will appreciate the EAX Advanced HD software: It now supports a wide variety of spatial-oriented effects, such as smooth sound transitions among different environments, improved echo effects, and material-based sound dampening. This last feature will improve overall levels of immersion (for example, sounds in a 3-D environment are muted if a wall comes between the player and the source). Manufacturers will need to keep these capabilities in mind when coding games, so although it may take some time before the new effects are evident, sound in current games is improved, thanks to the higher sample rate and enhanced decoding resolution.
The advantages of the new EAX code don't stop at games, however. Through the EAX control panel, users can select from a wide variety of effects and filters with which to tweak audio playback. Tracks can be slowed down or sped up without losing pitch or tone, and environmental effects can be added to suggest a ballpark, a cathedral, or another sound-altering atmosphere. Also, analog clean-up software can help improve the quality of music recorded from cassette or record.
The Sound Blaster Audigy line ranges from the $250 Platinum eX to the $100 Gamer and MP3 iterations that forgo a breakout box and offer variations on the software bundles. Much like the Live! series, Audigy supports Dolby Digital 5.1 speaker setups, so in addition to having the best consumer-level sound processing on the market, you can connect top-of-the-line speakers. Audigy makes a huge difference in the quality of your PC sound output, and it is in your best interest to take full advantage of it.
The Platinum eX requires a more complex setup than most sound cards because of its added daughter card and breakout box, which is an external box that connects to the daughter card and supplies many accessible ports to your desktop instead of forcing you to reach around to the back of your system to access connectors. The PCI card fits into one slot, and a daughter card with support for the breakout box slides into a neighboring PCI bracket (although it doesn't actually plug into a slot). The breakout box sits on the desktop and features jacks for SPDIF (Sony Philips Digital Interface) in and out, optical in and out, headphones, left and right auxiliary in, microphone in, IR, MIDI in and out, and SB1394 (Creative's version of IEEE 1394). In addition to the SB1394 port on the box, there is also one on the daughter card, which can be used to hook up a variety of media devices, including digital video cameras. It also allows users to connect a peer-to-peer environment, with transfer speeds of up to 400 Mbps.
Complementing the capable new audio card is one of the largest software bundles we've ever seen. Included among these are Beatnik's Mixman Studio Remixer, SonicFoundry's Acid DJ 2.0 dance music software, Ulead VideoStudio 4.0 SE Basic, and Unibrain's FireNet 2.0 IEEE-1394 networking software. Not lost in the bunch is Creative's PlayCenter 3.0, a handy app that effectively manages audio playback from CDs, MP3 files, and other sources and facilitates the conversion of CD audio files to MP3 and other formats.
In addition to creating music and video with the new Platinum eX card and software, sound quality is noticeably better. Thanks to the 24-bit DAC, digital audio sounds have less background noise when played at high levels than they used to. Gamers in particular will appreciate the EAX Advanced HD software: It now supports a wide variety of spatial-oriented effects, such as smooth sound transitions among different environments, improved echo effects, and material-based sound dampening. This last feature will improve overall levels of immersion (for example, sounds in a 3-D environment are muted if a wall comes between the player and the source). Manufacturers will need to keep these capabilities in mind when coding games, so although it may take some time before the new effects are evident, sound in current games is improved, thanks to the higher sample rate and enhanced decoding resolution.
The advantages of the new EAX code don't stop at games, however. Through the EAX control panel, users can select from a wide variety of effects and filters with which to tweak audio playback. Tracks can be slowed down or sped up without losing pitch or tone, and environmental effects can be added to suggest a ballpark, a cathedral, or another sound-altering atmosphere. Also, analog clean-up software can help improve the quality of music recorded from cassette or record.
The Sound Blaster Audigy line ranges from the $250 Platinum eX to the $100 Gamer and MP3 iterations that forgo a breakout box and offer variations on the software bundles. Much like the Live! series, Audigy supports Dolby Digital 5.1 speaker setups, so in addition to having the best consumer-level sound processing on the market, you can connect top-of-the-line speakers. Audigy makes a huge difference in the quality of your PC sound output, and it is in your best interest to take full advantage of it.
