is the audigy/sb live the only commercial level
card with the ability to render 4fx at once? Even if the
sound quality does not match a profressional card I think the
audigy is worth it. The inputs on my sblive turned to crap over
years of use so at least the audigy has the drive bay option
to take care of the more feeble slot inputs. Plus I bought
the sblive for an $75 more than i paid for the audigy so
I can't complain. I'd be interested to know if anyone
can name a sound card of better capabilities at a cheaper
price for reference - I paid $150 for the audigy and I also bought a very nice m-audio delta44 for ~$230, but it lacks effects without a separate card.

- bosshog

Originally Posted by Horizon053086
I think Creative\'s quality in soundcards has degraded big time since the original AWE series soundblasters. Those were real jewels. I bought a SB Live! MP3+ 5.1 board and used it for about a year. Needless to say, I don\'t understand why everyone was going nuts over it. There\'s no built in amplifiers, no 10-band Equilizer (Which Turtle-Beach so kindly included with their Santa Cruz), cheap DOS support, horrific Speaker modes (Changing EQ levels while using \"x\"-speaker modes to Headphones :((( ) I went back to using a very rare find, a

Soundblaster AWE 16 (yes, they really do exist!)

The only differences are no 5.1 dolby, and no EAX )But if the sound is not tampered with then, I can live without both of them for the time being.

I hear that Philip\'s Acoustic Edge and the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz boards are out of this world. I can vouch for the Turtle-Beach, but I\'ve yet to come across the Acoustic Edge. I personally suggest the Turtle-Beach Santa Cruz

Originally Posted by Horizon053086
In all honesty, I still believe that Winows 98 SE is still the best OS for home users. The compatibility for games, hardware, software, etc. is so much easier vs. NT based OS\'s that require you to use butchered drivers that drive some of the key factors of any piece of hardware. I\'m a heavy MIDI, MP3 and DVD enthusiast and I\'ve seen some heart braking decisions performed by microsoft in order to push their products.

(For example, any Graphics card with drivers from Microsoft WILL NOT support Open GL... don\'t believe me? Call \'em yourself.)

In my opinion, if you want the most out of your hardware and games, go with Windows 98 SE.

[i]Mine works just peachy, as does my Nostromo n50 gamepad.[/i]

Ooooh!

I run Linux on a number of machines at work including my laptop. Installation was a breeze on all of them. I haven't been running it at home because of gaming issues. Just last night I decided to take a good long look at running games on Linux. Got them all figured out. The only thing remaining is my n50. Can't live without it.

Did you find drivers for it or did it run out of the box.

If I clear this last hurdle, it's buh-bye Windows.

Thanks

SFNative

i am a musician and have installed the beta audgy drivers for my sblive
i have noticed few people postig results
the beta drivers work flawlessly with sblive ad xp
i have full 4 chael soud
you must enable four speaker support in the multimedia dialoge in xp under control panel
soundtest confirms all four speakers on my live value functioning
eax, mixer, soundfonts, speaker all load as well as play center
and vienna soundfont manager etc
audio winbench results are dramatic
sbdrivers were 30% + cpu usage
after install
audigy sblive 3%-10#cpu usage
is this a real benchmark or is there a true updated bechmark test to measure real audio conditions?
sound quality has improved due to the new eq filter added
and is less muddy
the big differance is the soudfot system
sblive is limited to 32mg fonts and it would crash when i loaded a 70 mg soundfont and played a beatles midi (a day in the life)
with the audigy drivers istalled i had o problems playig ay midi with the 70 mg soudfont istalled

i woder if i ca use 300mg soudfonts?

audigy claims to support up to 1 gig using system memory
woohoo!

read my instructions\
first run setup.exe
audigy\UDA_beta\Audio\English\Setup\setup.exe
after all programs installed reboot
say no to drivers install
then goto run
audigy\UDA_beta\Audio\English\drivers\CTZAPXX.exe
install drivers reboot
enter xp safe mode press f8 during boot-up
copy
audigy\UDA_beta\Audio\English\drivers\COMMON\sfman32.dll 248kb
paste ito
c:widows\system32
reboot
everything should work for you

abit bh6
celeron766
256m
sblive value non 5.1
geforce2 64
ati-tv-tuner-ve

cheers
egghead
at Peppy's Windows XP Resource page.
http://peppyxp.cjb.net/

My Dad is a serious audiophile. He rejected the Creative card and got a Terratec. Nuff said.

/me can't afford a Terratec :(

Thank god for the Aopen AW744Pro though :)

Originally Posted by wickeddream
\"and the Audigy is also heads and shoulders above any other sound card on the market.\"

pc sound is still shocking, nothing beats analog and for a long time nothing will. but if you want the best and it seems as tho you whingers do....then digidesign is where its @

http://www.digidesign.com/

Originally Posted by nuclear
why don\'t you use these sound card if you want real sound card to make audio http://www.echoaudio.com/
They were using 24bit 96khz way before creative ( a friend of mine used to create and sell cds and it was the layla he had which is kinda crazy, 8 in, 12 out, not the same as the website since he had it for about 2 years)
on my system i have a game theater xp. no difference in sound from crappy 10$ speaker, but it works way better in smp

I forgot to link you to the Petition. Im sorry. http://www.petitiononline.com/creative/petition.html

Please sign this petition, im ending it at the end of the month and i need 5,000 more signatures. Please read and sign if you agree. I will be mailing this petition certified to Creative Labs on April 5. Thank you.
-chris

#74 here again

#81:"I think all people saying Audigy is a bad product is because they don't own it :) "I don't have it so i hate it" :))))))"

Thank you sir, I don't need to own it. These things can be objectively measured. I can read frequency response graphs (eg printed in some of the more responsible - pun not intended - computer mags like the German c't, instead of just saying "yeah, it sounded well on my Blablabla speakers"). I can see that the Audigy is still at the same sucky level as my SBLive. I bought that one because I was young and innocent and desperately needed a PCI card after upgrading. After doing some work with it, I bought yet another mainboard with an ISA slot so I could plop my SB16 (excellent product!) back in.

What's the use of a -92dB noise ground if the frequency response sucks ass!? A CD burnt from my work will never sound even close to what I hear while it's still on the PC, that's the only measure that's important to me.

Now that the upgrade cyle repeats itself, I seriously contemplate a K7V Dragon+, merely for the fact of non-Creative hardware sound (hopefully some more DOS game joy without these indeed very creative drivers f*cking up my system) and maybe a nice Terratec DMX for work.

In my book, Creative is already dead.

[q]Look at NVIDIA - compare the situation to Creative:

Geforce 3 - released with 200 mhz core, 230 mhz ddr (460 mhz real clock)
Geforce 3 Ti 200 - 175 mhz core, 200 mhz ddr (400 mhz real clock)
Geforce 3 Ti 500 - 240 mhz core, 250 mhz ddr (500 mhz real clock)

The design is 100% the same, just the core and the memory speed has been changed.[/q]Yes, and it's also clear that it's all the same core.

nVidia has caught some flack (here, at least) for the GF4MX, which is a better analogue to this supposed Audigy / Live situation, and rightfully so IMO.

jesus christ people stop bitching.
you dont like them dont buy them plain and simple.
i bought one because of a great deal i got on it. and i didnt want to use shitty onboard sound. I DO agree on better driver support though.

Even if this "rumor" is true, this is OLD news anyway (for people that know the business or look realistically at it).

First thought ever is making money - you can optimize that, if there isnīt much new to develop (research costs lots of money)

Example:

Look at NVIDIA - compare the situation to Creative:

Geforce 3 - released with 200 mhz core, 230 mhz ddr (460 mhz real clock)
Geforce 3 Ti 200 - 175 mhz core, 200 mhz ddr (400 mhz real clock)
Geforce 3 Ti 500 - 240 mhz core, 250 mhz ddr (500 mhz real clock)

The design is 100% the same, just the core and the memory speed has been changed.

Adding very good marketing (adding Ti to the cardsī name), new drivers (optimized and unleashed some power they held back) and the reputation NVIDIA has, these cards sell very good, even today.

Creative knows the business for years, they are market-leader in the soundcard business, the first card i ever had was a SoundBlaster and it changed the market back then.

So, who to blame ? Creative for not beeing more "innovative" ?
NVIDIA for not rushing forward as fast as they could (without huge amounts of money this isnīt possible) ?

Just my 2 cents

Christian

All I know is that replacing my SBLive with an Audigy fixed all the popping/hissing/crackling noises on my SMP system. So to me, they're different.

I have an Audigy Platinum card. I had a Live 5.1, before I had a Live Basic..... Before I had an AWE32, before a SB16Value....

I had a gravis ultrasound, i had an Hercules Fortissimo, I had a Turtle beach, i had a lot of cards........

Audigy.......
Never met problems, all worked 100% fine (Linux, Win98, Win2000, WinXp) ....

Audio sounds excellent.... (2 x stereo KenWood power amp, a central mono and a sub....). Acquiring video, real bitrate is from 44099,999 to 44100,001 Hz (while other cards have a +- 100Hz!!). AC3 decoding sounds great.....

I think all people saying Audigy is a bad product is because they don't own it :) "I don't have it so i hate it" :))))))

I'm happy with this card, i love frontal panel (Optical, spdif, analog, midi, FireWire.....HeadPhones, MicIn....).

I have it, i hear it....... it sounds great..... say what u want...

Alex :)

I have a Hercules Fortissimo 2 and I'm going to replace it for a SB Audigy Platium Ex

"Why do people still buy Creative? Why why why? How many different issues have you read about Live cards, PCI bus specs, drivers, etc, yet people still continue to buy the cards."

I'll tell you why I would have, up until this thread showed up. Because even on TR, [bvery benchmark test[/b] is done with a system that has a SB Live! in it. And never with any mention of how that produces crappy sound. And this apparently consensus opinion that Creative sucks is not as prevalent as you're making it out to be - I've been reading TR religiously for a few months, and I can hardly remember when Creative was so bashed in such a unified manner. There may be exceptions, but even even if he read the forums, I wouldn't say Joe sixpack would know not to buy Creative.

And since to Joe, "soundblaster" is synonomous with "soundcard" (the way "xerox" is to "photocopy"), he doesn't know any better. Neither did I.

Hi #32 said:"

#26 Let me tell you that periodic click click click is really annoying when you are playing DVD's with an ISA soundblaster. No amount of switching interrupts would make it go away."

#26 here: Well I have that "click click too at times.... and I have a PCI SB-16. My other older system has a ISA SB-16.

Anyway all those clicks are thanks to Via chipsets (At least for me they are). My older TX chipset socket-7 never "Clicks" - yet my Athlon/via "clicks" more than i like.

I want DOS support in old games --- so only a REAL SB will do me.

Anyway - your right - but with a "good" chipset,any sound card will be good enough (even the on-board stuff). IMHO.

see the diffrence that nVidia can get out of some video cards with a driver revision
and extra features as well
like some cards that did not support FSAA but the less cpu utilization has to be that it is faster and more powerful
but is that worth the money

All I can say is that I got rid of my SBLive card, and I have a Hercules Fortissimo 2 now, the difference is huge, and I will never buy anymore Creative crap. NEVER !

You read all around the web that the Audigy just sounds oh so unbelievably 'crisp' or 'crystal clear' or whatever bull there is. Fact is, that both the Live and the Audigy have some heavy emphasis/deemphasis going on which means that they are completely useless for anyone doing halfway serious music. Rip a CD track. Play it through your creative card hooked up to the stereo. Then play it on the stereo. Feel the difference. Throw the card in the bin.

Damn I hate posting to the wrong thread... but here's what I got to say.

cRock's (#23) got the juice. Damage's (#24)got the right idea. As a collective audience, we should demand more from the market leader, much like what's happening with Microsoft. They are changing their tune. But back to sound cards...

Let me state, for the record, the Audigy is the greatest triumph of advertising of the new century. For most reviewers, they can't give Creative a lot of lip or else they lose the next freebie review sample. So, in my anonymous-ness, let me state that again: the Audigy is pure advertising, and it stinks like hot garbage. Besides a black PCB and 1492 there ain't much else going for it. The only thing left to grade is the sound quality. ALL of the Audigy's 'audiophile' sound quality comes from the Philips 24/96 converters. All of it. And just for the record, it isn't audiophile by any stretch of the imagination. Don't you dare bite on that bit of advertising.

The Santa Cruz, on the other hand, uses very high quality TI converters. You can hear it. The Santa Cruz has the highest sound quality that I've heard so far in the budget sound card sector. And I've heard a lot of soundcards. I have a $30 Hercules MuseXL that out-sounds the Audigy.

My point here is that there's something everybody's missing and that's how the damn thing sounds. That's the only criteria that should matter. All else it just frosting. You can fool the eye, but not the ear.

Go to your nearest Mark Levinson dealer and bring your favorite CD's and listen! Now compare the that to the Audigy.

BM

Originally Posted by sdk]
Todd:
You might know this, but your DSPs have got a new set of unified drivers located at www.kxproject.com (supporting 512, APS, Live and Audigy cards).

The main difference between 10k1 and 10k2 seems to be the size of DSP RAM. (But it would also need to be faster to complete a run-through 48000 times/sec, right?).

/SB

SuperRob, you mentioned the Extigy sound unit for notebooks. Mind doing a quick review here?? ;)

Thanks!

Relatively cheap 24/96 hardware has been out for years now, it would certainly be cheaper to keep the rest of the circuits and stick on a 24/96 converter , then advertise it as something revolutional. Shame the Extigy comes with 3.5mm sockets only , dumbass things I wish they would die out.

Originally Posted by Audigy
er... email, yeah.

audigy@yahoo.com ;)

Originally Posted by Audigy
Holy smokes... you\'re... _the_ Todd S. that I exchanged emails with over months while I was doing APS support for Creative (I, too, am a former employee) ...Funny to see you posting here. :) I\'m just passing through, having followed the link from an IRC channel I frequent.

As by my nickname (which I think is just a neat word ;p) I still try to support the company the best I can, heck, my old CT4620 is still alive and kicking, and I\'m not sure if I\'ll ever replace it. ;) I just like watching from the sidelines, seeing what the general populace can kick up. I still have yet to report any crippling problems with my SBLive.

Figured I\'d just drop a \"hi\" here, and see if you remember me. I was the APS tech, I believe, when you ceased working for E-MU. Feel free to drop me a line sometime.

But can't porcessing power in this context mean nothing but chip side MHz?

I haven't yet heard anyone I'd trust further than I could throw them say 'The Audigy is a new design' or 'The Audigy and Live have major hardware differences'.