Sound alternatives: Sound card round-up

I didn’t think so.

Still, once I fought my way past whatever audio spirit I angered in my quest, I found the state of sound cards (as far as the cards presented here went, anyway) to be more varied and interesting than I expected. Finally, I unwittingly managed to take a prescient look at a possible new direction in mainstream PC audio. Read on to see what I uncovered.

PC sound 101
Before we go any farther, I should offer a brief primer on the major components of PC sound cards. I’ll skip over the more obvious bits (if you don’t know what a speaker output jack is for, you should probably just move along now) and concentrate on the core of the card, which consists of the audio processor chip and the CODECs. The audio processor is more or less what you’d think it is; it does the work of manipulating the sound in the digital domain. Depending on the capabilities of the processor chip, it might be responsible for sample rate conversions between different sound sources, or even adding in digital effects such as chorus or reverb. The audio processor is certainly the brains of the operation.

But there’s another piece involved, and it’s more important than you think. The audio processor does a bang-up job of manipulating sound in the digital domain, but unless you have speakers with a digital input, that sound is going to need to be converted back to analog at some point. Additionally, many of the audio sources you want to put into your computer start out as analog, as well, so a sound card needs some way to change them to digital so it can do something with them. These conversions are the domain of DACs (digital to analog converters) and ADCs (analog to digital converters). Many audio cards have chips that perform both of these functions; they are typically called CODECs, because they are capable of both encoding analog to digital and decoding digital to analog.

Setting aside ADCs for a moment, DACs are a religion among audiophiles. Many would tell you that a DAC is one of the most important components in a digital playback system, and there are a number of stand-alone audiophile DACs costing hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

Of course, when you’re putting together an entire PC audio solution for under $100, you have to make some compromises. Most of the cards in this round-up use CODEC chips, which combine the functions of a DAC and an ADC into one piece of silicon. One even packs the A-D and D-A conversion components right into the audio processor itself for an all-in-one solution.

While the audio processor chip and CODEC chips are two of the biggest variables here, they’re not the only ones. Drivers can make quite a bit of difference in the functionality and usability of a card. Additionally, the number and type of input and output connectors on a card can make a difference, depending on your application. We’ll be taking a look at all these considerations and more.

Now that we’ve gotten the basics out of the way, let’s start looking at the cards themselves in detail.

Hercules Gamesurround Muse XL
We begin with the lightweight of the bunch, at least in terms of price. The Gamesurround Muse XL is available for as little as $26 for the boxed retail edition or $15 for the OEM model—either way, quite a bargain for a four-channel sound card. Unpacking the retail package, we find the card itself, a drivers CD and an instruction manual. The manual is somewhat short (twelve pages) but does a capable job of explaining both the hardware and software installation process.

The Muse XL features fewer connectors than some of the other sound cards featured here, but it still offers a fairly impressive array. On the backplate, you’ll find the requisite game connector along with microphone and line-in jacks and front and rear stereo speaker jacks. On the surface of the card itself (for internal connections) is a PC speaker connector, an aux-in, and connectors for the analog out of your CD player.

One possible issue here is the orientation of these internal connectors. As you can see from the picture, the Aux In and one of the CD In connectors are designed so the cable will be perpendicular to the board. This may cause interference problems with the adjoining PCI card, and I would’ve preferred connectors like the ones on the Fortissimo II, which we’ll see in a minute.

The Muse is built around a CMI 8738 chip; you can read more about it on the manufacturer’s web site here. The 8738 is a popular chip that is found not only on the Muse but also on the Soyo SY-K7V DRAGON Plus motherboard and the motherboard of the Shuttle SS50 cube, to name just a couple. The CMI 8738 features 16-bit audio at up to 48KHz. It supports a substantial number of positional audio standards, including DirectSound 3D, EAX 1.0 and 2.0, and A3D 1.0.

Unlike the other chips featured here, the CMI 8738 has its CODECs on-chip with the audio processor. The idea behind separate CODEC chips is to keep electrical noise from the audio processor chip from affecting the analog stages of the CODECs and degrading the sound. It will be interesting to see if the CMI 8738 suffers from putting everything on one piece of silicon.

The drivers for the Muse XL are relatively basic, in that the standard Windows multimedia controls are used. The Muse XL was the only card here that didn’t feature some sort of custom driver interface. That’s a statement, not a complaint. Some of the more portly driver packages on the other cards had me longing for the Muse’s standard interface. The drivers included on the CD weren’t Windows XP compatible, but newer drivers to solve this problem were only a download away.

You probably wouldn’t expect much more than drivers and a readme file on the install CD of an $26 sound card, but here the Muse XL is a pleasant surprise. The accompanying CD includes a number of “Lite Edition” style software packages, including Yamaha XG Player, Media Station and ACID XPress. Also notable is a trial version of PowerDVD, as well as several other software titles. More detailed information on the complete bundle can be found here.

Though the Muse XL’s capabilities are dwarfed to some extent by the other cards in the comparison, it’s important to note that those capabilities are still respectable. Throw in the bargain-basement price and the voluminous software bundle, and the Muse XL is still in contention, especially for the budget-minded consumer.

Hercules Gamesurround Fortissimo II
Next up is another Hercules offering, the Gamesurround Fortissimo II. It’s obvious Hercules intends this product for the more serious gamer. The Fortissimo II comes with a higher price and a better feature set than the Muse XL. The card is available for as little as $36 OEM or $49 retail online, so be sure you know what you’re getting: some of the software only comes with the retail version. The retail Fortissimo II, like the Muse XL, arrives with the card, an installation CD, and an instruction manual in the box, as well as a separate manual for the PowerDVD software. The Fortissimo II also includes a special cable that plugs into a jack in the card’s backplate. The card’s manual is 64 pages long, but that’s for four languages; the English portion is only 17 pages. Still, it hits all the high points: installation of hardware, drivers and software, as well as a very brief introduction to the driver interface.

The breakout cable enables the Fortissimo II to fit a lot more ports. These include microphone, headphone, front and rear speakers, and line-in jacks, as well as a game connector. Interestingly, the Fortissimo II also includes two optical digital connectors, an input and an output. These ports could be used to input digital audio from a CD player with an optical out, or to output a digital audio stream to a stereo or minidisc player. Also included are aux-in, PC speaker, and analog CD audio internal connectors. Unlike the Muse XL, these connectors run parallel to the board, so there shouldn’t be any interference problems with nearby PCI cards.

The Fortissimo II boasts an impressive set of specs, thanks to its Cirrus Logic CS4624 DSP and CS4294 CODEC chip. Hercules’ specs for the card indicate 18-bit, 48KHz recording and 20-bit, 48KHz playback capabilities. You can read more about the CS4624 and the CS4294 on Cirrus Logic’s site. The Fortissimo II supports positional audio using a dizzying array of standards, many of which you’ve probably never heard of. Like the Muse, DirectSound 3D, EAX 1.0 and 2.0, and A3D 1.0 are all supported.

The Fort II’s drivers are fairly robust, offering a sleek multi-pane control panel that includes a mixer and a 10-band EQ with presets. Other panels let you configure settings for playing MIDI files or determine the format of the signal sent to the card’s digital output.

The Fortissimo II’s software bundle includes all of the software in the Muse XL bundle, with one important difference. While the Muse XL comes with a trial version of PowerDVD, the Fortissimo II includes the real deal. This one has no time limits and features four-channel audio output that nicely complements the Fortissimo II’s capabilities. The drivers even have a special PowerDVD setting to output the DVD audio via the card’s optical digital out. Get the details on the Fortissimo II software bundle here.

Hercules intends the Fortissimo II to be a step up from the Muse XL, and it certainly succeeds on that front. Along with more impressive audio (18-bit record and 20-bit playback vs. the Muse XL’s 16-bit) the Fortissimo II’s drivers offer up a lot more possibilities, and with the full version of PowerDVD, the software bundle is all the Muse XL offers and more. Those who plan to watch DVDs on their computers should definitely put the Fortissimo II on their short list.

Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Turtle Beach is next with their Santa Cruz card. The Santa Cruz is a definite step up in terms of price, but is still reasonable at $57 OEM or $65 retail online. Turtle Beach offers a number of impressive features to justify that price, as we’ll see in a moment. The Santa Cruz comes with the standard card, CD and manual, although the Santa Cruz’s manual is larger (33 pages, English only) and more comprehensive than most, going into quite a bit of detail about possible configurations.

In terms of connections, the Santa Cruz has an ace up its sleeve. It features a game connector, front and rear speaker connectors, and mic and line connectors on its backplate. On the card itself, there are internal connectors for a TAD device, CD audio, aux, and digital SPDIF in from a CD-ROM drive. Additionally, the Santa Cruz features a wavetable header for an expansion card, as well as an “upgrade header” for “future expandability.”

The aforementioned ace, however, is another plug on the backplate that I’ve saved until last. It’s called the VersaJack, and it’s unique in that it is software programmable to a variety of different functions: a dual digital out, a stereo line in, or an output for a fifth and sixth channel. Clearly the jack is aptly named: the amount of versatility it gives to the Santa Cruz is impressive.

The Santa Cruz is built around the Cirrus Logic CS4630 audio chip, which is described by its manufacturer as a “high performance upgrade to the CS 4624” chip present on the Fortissimo II. For more information, take a look at this link at the Cirrus Logic web site. For CODECs, the Santa Cruz has a CS4294 as well as a CS4297A onboard, both from Cirrus Logic. Turtle Beach’s specifications show the card as having 18-bit, 48KHz recording capability for to four stereo audio streams and 20-bit, 48KHz playback capability of up to three stereo audio streams. Given the relationship between their respective controller chips, it’s no surprise that, like the Fortissimo II, the Santa Cruz supports all the popular 3D sound formats.

The drivers for the Santa Cruz have an impressive list of features. In addition to controlling the aforementioned VersaJack, some of the highlights include a 10-band EQ with several presets, as well as an effects panel. This panel lets you choose two simultaneous effects settings (for example, Chorus and Reverb) from a wide variety of effects, as well as the levels, balance, and the like for each.

Once the settings on all panels have been configured for a particular application, they can be saved to a preset and recalled immediately at a later time.

The Santa Cruz is bundled with several software titles, including LE versions of AudioStation, MusicWrite and Digital Orchestrator Pro. Further information on the Santa Cruz software bundle can be found here.

The VersaJack and the Santa Cruz drivers team up to provide a wide variety of possibilities. Whether you have a two-speaker, four-speaker, 5.1 or digital speaker system, the Santa Cruz has you covered. Two-speaker mode provides a dedicated headphone jack, as well as the ability to simulate four speaker positional audio using two speakers or the headphones. Four-speaker systems still get a dedicated headphone jack thanks to the VersaJack, and they can take advantage of positional audio in games. Speaker systems with 5.1 capabilities will use the VersaJack to get true six-channel output, taking full advantage of the center channel and dedicated subwoofer output offered by such configurations. Finally, the digital output allows connection of digital decoders, including support for AC-3 audio in DVDs.

It’s obvious Turtle Beach paid a lot of attention when designing the Santa Cruz. The support for 18-bit input and 20-bit output, the full-featured drivers, and the aptly-named VersaJack add up to a card with great specs and the flexibility to support a wide variety of configurations.

Philips Acoustic Edge
Philips joins the fray with its high-end Acoustic Edge. Don’t let that high-end label scare you off, though; while the Acoustic Edge is at the top of the Philips line, it’s still reasonably priced. The Edge is available as low as $55 for an OEM version or $62 for the retail model. Crack open the Acoustic Edge retail box, and you’ll find the card, two breakout cables, an install CD, a separate CD with PowerDVD, an analog CD-ROM audio cable, a quick-start guide and the card’s manual. The quick-start guide is a fold-out card that covers hardware installation, complete with step-by-step instructions and easy-to=follow illustrations. The manual for the Acoustic Edge is one of the most impressive of the bunch. It’s 64 pages long and splits its time equally between hardware and software installation, as well as detailing the driver features and bundled software.

The Acoustic Edge takes the Fortissimo II’s breakout cable idea and ups the ante by one. Not only does it have a breakout cable with six channels of analog out (front left and right, rear left and right, center and sub) but another breakout cable offers SPDIF input and output with RCA connectors. In addition to the two connectors for the breakout cables, the backplate has a game controller port, a line in and a microphone in. Internal connectors consist of aux in, TAD in, analog CD in and SPDIF digital in.

The Acoustic Edge features Philips’ own “Thunderbird Avenger” audio chip. The manual specifies 48KHz recording and playback, but gives no information on whether the resolution is 16-bit or something higher. Sigmatel STAC9708and STAC9721 CODEC chips are also present. The Acoustic Edge supports all the popular 3D audio standards we’ve seen so far. However, the Philips card brings something else to the mix: a variety of QSound techniques to simulate positional audio from a stereo source. We’ll look at this feature during the listening tests later on.

If there’s a common thread in the Acoustic Edge drivers, it’s the QSound options. They’re everywhere. You can see from the image above that QSound can be used to simulate surround setups with two speakers or to expand stereo signals into surround with surround speakers. It can also be applied to your choice of input signals. The S/PDIF tab lets you apply QSound to the digital input and choose the output mode for the digital out. The Effects tab gives you a variety of environments to simulate using (you guessed it) QSound. You can also adjust the reverb level on a percentage basis. Other tabs let you adjust MIDI settings, test your speaker setup, or look at driver revisions.

The Acoustic Edge comes with Sonic Foundry’s ACID XPress and SIREN XPress, QSound AudioPix, and Cyberlink PowerDVD (full version). The card we received from Philips also included Giants: Citizen Kabuto. While this game is not listed on the box as normally being included, a note from Philips states that the game “is not included in current retail versions but will be included shortly.” Hopefully this means that current retail versions already have the game included.

The Acoustic Edge brings several things to the table that aren’t available with the other cards. First is the sheer number of connections: eight external connectors and four internal connectors. The Santa Cruz VersaJack is nice, but having all the connectors simultaneously available on the Acoustic Edge is even nicer in nearly all circumstances.

Also, the Acoustic Edge has a unique ability among the cards here: the ability to process stereo signals into 3D with QSound technology. The technology includes QXpander, which can simulate surround sound with only two speakers, as well as QSound Multi Speaker System (QMSS) which takes a stereo signal and outputs four or 5.1 channels of surround audio. You can read more about QSound’s technologies here. The QMSS feature should be of particular interest to gamers who play games without built-in surround audio support, such as Quake III Arena. We heard a Quake III QMSS demonstration at Comdex last year and were very impressed—so impressed, in fact, that we conducted separate listening tests on this feature.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live!
We’ll finish up by looking at the Creative cards. The first of two featured here is the Sound Blaster Live! While this is Creative’s “last generation” card, it’s so ubiquitous in both the marketplace and many users’ systems that we felt the need to include it. And indeed, it’s still available. In fact, it’s available in so many different configurations that it’s difficult to talk about either a price or a specific software bundle. Pricewatch reveals Sound Blaster Live! cards selling as low as $18 for an OEM model. The cheapest retail model seems to be the X-Gamer, which is available for as little as $55, while the top-of-the-line Platinum 5.1 is $115.

In all, there are seven models of Sound Blaster Live! listed on Creative’s web site at the time of this writing; look here for more information on the various packages. We won’t be discussing box contents or included software for this card, as these items will vary considerably depending on which model of card is purchased. The link above should tell you all about the software included with each bundle.

Our Live! card has a good selection of connectors, though it lacks some of the more exotic connections available on some of the other cards. The backplate includes front and rear speaker outputs, a line in, a mic in, a digital input/output (via a stereo jack) and a game connector. As far as internal connectors, there’s a TAD in, an aux in, an analog CD-ROM input and a digital CD-ROM input. There is also a proprietary expansion header that allows for the connection of accessories such as the Live! Drive (though Creative’s web site claims that the Live! Drive won’t work with Live! Value cards such as the one we’ve included here).

The Sound Blaster Live! uses the EMU10K1 audio chip for its processing abilities. Creative’s web site claims the EMU10K1 supports 16-bit audio at 48KHz for both recording and playback. Frustrated by an inability to find anything more substantial about the EMU10K1 on the Sound Blaster web site, I tried a Google search and came up with this PDF file which contains quite a bit of technical detail on the EMU10K1. The Live! has a Sigmatel STAC9721 CODEC chip as well as a Philips UDA1330 DAC chip. The Live! card supports A3D 1.0, DirectSound 3D and, of course, EAX 1.0 and 2.0.

It should be noted that the SBLive! drivers Creative provides online don’t give you the full software package included on the installation CD. The downloadable drivers include the option of installing the AudioHQ and Surround Mixer applications, but the installation CD comes with additional applications such as Creative Minidisc Center and Creative PlayCenter.

I decided against installing the software on the CD for two reasons: First, I wanted to limit my evaluation to the drivers themselves, and most of the CD applications weren’t really related to the drivers (though they are typically installed with the drivers). Second, and perhaps more importantly, when I inserted the installation CD into the drive, the system issued a warning that “Sound Blaster LiveWare is incompatible with this version of Windows.” For these reasons, I stuck to the XP-specific driver update for my installation and evaluation.

The drivers for the Sound Blaster Live! actually use the standard Windows XP dialogs like the Muse XL. However, as I’ve said, the driver installation includes AudioHQ and Surround Mixer, two applications that perform functions similar to the custom control panels of the other cards. The Surround Mixer includes a classic mixer panel that allows independent volumes for the various inputs, plus a separate panel. The second panel controls EAX effects and the placement of the various inputs relative to the listener. Also included in this panel are a spectrum analyzer and controls that allow the user to change the speaker configuration, including outputting only to the digital out. Once the settings are arranged to the user’s liking, they can be saved to a preset for easy recall.

The AudioHQ program centrally locates many of the Live! applets. Included are a SoundFont Manager, an EAX Control Panel and a Keyboard applet that uses the mouse pointer to play a piano keyboard onscreen. Also included are links to the two Surround Mixer panels, as well as an AutoEAX applet. This applet can be configured to watch for the launch of a certain application file, then automatically change the speaker and EAX configurations to predetermined settings.

Additional software included with the Sound Blaster Live! cards varies depending upon which model you purchase. For more information on the various software bundles, go to this page and click on the Live! model of your choice, then click on the “Software Bundle” link near the top of the page.

Alhough it is no longer Creative’s flagship, the Sound Blaster Live! has made its mark by making its way into a huge number of machines in the last several years. Indeed, for a time after its introduction, it could be said that it was the “default” sound card. To be honest, however, we’ve mostly included it here as a point of comparison for Live! owners contemplating an upgrade. Most of the cards here offer more impressive specifications and features than the Live! Still, some consumers may consider the SBLive! simply because of its price—$18 for a former flagship model is difficult to ignore.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy
The last card in our round-up is the Sound Blaster Audigy, also by Creative. This is Creative’s newest internal sound solution, and like the Live! it comes in a variety of different packages, four of which are available for the American market. You can find more information on these options at Creative’s web site here. As with the Live! card, we won’t be covering box contents or software bundles with the Audigy, because they vary between packages. Pricewatch shows OEM Audigy cards going for as low as $46, while two retail models are available in the $75 range. The upper end Platinum and Platinum EX are $150 and $195 respectively.

The Audigy’s connectors resemble the Live! at first glance, but there’s more here than initially meets the eye. Like the Live!, the Audigy has a mic in, line in, and front and rear stereo outputs, as well as a digital output. However, the Audigy’s digital output can (to a limited extent) take a page from the Santa Cruz’s book and act as a center/sub analog output.

From there, things get interesting. Unlike the other cards, the Audigy’s backplate has no game connector, though one is included on a separate backplate. The reason the game connector didn’t make the cut is that Creative has introduced SB1394, an IEEE 1394-compliant high-speed data port. Internally, there’s a TAD in, aux in, a header for another SB1394 connector, and analog and digital CD-ROM inputs. Finally, there’s a custom expansion header for the breakout boxes included in the Platinum lines, similar to the expansion connector for the Sound Blaster Live!

The Audigy uses the “Audigy” chip (funny how that works, eh?). Also found on the card is a Creative CT1297 CODEC chip (if anyone knows of a site with technical data on this chip, please e-mail me and I’ll include it) and a Philips UDA1328T, a six-channel DAC which “is eminently suitable for DVD-like applications.” Creative’s web site claims a recording capability of 16-bit, 48KHz with a playback capability of 24-bit, 96KHz. The Audigy supports the popular 3D audio APIs, and ups the ante with EAX Advanced HD, a new version of EAX.

Any more than that is shrouded in mystery. This page has large icons that boldly proclaim the three touted benefits of the Audigy: 24-bit/96KHz audio, EAX Advanced HD, and SB1394. While the latter two have “READ MORE” links under them that take you to detailed explorations of the technology, such a link is conspiciously absent from the 24-bit/96KHz claim.

There’s been a lot of discussion around the web (and even here at TR) about exactly how new the technology on the Audigy is. I spent a lot of time searching for some concrete evidence about this, but I was unable to come up with much of anything substantial. One of the things I did find, however, was this page at Tom’s Hardware which makes some interesting assertions about the Audigy:

The 24-bit logo appears all over the place – on the box, on the installation CD, even on the product itself. Yet it has been confirmed, even by Creative Labs’ own technicians, that neither the Audigy nor the Extigy are capable of recording or playing 24-bit sound at 96 kHz. There is actually entry-level support that the card automatically downmixes to 16 bits / 48 kHz to process the sound.

I happen to own an M Audio Delta 66, a pro sound card capable of recording and playback at 24-bit/96KHz. I used the Delta to record an audio file at 24-bit/96KHz, and sure enough, the Audigy refused to play it. Then I found the following at this link at Creative’s web site, nestled right up next to the aforementioned 24-bit logo:

Audigy ADVANCED HD delivers stunning audio clarity in multi-channel through 24-bit/96kHz digital-to-analog converters (DACs), producing an unprecedented 100dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).

Read that carefully.

What it’s telling you is that the Audigy’s digital-to-analog converters are 24-bit/96KHz. That means that they’re capable of taking a 24-bit/96KHz digital source and outputting it in analog form. Great news, except all evidence indicates that the Audigy chip is unable to supply those whiz-bang DACs with a 24-bit/96KHz signal.

It’s at least possible that Creative is doing some form of dithering to try and get more than 16-bit/48KHz out of a 16-bit/48KHz date stream. There is also some indication (found only in posts like this one, ironically enough from Creative’s detractors) that the Audigy does send the original 24-bit/96KHz digital audio found on DVDs straight to the DACs, resulting in 24-bit/96KHz playback, though I couldn’t find any definitive proof of this. It’s also possible (and much more likely, given a lack of any supporting evidence) that neither of these things is true.

Either way, slapping a 24-bit/96KHz logo on the Audigy is “creative marketing” (pun intended) bordering on fraud. You can’t polish a turd, and you can’t get 24-bit/96KHz audio when the digital portion of your card is limited to 16-bit/48KHz. I liken it to a plain paper fax machine/printer. If the printer portion is capable of outputting at 600 dpi, and you receive a fax at 75 dpi, what’s the effective resolution? That’s right, 75 dpi, because the output is only as good as the source. What Creative is doing is no better than selling a walkie-talkie with a set of digital-ready headphones and proclaiming “CD quality sound!”

Whew! Well, I feel better, now let’s move on.

Installation of the Audigy card was more complicated and time-consuming than the other cards, but not because of any unexpected hardware difficulty. Rather, the problems stemmed from the fact that Creative’s install routine gives you quite a bit of options from which to choose. In the first place, the Audigy was unique in the cards reviewed here in that you can’t simply go download and install the latest drivers from Creative’s site. Try to do so, and you’ll be greeted with this message:

Resolving to purchase a safe in which to store my “the card is a paperweight without it” installation CD, I popped said disc into the drive. First, I was greeted by a Flash menu with several prechecked install options: Sound Blaster Audigy, Oozic Player, EAX Goldmine Demo, SoundFont Showcase and Adobe Acrobat Reader. I wanted to keep things simple, so I unchecked everything except for the Sound Blaster Audigy option. Hovering the mouse pointer over the checkbox, I was told that this option alone would occupy 160MB (!)

I picked my jaw up off the floor and continued.

Then I was given a list of two more prechecked installation options: a 4MB install of Firenet 2.0, and a 2.5MB install of Sonicbox Tuner. I deselected both and moved on. Finally, I was in an actual installation program. The program gave me three options: Full, Custom and Drivers only. Out of curiosity, I clicked on Custom and got the following list:

Creative Taskbar 4882KB
Creative AudioHQ 2929KB
Creative Surround Mixer 4882KB
Creative Playcenter 29296KB
Creative Audigy Experience Demo 185546KB

Hmm, it appears the 160MB figure was an understatement, at least for a full install. I backed away slowly and chose “Drivers only,” and a few minutes later was prompted to restart. After the reboot, I was permitted to apply the driver update I had previously downloaded.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy (continued)
This practice of requiring the original installation CD seems very strange, and it makes me wonder about how far removed the Audigy is from the Live! card. The bottom line is, be very careful not to misplace your installation CD. Tweaktown has actually posted an article on installing the Audigy’s drivers without the CD, but the article mentions some loss of functionality using this method.

Because of the large number of choices present in the Audigy installation routine, I chose to restrict myself to the software installed by the “main” drivers installer. If the “full” option is selected here, you still end up with a substantial amount of software, in terms of both number of applications and disk space used.

I mentioned that I chose the “Drivers only” install option. To Creative’s credit, for all the hundreds of megabytes available for installation, if you choose Drivers only, that’s what you get. In fact, when using this option, Creative doesn’t even offer up a custom control panel for the drivers, making do with the standard Windows XP dialogs a la the Muse XL.

While I admire Creative’s restraint, for the purpose of this review I decided I needed a more representative sample of the included software. I fired the installation program back up, and this time I chose the Creative Taskbar, Creative AudioHQ, and the Creative Surround Mixer. The other two options, Playcenter and Audigy Experience, didn’t sound remotely like driver-related utilities, so I left them off. Besides, between the two of them, they were well over 200MB.

Once the installation was complete, I rebooted and found several changes. Most obvious was the Creative Taskbar across the top of the desktop. It resembles Creative’s version of Mad Libs, where you fill in the sentence “I want to… [TASK] with [EAX EFFECT].” The tasks range from listening to music to watching a movie to recording audio. Selecting a task will typically result in the Taskbar firing up a Creative program; tell it you want to record audio, and the Creative Recorder appears.

Also included is AudioHQ, seen in the screenshot above. This program’s function is fairly obvious from the screenshot: it gives you quick access to controls for a number of different Audigy functions, including the Surround Mixer. In addition to these three options which I had specifically requested, a number of other applications were installed, including Minidisc Center, Creative EAX, and several help files: A User’s Guide, SB Audigy Quick Start, and an Online Manual.

The large number of installation options makes it difficult to evaluate the Creative drivers bundle, because the “drivers install” executable also (by default) installs around 250MB of additional applications. On the other hand, the “drivers only” install is almost too sparse. I wish Creative had taken some of the functionality offered by the additional software and created a drivers control panel like the other cards we’ve looked at here. I’m certain that the large number of installation options offers a lot of flexibility to someone who takes the time to acquaint himself with them, but I suspect many users simply find them overwhelming.

In addition to the plethora of included Creative applications, the different Audigy models include additional software that varies by model. For more information on these software bundles, go to this page and click on the various Audigy models, then click on the “Software Bundle” link near the top of the page.

The Audigy has a couple of special features that set it apart from the other cards here. Most prominently, it supports EAX Advanced HD—what some developers are calling EAX 3.0. We wanted to include EAX 3.0 material in our listening tests to see what improvements it offered over the older iterations of EAX. Unfortunately there really weren’t any titles available at the time of our listening tests that supported the new version of EAX. As you can see here (look for the EAX Advanced HD logo) the pickings are still pretty slim, especially considering that Hitman 2 and Mafia aren’t due until September. EAX Advanced HD may be a compelling feature in the future, but right now it’s just not prevalent enough to matter much.

The other new feature of the Audigy card (aside from the 24-bit/96KHz thing, but do you really want to get me started on that again?) is the SB1394 port. Essentially, it’s an IEEE 1394 port. You can plug in a digital camcorder, mass storage devices such as a CD-RW or hard drive, or (compatibility willing) anything else with an IEEE-1394 port on it. Creative even bills it as a way to network PC’s, though I’m skeptical of how often that feature would get used when Ethernet NICs are $5 on sale. Still, for someone with a digital camcorder who doesn’t yet have an IEEE 1394 card, the included port would negate the need for a second card, making the Audigy attractive both in terms of cost savings and PCI slot savings.

The Audigy is a card with respectable abilities. It adds a number of interesting features over its predecessor, such as the SB1394 input and support for EAX Advanced HD. With these unique assets, one would think that Creative wouldn’t have to resort to such questionable marketing practices, but that’s neither here nor there—unraveling the mysteries of Creative’s marketing department is beyond the scope of this article.

Our testing methods
As ever, we did our best to deliver clean benchmark numbers. Tests were run at least twice, and the results were averaged.

Our test systems were configured like so:

The test systems’ Windows desktops were set at 1024×768 in 32-bit color at an 85Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests.

We used the following versions of our test applications:

• Quake III Arena 1.30
• Serious Sam SE v1.05

All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.

Benchmark results
Now that we’ve looked at each card’s components and capabilities, let’s see how they perform. Because not everyone has a state of the art machine, we tested with two configurations under Windows XP: A Pentium 4 2.0GHz and a Pentium III 667MHz. We hoped the slower machine would do a better job of revealing excessive CPU utilization by any of the cards that might go unnoticed with a newer, faster system.

Quake III Arena

With one exception, the scores for Quake III are virtually identical. The Muse XL quite obviously brings up the rear, with an approximate ten percent performance drop compared to most of the other cards. The Acoustic Edge is slightly slower than the remaining four, but it’s difficult to quibble over two frames per second. Those who are looking to eke as much performance possible out of a slower machine should probably choose something other than the Muse XL.

On a more general note, the Muse XL’s lower scores are notable because its C-Media chip provides the sound built into many popular motherboards. Of course, if you’re motherboard shopping, chances are you’ll be installing a faster processor than the 667MHz chip we used here. Next, let’s take a look at Quake III performance with a newer processor, the 2.0GHz Pentium 4.

With a faster processor, further differences emerge. The two Creative cards come in at the top of the heap, with the Fortissimo II and the Santa Cruz trailing by a couple of frames per second. Behind those cards by another couple of frames per second is the Acoustic Edge. The Muse XL once again brings up the rear, but if you average the performance of the other five cards, the Muse XL trails that average by only 3.6 percent.

On a newer, faster machine, the Muse XL’s performance issues become much less pronounced. Assuming the same is true of onboard C-Media solutions, it’s difficult to justify replacing C-Media sound on a motherboard just for the sake of Quake III performance.

Serious Sam SE
In addition to Quake III, we wanted to test with a relatively new game to see how a more demanding application would affect the scores. We chose Serious Sam SE because of its excellent in-game benchmarking utilities as well as its ability to run in several different sound modes. We tested each card in all three available sound modes: WaveOut, DirectSound and EAX.

Using the WaveOut sound option, the Sound Blaster Live! comes out on top, followed closely by the Santa Cruz. The Fortissimo II, Acoustic Edge and Audigy cards are all bunched up in the middle, while the Muse XL takes its place at the rear of the pack.

With DirectSound, it’s a dead heat for the first four places. The Acoustic Edge runs behind the pack by a frame or so, while the Muse XL lags by about three frames per second.

The Audigy slightly leads the field in EAX, while the Santa Cruz, Live! and Acoustic Edge cards are all very close to one another. The Fortissimo II trails the others slightly, and the Muse XL is well back from the rest.

While there are differences between the cards in our PIII 667MHz test configuration, they’re all bunched up fairly tight in most cases, which raises the question of whether the slow processor is holding the cards back on this demanding game. Let’s take a look at the same test with the P4 2GHz .

The faster processor seems to have opened things up slightly in WaveOut. Once again, the Live! takes the lead, and the Muse XL lags the other cards by a relatively large margin. Note, however, that the first and last cards are separated by only 3.75 frames per second. Practically speaking there’s not a lot to see here.

Changing to DirectSound spreads things out somewhat, as the range from worst to first jumps to 5.5 frames per second. Interestingly, the Acoustic Edge takes last place here.

On the EAX test, the Audigy leads, while the Santa Cruz and Live! virtually tie for second place. Slightly farther back in a virtual tie of their own are the Acoustic Edge and Fortissimo II. Anyone care to guess where the Muse XL comes in?

Obviously, the faster your machine is, the less you have to concern yourself with the performance differences of these cards. Even if you have a slower machine, the most that can be said is that your should probably avoid the Muse XL. The rest of the cards were too close to each other in terms of performance to let the differences dictate a purchasing decision. If your machine is closer to the high end setup we tested here, any card should do just fine in terms of performance.

Now that we’ve looked at the benchmarks, let’s move on to something more subjective: the listening tests.

Listening tests
We’ll start out with a number of caveats. First, there are almost assuredly those of you who believe that listening tests are meaningless unless conducted in double-blind A-B fashion after all levels have been matched precisely with a decibel meter. Those of you who believe this should probably just scroll to the bottom of the page and skip ahead now, because we didn’t do any of that. Instead, we listened to each test on one card, taking notes along the way, then switched to the next card and repeated the process until we were out of cards. Thanks to my aforementioned ear infection, my associate Scott Wasson was the judge on the listening tests; I knew the order of the cards during the listening tests, but he did not.

The listening tests consisted of a playback of the Citadel demo in Serious Sam SE (in the WaveOut, DirectSound and EAX modes), the “Miles 3D Audio Example” program from the Miles Sound System Demo (downloadable from here) and two MP3 tracks (one rock and one classical). Windows Media Player was used to play the MP3 files. The Miles software was used to judge each card’s performance with a variety of 3D audio APIs, including Aureal’s A3D 1.0, Creative Labs’ EAX 2.0 and DirectSound 3D.

Unless otherwise noted, all listening tests were conducted using Logitech Z-560 4.1 speaker system. QSound on the Philips Acoustic Edge was disabled for these tests.

Hercules Gamesurround Muse XL
Serious Sam SE: The Muse XL’s WaveOut performance was warm and well-balanced without harshness, with good separation between the various sound streams. DirectSound was even better, with excellent separation that was never murky or muddled. EAX proved to be the best of all, with a nice echo effect that wasn’t overdone and just “sounded right.” In fact, we judged the EAX performance of the Muse XL to be the best of all the cards tested.

MP3 playback: The playback of the rock MP3 was good and solid, with crisp highs. Overall we found the playback to be generally great, if a little flat in terms of soundstage. The classical MP3 sounded OK, but the “flat” feeling present in the rock MP3 was even more pronounced here, and the track just didn’t sound as alive as it should have.

Miles: On the Miles positional audio test, we found the Muse provided solid performance in all three audio APIs, with good A3D performance and EAX 2.0 rendering that was as good as any of the cards here. DirectSound 3D was especially good, though not quite the best.

Hercules Gamesurround Fortissimo II
Serious Sam SE: The WaveOut performance was among the best tested; all of the sounds were crisp, clear and well-defined, right down to your character’s footsteps. DirectSound gave great sound with a nice, subtle reverb, and the sounds had good mixing, which enabled us to pick out all the individual sound streams. EAX 2.0 performance was notable in that it sounded realistic, which couldn’t be said of many of the cards here. The outdoor portions of the demo sounded exactly like they should have, a feat none of the other cards could match.

MP3 playback: The sound quality of the rock MP3 was very smooth and natural, without any hint of filtering or other interference. The classical MP3 playback came in second to the Audigy, and not by very much.

Miles: A3D playback was good though not outstanding. EAX 2.0 wasn’t as good as some of the other cards, but wasn’t terrible either. DirectSound 3D playback was the best of all the cards, being especially smooth.

Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Serious Sam SE: WaveOut performance was very crisp with excellent separation, but at times we thought we detected a hint of distortion in the mix. DirectSound seemed better than WaveOut in terms of sound quality, but seemed to suffer from intermittent positioning errors; overall, it was OK but nothing special. EAX seemed overdone, with lots of reverb and a muted sound quality that we likened to Sam being trapped in a bathroom.

MP3 playback: Playback on the rock MP3 was very good, with a great soundstage that contributed a very live feel. The trebles were very crisp but not overly so. The classical MP3, on the other hand, seemed to be missing something, detracting from the mood of the piece.

Miles: The Santa Cruz had solid if unremarkable performance on all three API’s; we thought all three were good, with no obvious flaws, but the Santa Cruz wasn’t the best at any of them.

Philips Acoustic Edge
Serious Sam SE: WaveOut performance on the Acoustic Edge was average, and wasn’t as warm or crisp as the other cards. DirectSound suffered from similar issues, though the different sound streams were always distinct. EAX performance was better, with none of the “overkill” effect present on some of the other cards.

MP3 playback: Rock playback was crisp but cool, and just didn’t seem as smooth somehow. Classical playback seemed cold and somewhat flat.

Miles: The A3D playback was the best of any card, while the EAX seemed “low-res” with positional changes coming too abruptly. DirectSound3D was generally good, though the occlusion seemed overdone.

It should be noted that the Acoustic Edge was tested directly after the card that ended up being our favorite in terms of general sound quality. This A/B comparison may have resulted in us being unduly hard on it.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live!
Serious Sam SE: WaveOut performance was decent but uneven, and overall not as good as others. DirectSound was somewhat more balanced than WaveOut, but the highs seemed cut off and muddled. EAX had way, way too much echo and very muddled highs—we likened it to listening through a sock.

MP3 playback: Rock playback was judged to be pretty good if not outstanding. The card had a warm feel, with nice spatial separation. The classical MP3, on the other hand, suffered from the same problem as the Serious Sam tests: muddled highs that made us think some sort of filtering was taking place.

Miles: The A3D was passable, but suffered from bad occlusion effects. In addition, one of the four channels seemed lower in volume than the others. DirectSound 3D was similar to EAX on the Acoustic Edge, as if the precision wasn’t high enough. EAX performance on the Live! card was functional, but there was a strange non-occlusion effect on the bass. This could be attributed to a bad crossover frequency on the speakers’ subwoofer, but we didn’t notice it on any of the other tests.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy
Serious Sam SE: WaveOut performance on the Audigy was warm and smooth, which is remarkable in that these aren’t adjectives usually applied to the sounds of a first person shooter. DirectSound was even better in terms of sound quality, though the playback seemed to get muddled as the audio streams stacked up. EAX had good but overdone reverb, and seemed to suffer from sound positioning errors.

MP3 playback: Rock playback was very strong. Trebles were crisp, though we might have liked them a little sharper. Overall, however, we found the Audigy to be the best on this test. Classical playback was also the best of the cards tested; the playback was exceptionally smooth, and had a live feel to it.

Miles: A3D on the Audigy was very choppy, but EAX was the best of any of the cards tested. DirectSound 3D was OK but overall unremarkable.

Summing it up
So let’s tally the scores and see who came out on top in each of the tested areas:

Serious Sam SE WaveOut: Tie: Gamesurround Fortissimo II and Sound Blaster Audigy
Serious Sam SE DirectSound: Hercules Gamesurround Fortissimo II
Serious Sam SE EAX: Hercules Gamesurround Muse XL
Rock MP3: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy
Classical MP3: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy
Miles A3D: Philips Acoustic Edge
Miles DirectSound 3D: Hercules Gamesurround Fortissimo II
Miles EAX: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy

Bonus: Philips QSound performance
As we mentioned earlier, after hearing Philips’ QMSS technology at Comdex 2001, we felt compelled to evaluate it as part of this review. And what was the result? Well, twenty-four hours ago we would have said we weren’t sure. Initial tests with Quake III Arena revealed impressive positional sounds. Then we disabled the QMSS enhancement, and as expected, the effect went away.

And then it stayed away. Completely.

We turned the feature back on in the drivers; we rebooted the machine; we even tried a completely different operating system. (See how dedicated I am? I’ll even install Windows 98 for our readers. That’s like one step above prostitution.) Nothing could make the nifty positional audio come back.

Finally, we contacted Philips on the issue. They weren’t aware of our specific problem, but they did offer to let us FTP a new driver revision that wasn’t yet available to the public. This driver not only fixed the problem, it made the positional audio effects even more impressive. The effect in Quake III Arena had us scratching our heads and muttering such intelligent phrases as “Howdeydodat?” Stand a few feet in front of a wall, and as someone fires a machine gun at you from across a map, you’ll hear the bullets ricochet. From behind you. Have someone stand in front of you at a forty-five degree angle and fire a rocket just in front of you, and you’ll hear the rocket whiz from northwest to southeast with fantastic clarity and accuracy relative to the rocket’s position on-screen. Then you’ll hear it slam into the wall on your right, and you’ll turn away from your monitor, point to the empty space just behind you and say, “That’s where the wall is.”

Out of curiosity, we fired up Serious Sam SE and listened to it with and without EAX (the QMSS feature turns itself off if it detects the use of a positional audio API like EAX). Without a doubt, the positional audio effects were more clearly defined and properly located using a stereo signal and QSound’s best guess than they were with EAX, which is purportedly a true positional audio API.

We have an e-mail in to Philips to find out when these wünderdrivers are going to be available to the general public. Once they are, we feel quite comfortable in saying that gamers should put the Acoustic Edge at the top of their lists. Then, they should happily shop for games with no positional audio support at all. It’ll sound better that way; trust us.

Bonus part 2: Audigy vs. M Audio
OK, so this isn’t exactly fair, but we couldn’t resist. After noting that the Sound Blaster Audigy’s audio quality was above and beyond the other cards tested here, we decided to make it the underdog by putting it up against a ringer: the M-Audio Delta 66. For those who are not familiar, the Delta 66 is a professional audio card with four analog inputs and four analog outputs in a separate breakout box, as well as stereo a digital input and output. It’s capable of recording and playback at 24 bit/96KHz (for real, unlike the Audigy). This is not a card for a gamer; this is a card for someone wanting to build a digital recording studio out of his PC. You can read more about the Delta 66 at the Midiman web site here.

This was strictly a test of audio quality; as far as we know, the Delta 66 doesn’t support any positional audio APIs like EAX, anyway. We tested on a variety of MP3s, and this time we listened on a set of Midiland S2/4100s, which are quite possibly the best PC loudspeakers ever (yeah, I’m biased; they’re mine, after all). So how did the Audigy do? Well, it put up a good fight, but in the end the Delta 66 cleaned its clock. To quote Scott’s notes on the subject: “Audigy: Quite good. Delta: F’ing perfect.” While the Audigy clearly sounded better than the other cards we tested, the Delta was noticeably better than the Audigy, with fantastic soundstage rendering and shimmering highs that were detailed but never harsh.

So we know what you’re thinking. “That’s not fair, the Audigy isn’t in the same class in terms of functionality or price!” Well, it is fair, for a couple of reasons. First, Creative seems determined to bill the Audigy as a pro audio/home studio solution. Second, while the Delta 66 goes for around $300, it has a cousin, the M Audio Audiophile 2496, which is based on the same technology and goes for around $180, compared to the Audigy Platinum EX’s going rate of $195. Finally (and this is where the “prescient” part from the intro comes in) as of earlier this month, VIA seems ready to enter the PC audio fray with its Envy24HT audio controller, which is a version of the controller found on the Delta 66 and Audiophile 2496 cards. We weren’t aware of this development when we tested the Audigy and the Delta; we just thought it’d be cool to hold the Audigy up against a pro audio card. But if VIA really does intend to wade in with the Envy24HT, things could get interesting in a hurry.

Conclusions
Now that we’re nearing the end of the road, as it were, we’ll sum up with our overall impressions of each card and then make some more general observations.

Hercules Gamesurround Muse XL ($15 OEM, $26 Retail)
In spite of its bargain-basement price and its all-in-one C-Media chip, the Muse XL is still worth considering if you’re aware of its limitations. Ironically, those most attracted to its low price (people with older, slower machines who are looking for a budget sound card upgrade) may be the ones who would do best to avoid it. Judging from our benchmarks, these people would do best to step up a notch to one of the other cards, all of which were kinder to slower machines.

The C-Media onboard audio solutions found on some newer motherboards will likely have similar performance drawbacks, but if your motherboard is new enough to have one of these chips, your processor is almost surely fast enough that it doesn’t really matter. The fact that this, the cheapest card of all, managed to take a win in one of our listening tests is just icing on the cake. For those who are looking for a sound card for a new system, the Muse XL isn’t a bad choice at all. You can get decent quality sound for a lot less than you might think.

Hercules Gamesurround Fortissimo II ($36 OEM, $49 Retail)
While the Muse XL is an excellent value, those who are looking for a little bit more in a sound card could certainly do worse than the Fortissimo II. With six-channel outputs and optical digital connectors, the Fortissimo II will appeal especially to those looking to interface with home theater components or Minidisc players. In addition to its unique feature set, the Fortissimo II was a good performer, taking the trophy in two of our listening tests and tying for first in another.

Turtle Beach Santa Cruz ($57 OEM, $65 Retail)
The Santa Cruz is a card that didn’t stand out in any of our tests, but performed capably enough in all of them. Its VersaJack feature, while unique, was overshadowed somewhat by the Philips’ abundance of connectors. Like the Fortissimo II, however, the Santa Cruz will garner some fans because of its wavetable header; of the cards we looked at, only the Santa Cruz had one of these connectors. Compared with the other cards here, however, it’s difficult to justify the Santa Cruz’s price relative to its features and performance.

Philips Acoustic Edge ($55 OEM, $62 Retail)
After our experience with QMSS, we feel completely comfortable recommending the Acoustic Edge to gamers above all other cards. QSound features aside, the Philips has other assets. The Edge has a fantastic number of connectors, and while it seemed we were pretty hard on the audio quality in the listening tests, we don’t think the deficiencies we perceived are anything that would jump out at you when you listen to the card by itself. Plus, the card did score a win in one of the positional audio tests, and that was without its secret QMSS weapon.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! ($18 OEM, $55 to $115 Retail)
The Live! card isn’t a bad performer, and it’s difficult to argue with the price of the $18 OEM version, but this is a card that is showing its age. The OEM version aside, the retail models just aren’t terribly competitive. We would find it difficult to spend $55 on an X-Gamer instead of $49 on a Fortissimo II, and the Acoustic Edge and Santa Cruz are only $7 and $10 more, respectively. The Live! card also has a reputation for causing PCI troubles. At least some of these issues can be blamed on motherboards, but if newer, better products are available for just a bit more or even less, why tempt fate?

Creative Labs Soundblaster Audigy ($46 OEM, $75 to $195 retail)
For all the complaints I had about the marketing and software bloat, I was pleasantly surprised by the sound and performance of this card. It won three of our listening tests and tied in a fourth, but even that doesn’t describe the difference in audio quality between the Audigy and the other cards here. If you spend much time at all listening to music, and you have more than $20 or so to spend on a sound card, the OEM Audigy at $46 is a very tempting purchase indeed.

Generally speaking
In most cases, the differences we uncovered here aren’t anything to write home about. The Muse XL was notably slower than the rest in the benchmarks, but otherwise everything was pretty even. As for the listening tests, all of the differences we heard were the results of back-to-back tests, but no matter what we said about any of the cards, none of them were objectionable. The days of ISA Sound Blasters that hiss like a cat are gone; unless there’s a really bad card out there that we didn’t include, the state of PC sound today is that even the worst card sounds pretty darn good. If one were to listen to any of these cards by itself, one probably wouldn’t find any gross deficiencies in audio quality (with the possible exception of the overdone EAX effects in Serious Sam, but we’re not sure whether to blame that on the sound cards or the game developers).

Now that we’ve said all that, if we had to pick an overall winner, we, umm, wouldn’t.

Instead we’d pick two: the Sound Blaster Audigy for music and the Philips Acoustic Edge for games. Many may find our choice of the Audigy ironic considering how hard I slammed on the card earlier, but the Audigy’s sound quality (especially in the MP3 playback) is head and shoulders above the other cards here. Ironically, it’s likely that the Audigy’s Philips DAC (the one that gives Creative ammunition for their farcical 24/96 claim) bears the most responsibility for this outcome—not that that means they’re any less full of it.

Meanwhile, on the games side, the Philips Acoustic Edge does more for 3D audio than any of the positional audio techniques we listened to, and it basically does it by pulling an extra two channels out of thin air. If the Acoustic Edge’s QMSS abilities hold up in other games the way they did in the ones we tested, gamers everywhere will be very happy with this card.

Finally, for the first time in who knows how long, the sound card arena is starting to look interesting. If Envy24HT cards start to intrude on the space occupied by the cards we tested here, it’s difficult to say exactly what will happen next. But I have a feeling it’s gonna be good.