A Great Product for Gaming, A Good Product for Music.
Written: Sep 14 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Good sound quality, cool breakout box.
Cons: Expensive.
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| Zeorai's Full Review: Creative Sound Blaster Live! Platinum |
The Live Platinum certainly comes in a very impressive box, doesn't it? It's big and the contents are equally impressive. The Live drive really stands out and there's a excrement load of software bundled with it. But is the Platinum for everyone? Certainly not. That's not to say it isn't a good sound card, but it's not hands down the best for all applications.
As far as gaming goes, then it's pretty hard to beat the SB Platinum, it has digital out so it can connect to digital speakers the EAX support gives you 3D sound, though not as advanced as A3D 2.0, is still quite good. The sound processor even offloads some MP3 decoding so your system doesn't take a nasty performance hit when you want to listen to MP3s and surf the 'Net.
Of course, the most impressive thing about the Platinum is the Live Drive, which is essentially a breakout box that fits into a 5.25 inch drive bay. It's kinda cool you can hook up your headphones directly to the front panel or use it's RCA in/output jacks. There's also MIDI in and out. But unless you're really into sound, then this is mostly fluff. I mean, the only real thing I use is the headphone jack, kind of a waste I know, but at least the cord doesn't have to reach to the back of the case anymore. What's missing from the Live! Drive is an optical out for MD players. I happen to have one and would have really liked to be able to record of the Live! Drive. There is an upgrade offer from Creative Labs to the Live! Drive 2, which has even more ins and outs! But damn, it's bank. The Live! Drive 2 is $150 bucks and it's only available from Creative Labs direct. You can get a discount if you send in your old Live! Drive, but come on I paid $150 for the whole Live Platinum to begin with. This just seems kinda steep, especially since all I want to do is record with my MD player. Sheesh.
So what drawbacks the Live Platinum have besides no optical out? For one, the Live Drive is pretty much overkill for everyone. Like I said I really only use the headphone jack. For those not in the know already, there is no difference between the Live X-Gamer, Live MP3+, and Live Platinum card. It's the same card, it's just packaged with different software. So there is a much less expensive way of getting the same sound quality and EAX support. The other cards also have digital out so don't worry about that. The Live Value on the other hand doesn't have a digital out so keep that in mind when your thinking about your sound system (speakers and all).
EAX is also not as advanced as A3D 2.0 is from Aureal, but seeing as Aureal is now in Chapter 11, we won't be seeing any new Vortex 2 based cards anymore, not to mention driver updates. The Live cards sound reproduction also isn't quite as good as other cards that are available. In this regard I mean for DVD applications. A friend of mine runs a high end home theater and PC DVD business and they never recommend using a Sound Blaster card. So if you want high quality music reproduction for DVD then you might want to consider something else. Right now Turtle Beach has some offerings that might be a better alternative in this regard.
Now comes installation problems. The SB cards eat up IRQ's like there's not tomorrow. This can play havoc with your system as Windows tries to negotiate everything. Many times I've had to go into the bios and manually assign and disable IRQ's to get the card working right. I hate doing this. So if you have a lot of PCI cards already installed then watchout! You gotta be careful and take your time or you're gonna get a lot of headaches.
Overall it's still a very good sound card, just not the best period. Then again, how many products are? If you like coolness factor and got some spare cash then you can't go wrong with the Live Platinum, if you're not that into sound or the coolness factor of the Live! Drive then the MP3+ or X-Gamer would be a much better purchase. In any case, if you do go with the Live Platinum I can assure you that you'll be very happy with your purchase, just be careful during install.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 150
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Epinions.com ID:
Zeorai
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Location: Irvine, CA.
Reviews written: 33
Trusted by: 14 members
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