Everything you need in a sound card
Written: Aug 29 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Industry standard in computer audio. Best support. Best Card Overall
Cons: Does not have A3D 2.0 support for sound wave manipulaton
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| badhmash's Full Review: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! Value Sound Card |
This is the best sound card on the market right now, period. When the Live! Value came out, I was a little worried because I did not know if I should pay for it knowing that the A3D 2.0 standard was on its way.
I had heard so much about it that buying the Live!'s EAX based card was starting to look a little less attractive. When I realized that Creative had made their EAX standard OPEN, meaning that ANYONE could alter it and incorporate it, it made me think twice about purchasing it. An open standard means that even Aureal could have used EAX in their cards (they did).
But it is clear to me that if you are a gamer, you want the best card for games. That is the Live. It has 512 voices, EAX support for environmental audio that works pretty well in games like Half-Life, and has some great software support.
Also keep in mind that Aureal has to have games programmed specifically for A3D 2.0 to work properly. And we all know what happened to Glide when we needed to have games programmed specifically for it. They are on the way down.
The Value is different from the Live! original because it does not include the extra card for high quality recording. It only includes the main card for games etc.
I am very happy with my card. This is the first card that I had come across that let me play up to 32 different sounds at the same time. I could watch TV and still hear when I got a new email message.
The best part about this card is the EMU processor on board. YOu can actually install firmware upgrades using flash rom technology by downloading updates from the creative site. For example, this card originally shipped with only 256 voices but was upgraded to 512 by software upgrade.
It is also bundled with the frequently updated LiveWire v3.0 update
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 99
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Epinions.com ID:
badhmash
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Reviews written: 30
Trusted by: 12 members
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