Was the best, and keeps getting better
Written: Oct 02 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: BEST consumer MIDI output, Excellent WAV playback support, Great effects, Good Software Updates, Great 3D Audio for games, good price, Only real choice left in 3D after Aureal went belly up
Cons: Miniplug socket breaks if you toy with it, customer service isn't too swell from creative
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| TekDemon's Full Review: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! Value Sound Card |
I purchased this wonderful sound card back in September 1999. I was building a new computer system, and decided that if I was going to do it, I wanted the newest sound card technology. Of course, I wasn't planning on spending a ton of cash. So I searched around, and found it for 49 dollars(in OEM distribution, meaning not the retail box, same card though). Quite a deal I might add.
I wanted my new PC to have surround sound so I could watch those DVD movies with cool sound effects. I also wanted a good card for gaming so I could have 3D sound. With this sound card, I got both, and it keeps getting better.
This card must be one of the best midi cards out there. Unless you're into truly professional MIDI playback/creation, this card will satisfy you. The playback is amazing, and it originally shipped with 256 "voice" support. This was then upgraded using new software updates to 512, and now...1024! Of course it couldn't just stay at 512(since creative has a cheaper product, the PCI 512). Each time you get their latest drivers, you get new cool features. Another thing, although the box may say it has 2MB or 4MB of RAM for midi sounds, sound fonts, etc, this actually isn't true. No, it's MUCH BETTER! Although you can use that memory, you can also allocate up to a half megabyte less than HALF OF YOUR SYSTEM MEMORY!!! That means if you have 64MB of RAM you can set aside 31.5MB for the SB Live! Value. If you have 128, you can set 63.5MB. If you have 256MB of RAM, you can set a whopping 127.5MB of RAM to the soundcard!!! This is UNPARALLELLED. This means you can load up a TON of soundfonts, instruments, etc, to create MIDI files that play like a real CD.
On the 3D gaming side, the card shipped with EAX 1, but newer drivers gave us EAX 2.0, which supports lots of new 3D effects, such as through walls. This might not seem like a big deal but it really enhances 3D gaming. However, there are some nuances. If a game hasn't been properly adjusted for EAX 2, the 3D sound often overdoes certain things. The most apparent is the "echo" effect. This card loves to show off it's echo power, and it definitely does. Sometimes it does it WAY too much and everything is all hollow sounding. Still, this is largely to blame on the 3D game developers for not adjusting the 3D sound properly. The water 3D effects are perfect, so if you are in water, it really sounds like you are listening to things underwater. Truly wonderful and makes gaming super immersive.
What about that 4 speaker DVD surround sound? Well, it works great! Especially if you have a DVD player program that supports Dolby "dithering" to 4.1 channels. And it's especially good when listening to CDs. Those channels give a lot of extra "oomph" to all your music. Wonderful playback capabilities.
Another great feature is it's ability to modify sounds. Kind of like the presets on a car stereo or boombox. Except you can make your own too. You can modify almost anything, add a chorus, shift the pitch up and down, adjust reverb, anything! It comes with some funny presets although newer drivers seem to have taken out some classics, such as Chipmunk singalong, although the Chipmunk preset is still there. The Chipmunk preset makes it sound as if those Chipmunks from that television show were singing everything. Annoying as hell, but it's great for a laugh just to hear the latest pop renditions sung by the chipmunks. Or even rap. Rap music is extremely funny when chipmunks are rapping.
Best of all it's proven itself over time. With constant improvements through software it just keeps getting better and better. Meanwhile, the competition has faltered. For one thing Aureal is nearly out of business and it's gotten so bad their website is down. And you can forget about software and driver updates from Aureal. With the only real competition out there gone, Creative Labs stands victorious in the 3D card market.
Creative Labs/Cambridge Soundworks(they were bought by creative labs) speakers seem to match very well with the SB Live! Value. Other speakers work great too, but my 4.1 set seemed to be made almost to fit the SB Live! perfectly.
There are some drawbacks though, to this soundcard. For one thing, it doesn't like it if you constantly switch plugs on the back. My front output holder broke, and it took about a day to get a good superglue job to get it working again. Strangely it works better than ever(except maybe the first week)! Not a big deal, just not too aesthetically pleasing to see part of the output ripped off on the inside, and superglue all over. So as long as you don't mess with it, or just buy a splitting plug, you will be fine.
All in all this soundcard was the best, and it keeps getting better. With cool new features such as support up to 96Khz WAV output(although they say it's up to 48Khz it will play back 96Khz. However, I do not know if this is done using some kind of downsampling algorithm or not) and the BEST darn midi out there(heck you could probably give it 255.5MB of memory if you wanted) along with the only real supported 3D audio, you really have to choice but to agree, this is the ONLY sound card anybody should buy.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 49
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Epinions.com ID:
TekDemon
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Member: Shiru Ye
Location: New York, NY
Reviews written: 13
Trusted by: 2 members
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