The Sound Blaster Audigy
Written: Dec 26 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great Sound, Great Features, Great price
Cons: Usual Lousy Creative Driver Support
The Bottom Line: Great Card if you need or want the small extra's over the live. Be forwarned about XP Driver support.
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| nerys71's Full Review: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy Gamer Sound Car... |
I say this card and it specs and decided it was a must have. Expecially since it was only $99 !! (I already have the live drive)
I first confirmed it was XP compatible. I also confirmed with Creative that my Live Drive would work with the new card. (did not want to spend $250 all over again)
They said yes to both.
First the sound really is pretty good and I do not even have the equipment to take full advantage of its capabilities. (Can not wait till I get a nice set of klipsch speakers !!)
I did not find the addition of a firewire port that fantastic since I already have a Firewire/USB combo card and nothing firewire to plug into them. It is annoying to have to use a seperate slot place holder for the Game Port but then again all my latest joysticks are USB so it is not a great loss.
As usualy the hardware quality is top notch. As was so wonderful with the Live cards there is NO noise behind the music. On all soundcards there was the ever present "hiss" in the background. This got very annoying over time. I do not know if they handle this with better quality hardware or better written software. either way it is very effective.
You can turn the volume all the way up with NOTHING playing and you will not hear a peep (assuming it is not your speakers off course)
The only con to this is you will not know if you have it all the way up till you play something and get blown out of your seat :-) but I think I can accept that in trade for ridding me of tha that horrible his.
Sadly the Midi support is not much improved. My old Ensonique Soundscape Elite still reigns supreme when it comes to playing midi's so well that they sound like CD's
This is not as large a factor since I lost my massive midi collection a few years back.
Now onto some caveats about the card.
First and formost even though I was assured over the phone and then saw it printed on the box. This card is so far (at least for me) NOT XP COMPATIBLE.
They said I had to wait till XP was released. I said why the H#LL did you put it on the box then. Grrr
Even after the release and the download of "updated" xp drivers my Audigy still does NOT work in XP.
So until Creative gets off there collectively lazy butts (at least in the driver department) I am stuck in the ilk of Windows ME until then since living without sound is NOT an option.
Also my Live Drive does NOT work as promised on the new Audigy. At least the optical port does not and it is ALL that I am interested in. It lights up but no data is transmitted. I will allow for the fact that I have not called them yet to try and rectify this. Either way it should work upon plugging it in with nothing else needed to make it work so I am not optimistic.
Creative has this problem that makes you Hate to love them so much.
The produce some truly amazing hardware and they produce some truly repulsive support for it. eventually it will be fixed and it will be beautiful but I am made to suffer in the MONTHS inbetween maybe even years.
If you are running XP make CERTAIN where you buy it from will allow you to return it should it fail to work. Short of you NEEDING the FIREWIRE and the Extra quality go with a Live card. they are now (by default) very cheap and Just as feature rich and high in quality.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 99.00
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Epinions.com ID:
nerys71
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Member: Chris Taylor Jr.
Location: Edgely, PA
Reviews written: 37
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
I Love Rockets, Airplanes, and off course Gadgets :-)
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