Amazing sound, Damm Drivers!
Written: Feb 03 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Very good sound, ALOT, and i mean ALOT of inputs, great looking external box
Cons: without EXACT drivers, sound is HORRIBLE
The Bottom Line: An amazing sound card, with plenty more than just the regular outputs. But in order to get it to work, you need to get the latest drivers.
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| hufmagruf's Full Review: Guillemot Maxi Sound Game Theater XP |
Hey everone, this would be my 3rd review on Epinions, and after the TRAGIC events of September 11th, I sit here on Thursday September 13th trying to get my mind from the onslaught of depression, anger, fear, and almost everything else.
I spent alot of time reasearching the Guillemot Game Theater XP, and having build a computer for my uncle with the Creative Sound Blaster Live Platinum I was wondering if I should go with the lower cost Game Theater XP.
PRICE/VALUE: I'm sure this is a main subject for anyone considering the Game Theater XP vs the Sound Blaster Platinum. Keep in mind I will compare the 2 only because they are basically fighting each other for the multi function sound card market. To my knowledge no other company has put out a card for consumers that can do what these cards try to do. But back to the price, from where i was shopping I could get the Sound Blaster Live Platinum Retail for 170 and the Game Theater XP for 130. So my first obvious delema is should I go with the lower cost one, or am I forfeiting to many good features. They Platinum comes with 3 or 4 retail games, all of which are great (well at least Deus Ex, Theif 2, and Unreal Tournament are good. MDK2 is a debate).
SETUP: The setup of the Live Drive bay is pretty easy, you just install the PCI sound card, plug in the rbbon cable, and attach it to the PCB board on the back of the live drive. Although this is a little more complicated than first imagined, because there are no guides, just free standing pins.
FEATURES: The remote is something Creative certainly had one up on the Game Theater XP but in my experience though, the remote gets old after the first 30 sec of using it. It's pretty bad at sending a strong signal, and they still have bugs to work out with the lag and software integration. Alot of the extra features are in the form of connnectors, which I will describe next.
CONNECTORS: ahah! This is where the XP REALLY PULLS AHEAD! You'd think that with the SOund Blaster Plantinum costing so much more there would surely be ample connectors, wrong! the XP has 4 USB ports, Standard MIDI jacks, not the mini midi that you find on the Live Drive. The XP has gold plated EVERYTHING, while the Live Drive has gold plated NOTHING! It really is surprising that creative wouldn't just add the extra .0001 mm of gold to give a better connection, but thats just one of it's drawbacks. The XP has an output for every single channel in a 5.1 system. Every component can be plugged in and individually adjusted with the included program. The XP alos has a antiquated game port to plug in those nice old joysticks that you used in the days of Flight Simulator 98'. XP truly wins gold when it comes to connectors. I'd like to add that the XP's box is external, but no need to fear, they include a 10 lbs 6 foot cord to connect the box to the soundcard.
Software/Drivers: This is the very important part of the review. Drivers are everything when it comes with the XP, there are no sound outs on the card itself, and you must rely on the OS having 100% compatibility with the external box in order to get any decent sound. I made the mistake of not worrying about drivers, thinking whatever WIN2k put in woudl be fine, i heard static and nothing else. But once I downloaded the new drivers, BAM! Amazing sound outta my nice 4.2 Klipsch Sound System. The software included with the Creative is MASSIVE! and i need to stress that. It feels like Creative dominates your startup and system tray, which quite frankly annoys me. On the other hand, Guillemot has a nice lieel blue icon which represents the external box, and it says GT on to of it. When that shows you know your drivers are working, and you can be very happy. The XP although does come with Power DVD 6 channel version, which is great, and needed to make up for the loss of full version games.
CONCLUSION: Personally I do not see the Creative Sound Blaster Live pulling it's price. Yes it includes some very nice retail games, but it's alot of name and poor build quality your're paying for. Nothing is metal on the live drive, expcet the "silver" connectors. While the knobs on the XP are nice metal meaty knobs. I love the XP and it is amazing, I'll never worry about connectors, because i'll even have the still infantile Optical and Coaxil connections to use int he future. GO FOR THE GUILLEMOT GAME THEATER XP! You will not regret it. PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO VOTE ON THIS REVIEW. THANK YOU
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 130
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Epinions.com ID:
hufmagruf
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Member: Alex Huf
Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA
Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 0 members
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