3DsoundSurge Review: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 4 Pro


	Victoria Brooks and Christopher Ambrose put Creative's Audigy 4 Pro to the test

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Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 4 Pro

by Victoria Brooks and Christopher Ambrose

Edited by Mark Muschett

Last updated January 6, 2005

Technical Overview:

The heart of the card is the CA10200 ICT DSP, the same one as the A2ZS series, which uses the CA0102-ICT. Supporting the DSP are the card's DACs. These process the audio stream from digital format to analog, and are instrumental in creating the audio quality of what you listen to. Obviously, the higher the quality of the DAC, the better the output of the audio. Now the Audigy 4 Pro can also output in digital via SPDIF PCM, but you can only get full digital surround sound via Creative's proprietary digital inputs on their speaker systems (except for AC3 / DTS sources, which will fit on a single SPDIF stream). You will be hard pressed to get better quality from the SPDIF outputs, since the Audigy 4 Pro uses Cirrus Logic's flagship DACs, the CS4398 in a quad setup for 8 channel output. (7.1) No compromises here, and no weaker DACs on the rears and surrounds. These chips are also used on the EMU 1212M and 1820M cards, and the Lynx Two card, which uses the earlier CS4396., all of which are professional studio cards. Important to note that the included DVD-A HD support disables SPDIF output, so you will need to use analog.

The operator amplifier (opamp) chips (ST4558C) can also be seen in the photo above. So why is the quality of these DACs important? There is a growing user base of people who use their PCs as an all-in-one device, commonly referred to as a HTPC, or Home Theatre PC. People are taking their home audio surround systems and replacing their separate DVD Players, multi-CD racks, etc. with a PC that they can use store and play back music, watch movies and of course, game like mad! This shift of the PC in to the living room has meant that the bottleneck in sound quality coming from the PC has shifted away from the multimedia speaker system and toward the sound card since these new setups typically delivering the audio to higher quality receivers (or component amplifiers) and higher end speakers. Now some of the flaws of the prior generation of cards (including the Live and Audigy) were more audible. Consumers looking for the ONE card have been forced to pick from a variety of compromises, be it gaming features, DAC quality, connectivity, etc.

Now enter the Audigy 4 Pro. The user can now have superb, lossless multichannel audio on their home theatre rigs. Finally, we have a card that can produce the analog quality that is offered by external decoding these users have grown accustomed, matched with the defacto gaming support that Creative has come to be known for. More objective details on the audio quality later on in the review.

The Audigy 4 Pro itself is PCI 2.3 compliant, and includes an external breakout box, which is connected to the PCI card via both a FireWire and proprietary connection. It includes 2 FireWire ports, a 1/4” Line-In, a 1/4” Line-In with Mic boost option and gain control, a 2x RCA Line-In, a 1/4” Headphone port, Master Volume control dial, CMSS Enable toggle, SPDIF Optical In/Out, MIDI In/Out, SPDIF Coax In/Out, and the proprietary Creative 4-pole Digital Out 1/8” port. The external box sports the CS4392 DAC for the headphone port, which is a 114dB 24/192 rated DAC, in addition to the TI/BB PCM1804 ADC (112dB SNR, -102dB THD) for recording.

The interface for the breakout box is the CA0151, with the supporting CS8420 chip, which was used for the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro. To quote Amy Stojsavljevic, PR Specialist from Creative, “The CS8420 chip is the interface chip to the external box. Basically, it is a digital resampler that is put in to make sure that the audio signals are in sync when going to and from the external hub. The problem that this solves, is that audio signals can get out of sync due to the length of the cable (which is a benefit for a breakout box), so this allows the cable to be longer WITHOUT the audio being out of sync. This is not different from our implementation in the Audigy 2 ZS.” There was some speculation as to its purpose, so I'm glad we got that cleared up.

Cabling supplied is the connector to the breakout box, plus a SPDIF for a CD Player. You will need to use a mini-molex connector from your power supply, and an adapter is included. Installation is straight forward, unless you are connecting your Audigy 4 Pro to AV Receiver. You can use 3 x 1/8” stereo to 2 RCA cables to do 5.1 analog to the receiver, and use the DVD-A/SACD inputs. If you are doing 6.1 or 7.1, you will need one or two 3-pole 1/8” to 3 RCA cables, otherwise known as camcorder cables. The third RCA has the rear surrounds signal. Of course there is an illustrated guide included for all of this. You may want to get gold plated cables, since the ports on the Audigy 4 Pro and most likely your A/V Receiver will be gold plated, and this will avoid any annoying corrosion. Don't forget that you will likely need to enable Bass Management on the Audigy 4 Pro for the analog connection to your HT system. (More on this later)

Software included are the drivers (5.12.2.445 9/24/2004), MediaSource (and their HTPC frontend), the DVD-A Player software, Cubase LE, WaveLab Lite, Fruity Loops Studio 4 (Creative Edition), and full version games featuring EAX HD: Thief – Deadly Shadows (EAX 4.0) and Hitman – Contracts (EAX 3.0), all on one DVD. Now if only the game makers would start using DVD discs for their game distributions, instead of making us install 5+ CDs. Also included is a DVD-A Sampler disc, with a varied amount of music to listen to.

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