3DsoundSurge Review: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy


	Mikael Hagén put Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy to the test

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Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy

Mikael Hagén - Last updated September 9, 2001

Connectivity:

Internal connections

On the board you will find the usual analog CD, Aux and TAD connections basically all soundcard offers. In addition you will find the Digital CD-in, Gameport/MIDI connector (used to connect to the supplied MIDI/Gameport bracket), Audio Extension connector and an SB1394 connection. The Audio Extension connection is still the same as the one on the previous Live cards and should work fine to connect to the previous Live!Drives and Digital i/o 2 card. However it’s not officially supported, at least not in Europe. Its main use will of course be to connect to the Audigy Drive. The internal SB1394 connection is just intended to be connected to the Audigy Drive. If you have the external Audigy drive you will connect the SB1394 and the Audio extension to a daughtercard which in turn is connected to the Audigy Drive.

Beyond the obvious additions of the SB1394 connection the Audigy of course got a complete new set of DACs and ADCs with support of up to 24 bit / 96 kHz for the digital in/out and up to 24 bit / 48 kHz for the analog in/out. The S/PDIF output can now be configured to output at 44.1, 48 or 96 kHz. The Live, just like most other multimedia cards (Vortex2 and Cmedia CM8738 based cards are exceptions) had the output fixed at 48 kHz. This was mostly an issue for owners of older MiniDisc recorders that lacked resampling of 48 to 44.1 kHz (the sample rate MiniDisc stores the music, same as CDs as I’m sure you know). Another potential benefit would be that you may now be able to playback DTS-CDs (requires 44.1 kHz output) if you own a DTS decoder. I have seen one report saying it works but I have been unable to get it to work and the official FAQ says it will not work with current drivers. The FAQ may refer to when using the standard CD Player or PlayCenter while it may work with WinDVD 3 even though it failed for me (decoder, CD disc, CD drive and exact version of WinDVD could all play a factor in this).

On the subject of sample rates and in/out support, it’s worth noting that the Audigy chip internally will still operate at 48 kHz, just like any other device following the PC 99 design standard for sound cards. The recording function is also still done at 16 bit/48 kHz. Creative still considers the 24 bit / 96 kHz DACs to offer a significant advantage when processing 16 bit/ 48 kHz content since it gives them headroom when mixing and adding effects. It’s also worth noting that as far as I know no one has proven that humans really can hear a difference between 16 bit/48 kHz and 24 bit/ 96 kHz it’s just that when you end up mixing several 16 bit/48 kHz sound samples the final quality will be lower than 16 bit/ 48 kHz. It’s worth noting the resampling algorithms used will affect the final quality. The Live’s resampling algorithms have been the subject some criticism from discriminating listeners, particularly for playback of CD audio which is a 44.1 kHz sample rate. The Audigy has of course improved algorithms, which is one reason the overall quality is noticeably better..

One other difference is that the Audigy card offers support for recording of multiple analog sources. This is a unique feature for PC soundcards. The Live cards only offered this if you were in digital mode, that is the analog output muted. Note that the analog inputs of the Live Drive can be recorded at the same time as one of the analog inputs on the base board.

Audigy Drive

The Audigy drive features S/PDIF in/out of both coaxial and optical type. Just like the Live !Drives you can in software enable S/PDIF bypass, that is the input is directly sent to the output without ever passing through the Audigy’s card. This is mostly useful to convert an coaxial output to an optical or vice versa but can deliver a second advantage of getting rid of some cable reworking if you have another device you want to connect to the same speaker/decoder as the Live.

In addition to the digital in/out you will find analog Line-in 2/Mic-In 2 (shared), headphone output and midi in/out. The headphone output and microphone both have a volume control. The headphone output is still not amplified but remains a nice feature. The microphone input can accept a dynamic or condenser microphone. You switch between them by placing or removing a stunt from the Audigy Drive. If you got the Platinum eX the switch is automatic

So far only the microphone/condenser microphone switch is a change from the Live!Drive IR but that’s just on the outside. Internally it has been completely redesigned. A more noticeable change is the addition of the SB1394 connection and of course improved quality including the support for up to 24 bit / 96 kHz in/out (analog limited to 24 bit / 48 kHz). A couple of other differences are the lack of a second digital expansion header (could be used to connect to a digital i/o card) and the other analog outputs are no longer muted when you use the headphone output. On the Live you could enable or disable that feature. A way around this if you use analog speakers is to simply select “Digital output only”, which mutes all analog outputs except the headphone output.

Beyond the in/out you will just like with the Live!Drive IR get a remote control that allows you to change volume, brightness/color of the monitor, control the Playcenter and more limited functionality with some other players (unofficial patches for the Live!Drive IR remote made it work fine with some other players like Winamp). I haven’t played it with it much but appears to be very similar to what the Live!Drive IR offers.

The difference between the external and internal drive beyond the already mentioned automatic switch for condenser microphones is only the color (external black, internal beige). The major advantage of external is of course getting out of the noisy computer case and not having to give up a drive bay. The disadvantage is lose another slot for the bracket card it’s connected to and you may have no good place to place it depending on how cramped your desktop is and if you can place it on top of your computer case or not. As mentioned above the difference between Platinum and Platinum eX also comes down to the software bundle, more about that later.

Back to connecitivity on the bracket

Bundled Software!!--->