Update: Creative Labs has now replaced this card with the new Live Platinum 5.1. We suggest you check out our Live!Platinum 5.1 review or our Live reference review for our latest impressions of the Live. The Live reference review covers all Live cards.
Creative Technology Ltd. was founded in 1981 and has grown to become the world’s leading provider of advanced multimedia solutions for personal computers. Its solutions include the latest in advanced 3d digital audio technology, 3d graphics, PC-DVD and desktop internet conferencing products. A pioneer in the industry, Creative defined and set the standard for PC audio with its Sound Blaster Line of cards. For years, the most important thing to see on a sound card was Sound Blaster compatible!

That strangle hold on the retail PC audio market has been loosening over the past few years with challenges coming from companies like Turtle Beach and Gravis (remember the Ultrasound?). However, most of these were coming at Creative on Creative’s own turf. That is they were limited to competing with products that had to claim Sound Blaster compatibility but with superior MIDI performance as their claim to fame.

That all changed in 1997 when Diamond introduced the original DSP based Monster Sound which was the first retail sound card to use the PCI bus. This cards weak point was Sound Blaster compatibility, but its support of A3D 1.x and DS3D (in hardware via Direct X5) caught the imagination of both the gaming press and the buying public just as the Windows 95 and DirectX had started to become more popular and reduce the importance of DOS SB compatibility. Creative’s state of the art card at the time was the venerable Sound Blaster AWE 64. The Monster Sound retail success in North America and wide support in the gaming press was a big wake up call to Creative.

Ensoniq was also in the market with the AudioPCI which at the time had better SB compatibility than the Monster Sound but no A3D support. Creative saw a good thing in Ensoniq’s DOS compatibility mode and bought the company. Aureal moved beyond providing drivers and algorithms to hardware partners and entered the chip and board market with the now widely adopted Vortex 1 chip. It was not until Comdex 97 that Creative started to hit the press with their upcoming 10K1 chip and Sound Blaster Live Product which was eventually launched in August of 1998. Creative has a bit different spin to the sequence of events and point out that with the R&D time needed to develop the 10K1, they were actually ahead of the game. That’s not how my eyes see it but regardless of the chicken and egg discussion by the time the Live was announced they clearly had lost their strangle hold on the retail PC sound market.

This meant that it was going to be extremely important to the company that the Live be a big success, especially since Aureal was also coming to market just a couple of months later with their own new Vortex 2 board along with their then new A3D 2.0 API. To help make the Live special, Creative worked to develop a new extension to Direct Sound 3D called Environmental Audio Extensions (EAX). Over a year after the launch of the Live! the 10K1, the Live! and the Live!Value can be considered an unqualified success. Creative has been responsive to the needs of their customers with enhancements to the software through their innovative marketing mechanism called Live!Ware.

Technical Overview:

As noted above, just like the previous line of Sound Blaster Live! line of cards, the new Sound Blaster Live! Platinum uses the powerful EMU 10K1 sound processor. What’s changed is the card now has greater connectivity and great software enhancements which we will note where its new.

First the hardware. The following is a list of the key features of all the new Sound Blaster Live! cards:

Live!Drive

In addition to these connections, and in lieu of the Digital I/O board that shipped with the original Sound Blaster Live! full version, the America’s version of the Platinum ships with the Live Drive which sports the following front panel connections:

• S/PDIF In (RCA/coaxial jack)
• S/PDIF Out (RCA/coaxial jack)
• Headphone Out (1/4" stereo jack with volume control)
• Line In (1/4" stereo jack with shared Microphone In)
• Microphone In (1/4" jack with gain control)
• MIDI In (standard DIN)
• MIDI Out (standard DIN)

I have already heard complaints from people who say the connections are better off on the back, but personally I like them just where they are with easy access. The one omission out of the box is the LiveDrive does not have optical connections. Not sure why Creative went with the LiveDrive II, which has optical in and out in Europe but not North America, but I suspect it has something to do with the greater popularity of MiniDisc players. Most MiniDisc players and some AC3 amps use the TOS Link input, some use the COAX input and others actually have both. It’s the same for home theater speakers as some use optical, some use COAX and some use both. Cambridge Soundworks uses a coax connector so if you want to connect the Live Platinum to Cambridge Soundworks DeskTop Theater 5.1 system there won’t be a problem. However, if optical out is important to you and you are looking at the Americas version of the Platinum then you will have to upgrade to the Digital Output Module that Creative will offer as a separate upgrade. If you use that Module with their upcoming digital I/O board it will also offer optical in. The Live!Drive II will also be upgrade option that for around $150 will add an additional line in as well as the optical in and outs to what you already find on the Live!Drive I.

The actual optional Digital Output Module will connect to the external digital mini-jack on the Live! card itself. The card also has the same digital connector as the original full version of the Live but most likely you will be using this for the Live!Drive. However, the LiveDrive itself has an internal digital expansion connector that is the same as the connector found on the cards so you can check out add on boards from Hoontech with optical in and out as well as the possible optical I/O board from Creative.

Without even getting into the feature of the Live!Drive, one nice thing is you no longer have to lose a slot in your PC to get the enhanced connectivity and its accessed from the front of the PC. Alternatively, some people will not want to or have the option of giving up a 5 ¼ bay and using a power connector (even though it comes with a splitter). Personally, I like it at the front but would recommend that you mount it in the bottom drive bay so the cords hanging down don’t get in the way of your CD or DVD drive doors. The headphone jack is also a very nice feature for night-time use and even offers an auto speaker mute feature (which can be disabled). However, it would have been a lot nicer if it had been amplified to get a bit more volume to the headphones.