Get a FREE fully-working copy of Steganos Security Suite 7 (worth £49.99) when you sign up to the Practical PC Newsletter. Review: Creative Audigy sound card
Ian Waugh reckons that if this is your first major "music" card the software bundle provides an excellent range of software to get you started.
| Product | Audigy |
|---|---|
| Company | Creative Labs |
| Web | www.europe.creative.com |
| Price | Audigy Player £89.99 Audigy Platinum £179.99 Audigy Platinum eX £239.99 |
| We like | |
| We don't like | |
| Rating | 9/10 |
| Requirements | Pentium 266, 64Mb RAM (128Mb recommended), 160Mb free HD space, Windows 98SE/2000/Me |
Creative Labs' new Audigy sound card has appeared quite suddenly without the months of pre-launch publicity that often accompanies these events. Users of Creative's Sound Blaster series have been waiting an interminable time for more efficient drivers although it's extremely unlikely that these will now appear, given that the Audigy now has them.
Unlike the SoundBlaster range which was based on the EMU10K1 chip (which was also used in Emu's APS card), the Audigy is based on a brand new chip - the Audigy - which claims to have more than four times the power of the EMU10K1.
Games R Us
A major part of the Audigy market must be the games market and the card offers up to four multi-environments with environment morphing, a new 3D audio engine and EAX Advanced HD audio effects.
However, the card also boasts high quality audio (coming up) and Dolby Surround Sound, and as well as playing games, Creative obviously expect users to play DVDs through the system.
The card features a host of connections - minijack Mic and Line In, Line Out, Rear Out and Digital In/Out. A flyer cable attaches to a joystick/MIDI port on another backplane plate although you don't have to use this if you don't want to.
Interestingly, the card also sports a SB1394 socket which is Creative's version of Apple's version of (still with us?) IEEE1394 commonly known as FireWire. As well as allowing you to connect FireWire devices to your PC (an area on the company's web site tells you which devices have proved compatible), you can also link PCs for multi-player games.
Platinum
There are three versions of Audigy. All feature the same card but they come with different software bundles and hardware add-ons. The Platinum version has an eye to the music market and comes with a special version of Cubasis VST, ReCycle Lite, WaveLab Lite, Arturia's Storm Platinum Edition, Vienna SoundFont Studio (still just version 2.3), plus the usual CreativeWare (previously LiveWare) collection of EAX demos, utilities, and so on.
But the main addition for musicians is the Audigy Drive (very similar to the Live! Drive) which slots into a spare drive bay and features a host of connections, making the whole process of plugging stuff into the card much easier. Connections include Optical S/PDIF, RCA S/PDIF (mainly for DVD and digital music), Aux In. Headphones, Mic/Line In, MIDI In and Out and a SB1394 socket. There is also a wireless remote control, further proof that Creative expects the Audigy to be at the heart of a home entertainment centre.
In addition, the Platinum eX version features a breakout box which allows the Audigy Drive to be placed away from the PC affording more convenience and possibly preventing extraneous noises from the computer affecting the audio.
Musicians will be pleased to see that SoundFont support is continued with SoundFont 2.1 being the standard. System RAM is used for storage and can use up to 1Gb should you have so much. SoundFonts are a super way into low-cost but powerful computer-based sampling.
24-bit or not 24-bit
We now come to one of the Big Things about the Audigy - it has 24-bit plastered all over it. However, here things get a little murky and it required a couple of conversations with the Tech Bods to sort it out.
The card is billed as 24-bit and boasts 24-bit Analogue-to-Digital and Digital-to-Analogue converters. In fact, the specs clearly say: "24-bit Analogue-to-Digital conversion of analogue inputs". Which mean it records at 24-bit, right?
No, not quite. It converts the signal to 24-bit digital and then records it at 16-bit. 16-bit 48kHz to be exact. So that's pretty much the status quo, then?
Well, again, not quite. Creative claims that as the signal is first converted to 24-bit that the eventual 16-bit conversion is higher quality than a signal recorded at 16 bits from the off. Again, see here for more about this.
And you can't argue with that. The card boasts a signal-to-noise ratio of 100dB (compared to 96dB of the Live! card) so the overall audio quality ought to be rather better than the Live!
However, musicians, still only have a 16-bit recording to play with and even though it may be better-than-yer-average 16-bit recording, it's still not 24-bit. Musicians looking to move up to 24-bit will have to look elsewhere and they'll find it difficult to regard this as other than a missed opportunity to make the Audigy a serious 24-bit card for the musician.
Drivers
On the positive side, at last musicians get ASIO drivers. These are low-latency drivers which mean no delay between playing a note and hearing the sound. The specs claim a latency of 2ms although it may be a little higher, depending on your system but this is a major step forward over the Live! card and makes the Audigy eminently suitable for music recording.
For gamers, the Audigy will doubtless become the de facto standard.
Musicians will be disappointed that it's not a full 24-bit card and rightly so. But if you don't need 24-bit audio (and not everyone will), then SoundFont support, ASIO drivers, the high quality of the 16-bit recordings and the convenience of the Audigy Drive (with the Platinum versions) still make it a desirable card. And if this is your first major "music" card the software bundle provides an excellent range of software to get you started.
