Audigy 2 6.1 for $99 AR at BB

[andrey]

I have Audigy 2 in my computer right now and I would highly recommend this card to anyone who wants to have the best sound card out there. I'm running it on Asus P4PE (Intel 845G/PE chipset) with Windows XP and there are absolutely no problems or issues. Audigy 2 is definitely a big improvement over original Live! and even Audigy.

--Andrey

 

[Darkace]

My system was running fine till my audigy. Screwed everything up. Constant reboots, popups don't popup.... can't download anything.... can't even use the digital out. I want to format but damn it's gonna take like what 4 days with all the data backup... Hate audigy, should have stick to my live.

Boycott Audigy... get turtle beach

 

[WHipLAsh13]

Wow now that was an ignorant statement. Boycott Audigy because you don't know how to install drivers. Sure makes sense to me.

 

[BigDaddyD]

Mine installed fine last night. I still have to tweak it though. It is NOT true 24-bit. Check out tomshardware as well as many recording forums. I don't really know the technical side of it, but it does not record in true 24 bit. It gets around it somehow. I will refrain from trying to explain because I do not know the technical side of it. The info is out there. If true 24 bit recording is what you want, look somewhere else.

"...multi-track playback and recording at 16-bit/48kHz" - Creative Labs website

I am not sure if this is what many of the recording people are talking about. I do know that many people are pissed at this. I will see if I can dig up the info.

 

[c627627]

D'you hear that step-dawg? BigDaddyD says there's new sh that's come to light... does Audigy2 have 24 bit recording or not?

 

[Oaf357]

Really the only reason you should get this is if you have an antiquated sound card or if you want Dolby 6.1 sound. I'll stick with my Audigy 1 for now.

 

[golemite]

with the audigy 2, does it reencode audio such as directsound into dolby digital so you can simply hook one optical cable to your surround receiver (such as on the nforce2), or do you have to hook up seperate speaker outs to the 5.1 inputs on your receiver?

 

[MontyBurns]

This 24 bit issue has become such a red herring. None of the other cards -- Game Theater, other hercules, turtle beach -- can do 24 bit anything. Yet people keep hammering this issue with Creative.

 

[chizow]

Looks like a pretty good deal to me....time to upgrade my SB Live! value and hook this thing up to my receiver. SBLive! just wasn't cutting it for DVD playback.

Chiz

Edit: Oh yah, it also comes bundled with an excellent full retail version of Soldier of Fortune 2, which was only released back in May/June. Its an excellent online fps ala Counter-Strike, and hearing the footsteps of opponents definitely helps

 

[cow736]

is there any sound card that will decode dts?

 

[GoRaptors15]

Off topic but I really NEED HELP here. I got a audigy x gamer with NO live drive. It has a mini jack digital out at the back of the sound card and my reciever can accept coaxil RCA digial in or optical digial in... I have been trying to connect my sound card to the receiver so that I can receive the digital signals (Dolby digital or DTS so that I can let my receiver decode it) but I can't get it to work. I tried getting a minijack to RCA adapter and hook it to coaxil cable but not working. Its been furstrating me for the last 3 months. Any suggestion will be appreciated. Please PM me or just post here for other users who may have the same problem.

 

[Squalish2357]

Originally posted by: cow736
is there any sound card that will decode dts?

The Nforce 2(due out I think the 14th) will have a builtin DTS decoder in the integrated sound.

 

[jeffrey]

Does the Nforce2 support DVD audio 24-bit recording and playback??
TIA
Jeff

 

[chrisjor]

Best Buy just sent out Customer appreciation coupons (10% off) for 11/8. Makes this deal a little better.

 

[chizow]

Finished installing it a few hours ago and ran it through some games/mp3/cd/dvd testing....

Music to my ears...I never realized how much I was missing before by sticking with my trusty old SBLive! Value. Another thing I noticed...my system seems to run substantially faster now without the SBLive! I didn't think the PCI latency had such a great effect on my overall system, but every component that would use the PCI bus seems snappier, and I know for a FACT that Win2K finished booting a good 15 seconds faster.

Anyways, just be careful when you are uninstalling your old drivers. Make sure you reboot when it tells you to, or your old SB Live drivers will stick around and cause problems when you install the Audigy 2 drivers. I checked my speaker connections for about 10 minutes wondering why I was only getting sound from 3 of 4 speakers...turned out that the SBLive drivers were still hangin around. I'm using some old Creative FPS 2000 speakers, but I'm gonna hook it up to my receiver this weekend and see what it can really do.

Chiz

 

[cow736]

I got this piece of info from pcrave:
"The bad side is audiophiles will be begging for real-time DTS/DTS-EX output. Dolby Digital bitrates on DVD's typically range from 384kbit/s to 448kbit/s. As to what bitrate the nForce2 MCP-T actually encodes at is a big question for me. DTS can go to 1.5Mb/s which some say is a less lossy encoding format than Dolby Digital thus higher quality. It would be a nice feature down the road."

 

[render]

This 24 bit issue has become such a red herring. None of the other cards -- Game Theater, other hercules, turtle beach -- can do 24 bit anything. Yet people keep hammering this issue with Creative.

'cause none of the other cards advertise as 24 bit playing/recording cards.

I just spent $120 for terratec dmx6fire LT(real 24 bit & asio 2.0 support)

 

[c627627]

Originally posted by: render: "'cause none of the other cards advertise as 24 bit playing/recording cards."

That's right! And we have yet to determine if it is or isn't because there's been nothing but conflicting reports.
Yes the decision to buy Audigy2 will rest mostly on other factors, but people feel stupid when they find out things aren't as advertised.
And we don't know what the truth is... yet.

 

[MontyBurns]

I think people buy sound cards for things OTHER THAN 24 bit recording sometimes. Don't you? Like for instance the best music playback, and the best performance in games? Audigy 1 had both of those. I can only assume Audigy 2 keeps the crown.

 

[MontyBurns]

Where exactly are these tests showing that the Audigy 2 cannot record (or was it both record and play?) 24 bit? I just read the review at Tomshardware, which someone above directed us to, and it says the card does in fact record and play at 24 bit. I'm confused. Please direct me to the reviews you're talkinga bout.


Anyways, in case anyone wants a third-person review stating what a couple of us have said here:

Conclusion from the Toms review:
http://www.tomshardware.com/video/02q4/021106/index.html


With the Audigy 2, Creative has shown how skilled it is in multimedia sound cards, and has gone even further into product versatility. The Audigy 2 is a total success both for its features and its sound restoration capacity. We cannot say it enough: its converters and analog outputs are a model of their kind for most non-professional usage. And promoting DVD Audio is another good point, though it means others in the PC and hi-fi industry should work at making this support as affordable as CD Audio. Dolby Digital EX and the capacity to restore sound in 6.1 is also very welcome, though we would have liked DTS decoding, if only in 5.1. Most Home Cinema buffs will agree that more quality is better than more channels, though they are not mutually exclusive. Apart from this detail, the Audigy 2 is without any doubt a must-have multimedia sound card.

But this quality and all this innovation come at a price, literally, which is what you will pay for the card. Not everyone can afford to shell out $199 just because they feel like it. For someone who only plays games, the Audigy 2 is the very best sound card. But they will only be using a small portion of its capacities: the EAX Advanced HD, CPU performance and surround sound quality. All the other functions, however attractive, make it work out to be very expensive. So, our gamers would be better off with the Audigy 1, which has all the advantages of the Audigy 2 in games, with a slightly lower sound quality. On the other hand, if you use your PC for playing music or watching DVDs (as gamers may do), then you have no reason to hesitate, provided you use speakers worthy of the Audigy 2. And you will be satisfied with the Audigy 2 Platinum and its IR remote control and digital inputs/ outputs. Amateur musicians will also love its converters, the full 24-bit/ 96 kHz support and the ASIO drivers.

 

[jalaram]

From Page 2 of the review:

Audigy 2 Platinum eX:

The Audigy 2 Platinum eX uses the same system as the Audigy Platinum eX, meaning a card and an external rack, but it has some extra technical features that will interest music-makers, especially the fact that it alone supports the ASIO 2.0 standard, and so it can handle recording and processing in 24 bits/ 96 kHz with Cubase VST. The basic Audigy 2 and Platinum only have ASIO 1, so they are limited to 16 bits/ 48 kHz in this respect. What's more, the external rack has been completely redesigned and will look like the Extigy.

The Audigy 2 Platinum eX is due for release early in 2003.

 

[chizow]

Is all this fuss about 16bit vs 24bit a software issue? I'm by no means an audiophile (hell I've been using the same SBLive! Value for the last 3 years), but from page 16 of that Tom's article, it seems like its a driver deal:

Though the Audigy 2 has 24-bit/ 96 kHz compatibility, the ASIO drivers on the CD are ASIO 1.0 and not ASIO 2.0. They are limited to 16 bits/ 48 kHz for recording, so there is no difference with the Audigy 1. And the effects engine is in 48 kHz only. So you can do 24-bit/ 96 kHz recording but not stay in this resolution to apply effects because if you do, the flow will be resampled in 16 bits/ 48 kHz. You can resample it in 24 bits/ 96 kHz later, but you'll have all the quality defects that resampling implies. With regard to latency times, we noticed no special improvement compared to the Audigy 1, which was, in any case, quite up to the mark in this respect. So you can work with latency ranging from 10 to 15 ms on an Athlon XP1800+. We should just add that with ASIO multimedia drivers, you can do 24-bit/ 96 kHz recording, but you will lose the advantage of the very short latency time.

Musicians who would have liked to use the Audigy 2 and ASIO 2.0 drivers will not be completely disappointed, because in early 2003 Creative Labs plans to release an Audigy 2 Platinum eX with a completely redesigned external input/ output rack and a card with 24-bit/ 96 kHz compatibility in all these areas.

Sounds to me like the card itself is capable of 24-bit recording and sampling, just the drivers and hardware released with the standard and eX limit it to 16-bit. I may be way off, but the need for any of these capabilities is beyond me anyways

Chiz

 

[Darkace]

Originally posted by: WHipLAsh13
Wow now that was an ignorant statement. Boycott Audigy because you don't know how to install drivers. Sure makes sense to me.

Ignorant??? Might I add, that I've installed all drivers and updates till this date. Plus popped it into new via system with the same outcome. My friend, I made the statement because of the problems I had with this card.

Ignorant people call others ignorant to cover their own ignorance.

 

[WHipLAsh13]

Ignorant people call others ignorant to cover their own ignorance.

I am not going to get into a name calling arguement with you. I just want to clarify something, I said your statement about boycotting was ignorant not you. It is ignorant to say you should boycott a company because a product that works in millions of other people's systems just doesn't work in yours. Working for a hardware company myself, I can tell you that it isn't easy to make drivers that are compatible with 100% of all of the systems out there. There are so many variables such as processors, chipsets and OS's just to name a few.

 

[c627627]

All right, all right, enough you two.

Originally posted by MontyBurns: I think people buy sound cards for things OTHER THAN 24 bit recording sometimes. Don't you?

Yes I do. If the price was right, screw the 24-bit issue. But once again, missing the point Monty: it's not about basing our decision to buy or not on this, it's simply about being informed in case this ever comes up.