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boycott sb live!

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i already have with my vortex2 ^_^, its only $20 now and i still like it better than sb even tho its older, a3d = besssst!
 
Bottom line is that the Live's not the best solution anymore. In fact, I'd go as far to say it's not even the third best solution.

Better sound, less problems (granted you may not have any with the Live, but like most of us, you probably will).

1. GTXP - best drivers, least problems, most features, least CPU usage.
2. Santa Cruz - tied with #1 in best sound, versa jack, relatively cheap.
3. Acoustic Edge - I don't speak from experience but I've heard it beats 1,2 in sound quality.

There really is no reason for anyone to take a chance on a Live anymore... it can't beat any of the above 3 at anything really.
 
Just installed a 16x CD-Writer and could not enable DMA for it OR my DVD. Did some reading and found out sblive DOS support steals this. Picked up an Acoustic Edge, installation was a BREEZE and DMA for CD's works great! Goodbye CREATIVE!!!
 
blah blah blah, if you dont like the sblive dont use it.

ive used between 10 and 15 of them in dif systems with zero problems
 
Well, I have a Platinum on my 1100 Athlon, a value on my P3 700, and a value on my daughter's P3 550. All work flawlessly with 98SE, Me, W2k, RedHat, and XP.
 
I don't have any problems with my SB Live! X-Gamer and my Asus A7V. I did have IRQ conflicts at first but I solved them within a day.

-mosdef
 
I think Chad summed it up. The Live! can't beat any of the three in any areas, so why bother?

You're going to drop ~1,000 on a machine, why save 20 bucks on something that is going to affect you with every mp3 file, every movie, every game you play? It's just not worth it. Again, hardware problems aside, the Live is a poor choice. It's old, it's technologically inferior to herc/SC/AE cards.
 
I have unintentionally(sp?) boycotted Creative stuff, I have just noticed my new machine has NO creative products whereas before my old machine had loads. Creative used to be the best but there is beter alternatives around now.
 
I just plain hate Creative. Their Live and SMP is crap. I had a Creative Geforce SDR and I upgraded to an Abit KT7-RAID and the card wouldn't work. I called in and asked for an RMA, but the guy said they didn't test their stuff on non-intel systems.

After bitching at him I got him to issue an RMA number. I sent it in, they said nothing was wrong. Got a new one back anyway and it didn't work either. Tried it in my friends P3 system with a VIA chipset, it wouldn't work. Tried it in an VIA KX133 chipset, it wouldn't work. Tried it in a BX, and it worked.

I'm sorry to break this to creative, but you need to SUPPORT your products. Almost everyone else is doing it, why don't you give into peer presure.
 
I've never owned a sound blaster live, so I've never had problems with any. However, I do boycott creative, and would not recommend a creative product to anyone, even if it is the best product available. My opinion of this is mostly because of what Creative did with Aureal, and Aureal's customers, but also because Creative has not come out with anything even remotely new to the sound card industry since the demise of Aureal. They still don't even have a card that can compare with what Aureal had. I'll personally stick with my vortex 2 until I encounter one of the many problems that other vortex customers have due to lack of support. Meanwhile, there are many cards on the market that are both cheaper and better than the SB Live, and there are only more to come due to the fact that every sound card manufacturer is improving their technology except for creative. It's hard for me to understand how a product that is about 2 years old can have so much of the market share when a product that pre-dates it (the vortex 2) is so much superior. It's a shame Aureal isn't still around, because they would've forced Creative to at least make an effort with their products. If Aureal still existed, and Creative was still pushing the SB Live then Creative would probably have been forced out of the sound card market by now.
 
It ain't just VIA. My Ali Magic based board would not accept the SB Live card. I crashed all the time and when I yanked the card out, PRESTO, no more crashing. The on board sound on my Iwill is just as nice anway. Should NEVER have bought that overpriced card. Had to sell it for a loss.
 


<< It's only when you buy a lowly board like Abit you'll run into trouble. >>


Ummm... ok. I must a one-in-a-million to have an Abit board (KT7-RAID), Via chipset(KT-133), SB Live! (Platinum 5.1) and Windows (98SE), and have no problems.
 
Yeah, I'm usually surprised by the number of complaints about SB Lives. I've installed about 20 of them or so, on both VIA and other chipsets, and haven't encountered a single problem yet.
 
Fine, continue wasting your money on overpriced pieces of crap. One day they won't work and you'll wonder why you didn't listen to use.

The Santa Cruz has more features, and costs less and sounds better. Why would you go Creative anyways? I think it's brainwashing.
 
I have a SB Live X-Gamer 5.1 too. So far, the number of problems I have encountered with this card on Win2k is ZERO. I would not hesitate to recommend this card. The issue of Creative dragging on and on with it and not innovating and coming up with better cards is an entirely different one.
 
SB Live! no like ATI's stuff or TV tuners. caused many a great headache :|

had to get rid of it and go back to my old sound card....
 
Abit is crap, its just a simple fact, nothing ignorance. Lets see here, two KT7-RAIDs, and a VP6, do they use 686B? I must be ignorant enough to let that by.
 
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