Creative Labs Solidifies Monopoly On Audio Cards

[CyberSax]

Sad news here at
http://www.ga-source.com/all/news/bits/08+22+2000/7:07:49.shtml

First they bankrupted Aureal with their aggressive, yet frivolous lawsuits, and now they've purchased them up. While Aureal devoted its resources to bringing true innovations to PC audio, CL devoted its resources to unscrupulous corporate trickery. I guess you can count on overpriced, POS SB Live cards being the norm for several years to come. I, however, will hold on to my Vortex 2, until they "pry it from my cold dead hands".

 

[corkyg]

I have 4 computers, and not a one of 'em has a Creative Lab product aboard.

 

[hungrypete]

I MUCH prefer my guillemot fortissimo with a yamaha chip t any of creatives Live! products....... and now that nvidia is broadening it's manufacturing Creative's "monopoly" won't last long.

 

[Techno]

No SBLive here.. I only got my Santa Cruz (w/ the "Crystal Fusion" chip).

 

[Warrenton]

All three systems here have Creative cards... Happy as a duck in a pond!

Reason I didn't use Aureal... Drivers!

 

[Oyeve]

I have had every single CL sound card ever produced and the ONLY type I ever had problems with was the SB16PNP under win31. They make a damn fine card! The Awe64 Gold was awesome! The SBlive! Value was (is) AWESOME! Ok. maybe the live!Gamer had problems but still, damn fine cards.

 

[Zucchini]

Well there is one alternative out there still. Turtle beach released their new Santa Cruz soundcard. Its not bad at all, its certainly better then the live xgamer it replaced

 

[pen^2]

this cl bashing goin too far. they might be monoplizing but that doesnt make live cards pos; 3dfx is evil but their voodoo3 cards were decent...

 

[Argo]

sb live is a decent card. Never had a single problem with it, while I've seen people have problems with aureal and KT133.

 

[ViRGE]

Ugg, now we rely on Nvidia to save our butts, again.:| While they have Aureal's engineers, CL took the A3D stuff, so it'll be interesting to see how Nvidia gets around this.:Q

 

[Doomguy]

When aureal was still in good shape their drivers were WAY better than the sblive's in 98 and had functioning win2k drivers during the win2k beta stages unlike creative.

 

[Scorpion]

Virge, Perhaps the engineers nVidia hired will design something better than what they did at Aureal. That would be great. Would bring back some good competition in the sound card market.

The engineers already have the experience. So they can take the experience and make what they did at Aureal, better. Though, A3D is kickass and I wish nVidia would have just taken the whole company.

 

[Bignate603]

the sblive is good enough for me. It may not be perfect but my speakers are bad enough it wouldn't do a better card justice.

 

[Pretender]

SBLive is pretty awesome, I feel sorry for you people who paid too much for a card which can easily be match by SB Live or even the Live Value.

 

[Ultima200]

SB Live a POS? Haha. You guys must not know crap about sound cards because if you did you would know what a good sound card it is.

 

[Doomguy]

The sb live is good but worse than the vortex 2. The vortex 2 has superior sound quality in a3d and non 3d apps(Well except for midi). You dont know what you're missing.

 

[hans007]

VIA integrated ac97 codec OWNs!!! (ok i ran out of pci slots... )

 

[Cosmic_Horror]

i have a ISA SB16! Love this card! been around for ever and have drivers for every x86 operating system you can think of.

 

[andrey]

CyberSax, let me guess.... you have an Aureal Sound Card in your computer, don't you ?

 

[Techno]

U200,

Open Challenge: Go listen to a Santa Cruz... come back... and then say again we don't know what a good sound card when we see it.

 

[The Sauce]

The problem is not Creative making bad cards, its that now you can expect to pay more for their already exorbitantly priced mediocrity.

 

[ColdTech]

Both Areal & Creative are damn good cards.
But I think the vortex 2 is a better deal than any SB live (other than oem value). But Areal Get there A$$es kicked in the market place by creatives strong arm tactics.
Now I am Just waiting for my GeForce With Dolby Surrond Sound > NvIdia Will Not let those engineers go to waste

 

[Zucchini]

Jeez guys, no ones saying creatives cards are POS They are merely adequet and creative merely trys to keep up with its competitors tech. We shouldn't have to settle for just good enough.. innovation and excellent products are what consumers deserve.

oh by the way, i've bought more creative cards then anything else. I just turned in my soundblaster live xgamer for a turtle beach santa cruz. There is no way you can say the live is superior to the santa cruz. The santa cruz is the card to buy now.. turtle beach has always created great sounding products. I loved their montego (18bit dacs) but it only supported 2 speakers so i had to upgrade Anyhow the santa cruz also has 18bit dacs/2.1-6.1 speaker output, digital out/in/headphone out..blah blah costs the same as an xgamer.

Soundblaster pro/soundblaster 16mcd/Soundblaster gold/Soundblaster AWE32/Turtle Beach Montego Ax3d/Monster Sound 3d mx300/Soundblaster Live! X-gamer/Turtle Beach Santa Cruz.

 

[RagingGuardian]

The Santa Cruz makes the Live it's bitch. Then again the Vortex2 was doing the same. A3D is KING!!!!!!

 

[novice]

So sad to hear that creative has acquired the assets of Aureal. I hate it when companies resort to the courtroom instead of the research lab. Maybe Creative Labs should change their name to Creative Lawyers . As for my systems, all three have aureal based Diamond cards, a Monster Sound M80, a Sonic Impact S90, and my main box a Diamond MX 300. Long live A3D!!!