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Looks like Aureal is gone for good now.

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My view about Creative products is that they are usually pretty good but way too expensive compared to their competitions (It's not like they are really THAT good...)

I wish there will arise some company that will make a formidable competition for nVidia... For the most parts, in video card markets I actually hope ATI can defeat nVidia a bit *L*. Without Aureal, Creative will probably dominate the soundcard market with their SB Live! for a while longer. I really like A3D better tho...

And of course I would always keep my MX300... I just love the way Diamond designed the interface. MX400 is pretty crappy tho...
 
creative has dominated the sound card market since the Sound Blaster. I had the original SB Pro, and it was a noisy piece of junk. My SB16+Yamaha DB50XG combo was a great pair, and I think the Live is a fantastic sound card with the most support from game developers. One thing Creative is good at, is drivers. I dare anyone to try and get their Gravis Ultrasound to work with Win98ME or SE. I have seen so many companies try and make sound cards, and they all fail miserably when it comes to support. Diamond, Gravis, Adlib, Turtle Beach, Cardinal, Mediavision(and now Aureal), Yamaha, either are out of business or had support that was straight out of the sh!tter.

I will always buy Creative, because I know what I will get.
 
Hey Rickn, Yamaha's not lumped in with that bunch! They only make professional music products, not wimpy sound cards for gamers. 🙂 The SW1000XG is no SoundBlaster! Of course, it's designed for people who write music, so no wonder it costs more than a Voodoo5-6000. 🙂
 
the 1000xg isnt even in the same realm as SB, Aureal. They did make the 192xg, it had horrible support
 
Everyone here is talking about competition being good. Well, it was Creative's lawsuit with Aureal that put the latter out of business. I don't think it was their great product so much as their early lead in terms of money to afford a lawsuit. And Creative isn't exactly the most innovative company, they're just good businessmen. When they had nothing new to produce, they bought out the best in the market at the time, Ensoniq. They're the ones responsible for the current Live, I believe.

I wish I could have seen the SQ3500...
 
Aarrggh, the horror! I ask thee; wasn't Creative's walk over Gravis (Sound Blaster 16 and AWE32 vs. Ultrasound and Ultrasound MAX) enough? It seems as if they really can't stand competition. Aside from original Sound Blaster and Sound Blaster Pro cards - and that was a long, long time ago - they haven't had the superior product. This trend is especially obvious with the new series of Live cards: they're just a way to milk customer's money with an old product (basically same card w/ new software), just like their earlier "innovation", the Awe64 was. Creative's marketing strategy kinda reminds me of 3dfx's, except for some reason latter isn't doing too well anymore. I guess this is because video cards are much more expensive, and actual impact of simple old technology repackaging more noticeable.

We need a Nvidia in the sound card business, or in five years we'll still be using same sound cards, just under brand names of "SB Live 2048+" or "SB Live Classic".
 
I'm still using my Turtle Beach Vortex 1 card right now. Too bad, I really like this card and it has served me well for the most part.
 
"BUT don't forget that Creative has made one KICKASS card in the SB Live!, and I think we should thank them for allowing us all to enjoy such good music quality at such a low price."

ONLY after aureal made alot of noise in the sound card market.

When the vortex 1 came out, what did Creative have? a pci version of their awe 64. It wasn't until aureal stole alot of creative's thunder before Creative brought out the Live.
 
Glad I bought my SB Live! Value about 7 months ago when I was deciding between that and Aureal-based sound card. Wish they didn't go though because competition is always good. As far as the APIs, I think EAX is pretty pointless. I hardly hear any difference at all even with a 4 speaker system. Maybe a slight reverb here and there in games. A3D, on the other hand, was suppose to be pretty good. Oh well...

eagle
 
Pete--nicely summarized. Wasn't it only ~3 years ago that A3D 1.0 came out? Seems like such a long time ago.
--Randy
 
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