Soundblaster Live 5.1 Player vs Audigy?

[TheCorm]

I am finally getting rid of my Live Value because I want to have my 4.1 speakers in conjunciton with a jack lead going off to my stereo, which I am certain will be accomodated by the extra speaker out on a 5.1 card.

I am going to be watching Divx movies on my big screen tv and want to have it running through my stereo but I also want to encode directly to MP3 from my Sky Digital box and it seems crackly with my Live Value.

An SB Live Player 5.1 OEM will set me back £24...while an Audigy OEM would be £51...are there features on the Audigy that would justify me spending over twice as much? Or are the features on the Audigy just enchancements from the previous line....or is there something new and really good that I would be missing...I know about the firewire...I found it interesting but not that tempting.

Cheers,

Corm

 

[brunswickite]

i have heard them both and i dont think the audigy's high price justifies its "quality", creative hypes the audiogy "4 times more powerful"
audigy is noticibly better for games, but i dont think u will notice the sound differance from your SB 5.1 on anything else

 

[Funyuns101]

i agree with brunswickite, the audigy is not that powerful, which i own thinking that would be astonishing...
also note that creative isn't known for the best driver support
maybe it's time to move onto another brand... wish i waited to get the TB santa cruz for cheaper

 

[apriest]

I?ve been a bit appalled with the Audigy?s lack of WinXP driver support. Seems they only offer upgrades, but I have a friend that can?t get the original Win2K driver to install at all so he can?t do an upgrade of the driver. We found a Compaq driver that we were able to get to work, though you aren?t supposed to use it on anything but a Compaq according to the agreement you have to sign to download it. Bullcrap. I have avoided moving up to the Audigy until I saw a fully functioned driver that was downloadable for WinXP with no upgrades. Now the Extigy, that looks great. I could even use that on my laptop! And there are newer drivers on the CD for WinXP, as well as a 7/9/2002 update. Way newer than anything for the Audigy. Creative is pulling an ATI blunder here.

 

[Mem]

I think it depends on if you think the Audigy sound quality over the SB live 5.1 is worth 27 quid or so,using a good reciever with good speakers I would say yes,I spend more then that on cables alone,however sound quality is always subjective and the only real benefits of the Audigy are added firewire port,advanced EAX for gaming and improved sound quality which you may or not notice.


My conclusion,well it comes down to sound quality and money,and only you can really decide if it`s worth it or not,for myself it was but nobody here can really answer for you,your money your ears .

 

[TheCorm]

Well my amplifier and speakers are good but not anything special, plus I have never been a big spender on cables so I think that the 5.1 should do fine for now. I am going to look at other brands but I can get better deals on Creative cards...I wish our supplier did more other branded cards.

Creatives Liveware and driver support used to be really good....why have they hashed up! (Although Livewire 2.0 and 3.0 on Win98 would not install anywhere other than the default location as far as I remember).

Cheers,

Corm

 

[apriest]

"behind every upgrade is a problem"

and behind every problem is an upgrade!!!

 

[TheCorm]

Yes indeed....although recently my upgrades have been problem free....no wait....they haven't...typical :|

 

[cmdrdredd]

If anything a hercules gametheater XP is better than Audigy for connecting to a HT setup.

 

[CubicZirconia]

Just don't get the audigy expecting sound quality that blows the Live! cards out of the water. Personally, I can't tell the difference.