Believe it or not, the legendary SoundBlaster Live! series of sound cards from Creative came out three whole years ago, so quite rightly they are making a big song and dance about their newest baby, the SoundBlaster Audigy. Claiming it to be "The ultimate soundcard system for high-end musicians", Creative have set their goals high, and the competition in their new target audience is fierce. As before, there is a "player" version, with which you just get the card, a Platinum version, with which you get an Audigy 5¼" Drive and a remote control. Finally is the Platinum EX version, which features the same functions as the Platinum, except the Drive is external and comes with a rather more fetching black facia.
The nice lads at Creative Labs UK have sent me the middle range Platinum edition. Rather than open the box, have an amateurish look at the features and whack out a review saying "yeah it sounds good and it has lots of features" I am going to take a look at the card from three different perspectives; firstly from the average "I like MP3s and a bit of Encarta" computer users point of view, then from a hard-core gamers perspective and finally from a professional musicians perspective. Before doing this, lets take a look at the all-important box and its contents. You have to be able to identify it in the store after all!! While we are on that subject, the Audigy Player costs £78.73 ($110), the Platinum £163.33 ($228) and the Platinum EX £212.68 ($295) all from Tekheads
Inside the box you will find:
- The SoundBlaster Audigy Sound Card
- The internal Audigy drive
- A remote control (more on this later)
- A power splitter cable
- A wide IDE-style ribbon cable
- A Digital CD Audio Cable
- Internal SB1394 Cable
- A Joystick/MIDI bracket + Ribbon cable
- A "quick start" installation guide
- Midi in & out mini-din converter leads
Quite a box full of tricks then! Since the Audigy has so many features, it’s going to take a while to go through them all. First up, let’s take a look at installation, followed by the Audigy drive.
