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Sound Blaster Audigy 2 offers Advanced Resolution DVD-audio playback up to an astonishing 24-bit/192 kHz in stereo, and delivers an ultraquiet 106 dB SNR that's far superior to ordinary CD and MP3 playback. With 6.1 speaker support, your games and Dolby Digital EX movies will sound more encompassing than ever before. The new Creative MediaSource music player will revolutionize your MP3 experience with its intuitive interface and rich feature set, while the Audigy 2 chip with EAX Advanced HD support delivers awesome power for gaming. Get Sound Blaster Audigy 2 for 24-bit/192 kHz audio fidelity--it delivers simply the best audio quality for music, movies, and games. Nothing else comes close.
Doood! It's Creative!
so what?
I'll start with the problem. My problem was the infamous "Squeal of Death" bug that Audigy cards tend to suffer from. This is some type of hardware flaw that occurs depending on your mainboard, operating system, etc. Up till now Creative hasn't managed to toally figure out why it happens, but what it does is simply cause the computer to completely freeze and emit a constant high-frequency tone while its halted (hence the "squeal"). This happens randomly during normal computer use while sound is playing. You cannot predict when it will happen, but it usually happens within the first 30 minutes of use, and its one of the most irritating things, one that can ruin your entire experience. As for Creative's support, it was very lacking. They told me to go over the same procedures again and again without any useful tips.
I've had this problem for nearly a year. Having the latest drivers for all of my hardware didn't help. I also tried formating my Hard Drive and reinstalling everything several times with no help. I did manage to understand what causes the bug to happen more frequently (such as watching DVD movies in surround mode, etc) and tryed to avoid it, but that was surely no fun.
Then one day it passed. Don't ask me how or why, but for a few months it works flawlessly. I know that recent motherboards, though, hardly cause this bug, so if you have a new computer you should not experience this problem.
And now for the card itself (when it works).
What I care about mostly is audio quality (in stereo), and this one delivers very good audio considering its a sound card. The resolution is high (not talking about the technical one), the high frequencies are precise (though a bit harsh), the soundstage is good, and detail is sufficient in audiophile terms.
One minus is that the card resamples everything lower than 48KHz to 48KHz using so-so algorithms that make 44.1KHz sources sound lacking at 48KHz (all your CD, MP3 sources). I found a way around this using a high-quality plugin for Winamp that resamples everything to 48KHz (or higher, I use 96KHz) using the best dithering algorithms and this avoids this little trouble.
I found working with high resolution and high frequency recordings (96KHz/24bit) pleasing and flawless. DVD-Audio also turned well, and surround sound very good if that is what you're into. I am not much into it but whatever surround recordings I tried sounded as good on the secondary channels as on the front ones (i.e. the DACs are the same for all channels).
The EAX hardware effects don't really improve the sound, but they work quite well and the fact they are done on-card (without CPU usage) is a big plus. There is a nice noice-removal option which works very well, especially useful with old films or bad radio reception (using line-in), though there is a slight delay.
Lastly, I'm not a big fan of computer games, but I was quite astounded with the sound it produced in serveral EAX-supported games, so if that's what you're into I suppose it delivers the finest out there.
To sum it up, when it works like it should it delivers excellent sound quality for such a mass-market product (and considering the price), all the needed surround sound support, and advanced EAX effects that work well for games and music as well.
If you're into recording you'll be also pleased to hear that it can record using high resolution 96KHz/24bit and that it does so with a very audiable improvement than the usual 48/16, great for doing analog remasterings or recordings on an amatuer level.
I picked up one of these yesterday. I read a lot about installation nightmares, but with the lack of any serious competitors quality and performance-wise, I felt I didn't really have a choice.
I was sure to uninstall all previous drivers. Install went without a hitch. Am now using EAX 3 in my games and they sound absolutely terrific. I feel like they're smoother too, which would be from the decreased CPU load the onboard sound was placing on it.
CONs: Expensive, if you are a casual music person and gamer and don't need the best for your computer then pay half and go with SoundBlaster Live!, it is 16 bit, not the Audigy 24 bit. Live! still sounds fantastic, but Audigy 2 is better. Some people have had conflicts with XP, make sure you have XP service pack 1 installed on your system, that "should" fix the issue. If you are NOT an audio nut then you will notice some diffrence in quality but not much. I notice.
REMEMBER!!!! If you want to get this card and are using cheap speakers then PLEASE get good speakers w/Sub first (I could not consider myself an audiophile and not say that) and then the Audigy, after all it is the speakers that bring the sound out to your ears right? If you have live! and cheap speakers, new speakers will help give better sound to the live! card!
speakers+Audigy 2=BLISS
I actually purchased this card after I started having a few resource problems between a fire wire card and my onboard audio that were getting to be very irritating.
When I read that this card had integrated fire wire connectivity in addition to the sound capabilities, plus two bundled high quality games (Soldier of Fortune II and Hit man 2) I told myself I couldn't go wrong by spending a few more bucks than the average sound card.
This card does make an extremely noticeable difference in the way we listen to any kind of audio. MP3s just sound better, period. A few of my MP3's that previously were almost unplayable now simply sound better, I don't know how it works, it just does.
My Unreal Tournament 2003 game is a totally different experience with this card. Boy, I was simply mesmerized with the positional EAX sound performance of the Audigy 2 card with this game. With my onboard sound, I had a lot of difficulty locating enemies by using positional sounds, but now it is so much clearer and crisp, it's unbelievable. Here's where I got totally convinced about the true difference between my onboard sound, which I thought was more than enough, and a truly remarkable work of technology.
I also tested the fire wire with my video camera and it works like a charm, plus now I do not suffer from system resource problems anymore.
Card installation is simple: With the PC off, insert the card, make sure to disable onboard sound (via the BIOS) if any, boot up, install the drivers from the CD, restart and done. Make sure to download the latest drivers afterwards.
Don't get intimidated by the price tag. This is one of the best investments you could make for your PC if you want to enjoy true quality audio.
5 stars
but watch out. for certain motherboard-sound card combinations (like intel, for instance), this card suffers from a "sqeal of death". every now and then a high pitched sqeal is emitted from the card and the computer freezes requiring a reboot. this occurs frequently and is very irritating. the problem is said to be with the software drivers so make sure this problem is fixed before buying this card.
The sound quality in even my average quality Harman-Kardon 'Champagne' style speakers is so much better now that it's hard to imagine I once thought my old card was just fine.
The Audigy 2 supports formats that are just now coming into their own (ie. DVD-Audio), and promises to be current with sound technology for many years to come. Many people are starting to use their computers for nearly every type of media, so having a card that can produce high fidelity audio in multiple surround sound formats is one of the most important invesments you can make; the Audigy 2 is certainly one of the best sound card buys for most consumers right now. The cost is much less than most other high quality audio components, and it would be difficult to find something that can increase the multimedia power of any PC so much.
The audio input does not working correctly from the ATI When using the time shift feature the sound is messed up big time. ATI seems to be aware of this problem, they reccomend using the mic input to solve the problem, I didn't buy a top line audio card to use the mono mic input.
To attempt to solve this problem I contacted Audigy tech support. They gave be a solution that fixed the timeshfiting sound problem. The only problem is that now there is no sound when I toggle timeshifting off. The Audigy people seem to think oit is acceptablel to go back to the windows volume control and manually toggle this setting if you want to toggle the ATI Media Center timeshifting on and off. To me this is totally unacceptable.
It seems to me that a-lot of people have probally bought this combination of incompatable products the ATI All In Wonder and the Audigy 2 for Christmas and I'm sure some of those people will be very disapointed.
I wish Soundblasters response would have told me they were solving one problem only to create another problem so I wouldn't have wasted another hour of my time.
Unhappy customer
The audio input does not working correctly from the ATI When using the time shift feature the sound is messed up big time. ATI seems to be aware of this problem, they reccomend using the mic input to solve the problem, I didn't buy a top line audio card to use the mono mic input.
To attempt to solve this problem I contacted Audigy tech support. They gave be a solution that fixed the timeshfiting sound problem. The only problem is that now there is no sound when I toggle timeshifting off. The Audigy people seem to think oit is acceptablel to go back to the windows volume control and manually toggle this setting if you want to toggle the ATI Media Center timeshifting on and off. To me this is totally unacceptable.
It seems to me that a-lot of people have probally bought this combination of incompatable products the ATI All In Wonder and the Audigy 2 for Christmas and I'm sure some of those people will be very disapointed.
I wish Soundblasters response would have told me they were solving one problem only to create another problem so I wouldn't have wasted another hour of my time.
Unhappy customer
The audio input does not working correctly from the ATI When using the time shift feature the sound is messed up big time. ATI seems to be aware of this problem, they reccomend using the mic input to solve the problem, I didn't buy a top line audio card to use the mono mic input.
To attempt to solve this problem I contacted Audigy tech support. They gave be a solution that fixed the timeshfiting sound problem. The only problem is that now there is no sound when I toggle timeshifting off. The Audigy people seem to think oit is acceptablel to go back to the windows volume control and manually toggle this setting if you want to toggle the ATI Media Center timeshifting on and off. To me this is totally unacceptable.
It seems to me that a-lot of people have probally bought this combination of incompatable products the ATI All In Wonder and the Audigy 2 for Christmas and I'm sure some of those people will be very disapointed.
I wish Soundblasters response would have told me they were solving one problem only to create another problem so I wouldn't have wasted another hour of my time.
Unhappy customer
Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill.
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been
originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet
has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a
beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are
being, evolved.
-- Darwin
