This external USB 2.0 ready sound system delivers high fidelity audio plus powerful features that will make you wonder how you put up with your basic PC or Notebook audio for so long! It delivers superior playback of many formats including DVD-Audio up to 24-bit/96kHz/5.1 and also WMA/MP3 music, while also catering for recording at up to 24-bit/96kHz. The quality listening experience is assured through the expert implementation of high-quality components plus advanced audio features allowing users to get a sound that only Creative can deliver! Audio Playback satisfaction is guaranteed through the advanced audio tools, such as SVM, Audio Clean-up and CMSS 3D that provide incredible control and interaction with any type of audio. The compact and stylish design even allows audio playback to be controlled from a distance using the supplied remote control.
1 Good... except for recording
If you're planning to use the NX for multitrack digital recording I would advise against it. Even with USB 2, recordings have a relatively high latency, meaning that if you try to record a new track while playing back an existing one, when you play them back together, they will start out in sync, but will end up with the new track lagging several seconds behind the original by the end. Consider purchasing the newer ZS instead.
For most other uses, the NX is a great upgrade to your computer's sound.
2 Good and easy alternatives to internal devices
I have bought this device a few days ago, because my computer's internal sound device keep fails. (I have Sony RS-630G desktop, and it has Soundmax sound device integrated in its motherboard. However, the device fails to play sounds after a while. Since it plays again once rebooted or drivers reinstalled, I guess it is the matter of device driver; but Sony hasn't upgrade the sound driver yet.) Anyway, it works great so far.
Comments:
1. The greatest advantage is that you don't have to open the computer. Simply plug the device into computer via USB cable, and install the drivers and software as needed. Since it's in very compact casing, it doesn't take up much spaces: slightly wider than the size of 2 cigarette boxes put toghther horizontally.
2. Remote control is nice when you want to switch volumes or mute it while you're not in front of computer.
3. Sound quality is satisfactory. However, for some reason I hear subtle noise in certain sound level. Probably it's because I am using standard 2 speakers which came with my computer. Acceptable.
4. It happens while I watch movie file with voice. If I skip the movie while voice was playing, there is a sharp noise(zip!) and a (very) slight delay until it plays voices or sounds of the point I skipped to. Also acceptable.
5. Some people down there complains about softwares. Since I haven't used bundled softwares except the operating driver yet, I can't really comment on that. (I don't think that I will somehow use bundled software.)
6. Instruction manual is acceptable, but not detailed enough. I would have been happy if the company put more detailed instructions rather than same way-too-brief instruction in other languages.
3 Terrible Tech Support
I bought this to utilize optical out to my receiver in order to eliminate hiss and noise that comes from using an analog port inside the computer.
TECH SUPPORT is useless! Works with my notebook, but does not work with a brand new Dell Dimension 4700 Tower; phone support would not help me because I have had this more than 2 months, and email support said that they do not "support 3rd party hardware"; that is pretty lame when the "hardware" is a brand new dell computer.
The product does work for my purpose, and I don't have any problem with Bass output (as long as my computer volume is not on max and I use my receiver to control it); however I suspect that any other (cheaper) USB sound device with an optical out would do the exact same for me.
The product is expensive for what you get. The remote that comes with it is also very lame!
4 Does what it's supposed to, after some adjustment
First off, I have no major complaints with this product. I use it with my laptop and 5.1 setup and it works fine in that it plays audio and sounds pretty good.
The remote it comes with is an extremely cool feature, although good luck using it with iTunes as it becomes limited to prev/next song and a scroll (which is useless because you can't select). However, with Windows Media Player you will get more functionality, and with the bundled program all of the remote's buttons work.
I should point out that when I first received this product, it would not power up, so I had to order a replacement. Just a fair warning, even though the tech support guy said he had never heard of somebody with that problem.
When I first tried to install the replacement, my computer had a tough time recognizing it, and I eventually had to disregard the installation instructions that came with it and agree to Windows XP's driver installation window, but then it worked fine.
One more thing, I figured that I would be able to play surround sound audio with this (as in all of the channels functioning seperately), but apparently my PIII 1GHz, 316MB memory laptop isn't up to speed. So now whenever I want to play DVDs or DVD audio, I have to unplug the Audigy and use my headphone jack to connect my speakers so the audio doesn't get choppy.
Anyway, I almost feel like a lot of my issues with this product are more or less not going to be the norm, so I went ahead and gave it 4 of 5.
5 Good hardware, but has room for improvement
I work in the streaming media industry and have used many different types of sound cards...
The Audigy 2 does its job, but I think there are a few annoyances.
1. It is an external sound card with an USB interface, but it still needs a seperate power supply (although it needs just 5Volts)
2. Your computer has to be ON all the time even when you are just trying to route the audio from another external device like your VCR. This makes no sense to me given the fact that this sound card has its own dedicated power supply. So, even though it is an "external" card, it is still pretty much wedded to your computer. I could as well have used a cheaper internal card that does the same thing.
3. The Media control software crashes very easily. Especially when you try to launch the media control when your Audigy card has been powered off
4. When you use the "Mute" button on your remote, many times you find no way of Un-Muting - pressing the Mute on your remote does not have an effect and you have to walk over to your computer and manually un-mute it. This happens to me 9 out or 10 times.
5. There is huge difference in the volume levels of your audio output depending on whether you play audio using the Creative's media player Or some other player like the Windows media player. They have a "smart" volume control but enabling it made the audio sound kind of "choked up".
I would suggest that you buy this card if you plan on using it solely with your laptop. But if you are planning on using this as a control center for all your audio devices at home, then you may want to look some place else (unless you dont mind keeping a computer near your VCR/DVD Player etc and it stays on all the time)
6 Excellent product.
No problems at all,either hardware or software. Excellent sound, easy to use. I'm using this with a Dell Inspiron XPS and a small Sony portable speaker system. Obviously volume is limited by the size of the speaker system but the sound quality is excellent.
7 good hardware, bad software
i bought this card because i have a dell laptop which has either a poor sound card, or its wiring is poorly shielded, resulting in noticable interference when listening. the audigy2 external sound card solves this problem--the sound is clear, crisp, and has no noticable interference. i have several issues with the software however. first off, once you'll install the software on your computer you'll have to download a plethora of software updates and fixes from creative's site. secondly, the software is poorly integrated with the hardware--on numerous occasions the software could not detect the sound card, and the 'diagnostic' utility that comes with it advises to reinstall the software, rather than fix the problem; geez, thanks. thirdly, often i had to manually shut-off my laptop because windows could not shutdown a background process--i never had this problem before installing this card. fourthly, sometimes the card is detected by the system, and sometimes it is not (this could be an issue with their hardware). overall, i have mixed feelings--sound is great, but it may be frustrating to get it.
8 Where is Coaxial In?
I recommended this product to my friend as an external decoder for DVD surround sound. As an upgrade from Extigy, this thing surprisingly doesn't have a coaxial in. So those who want to use it as a dolby surround sound decoder are pretty much stuck with DVD players that have toshlink out.
As for the sound quality ,it's actually not that bad for a creative product. Definitely a step up from average AC97 onboard soundcards. But I doubt how many people would want to spend over 100 for the difference.
9 Your ears will sing praise to you
First of all, you will hear the difference. I absolutely guarantee it. You're laptop (or default pc) audio cannot even begin to measure up to the awesome power of the Audigy. You will hear it the moment you plug this marvel into your USB port. Even your mundane and boring-to-the-death windows system sounds now carry a cadence that was simply not there before.
The sound card supports 7.1 speakers (for hardcore gamers) as well as the more pedestrian 5.1 setup (like mine). the handling of surround sound is superb. The availability of EAX (the patented SoundBlaster HARDWARE sound package) provides for seemless transitions, and the direct hardware equalizer and on the fly effects are a tremendous bonus if you are planning to use this second sound card's output for DJ-ing (like i am).
The fact that this has an independent power supply might seem inconvenient at first, and frankly... it is... There is a tradeoff, however... You will not believe how loud your speakers can actualy go now without distorting! Deafening. Almost like a pre-amp in that respect.
The negative reviews for this card startle me. Jeff Rutsch is incorrect when he says the USB cable is short. Its 4 feet. Too long for me, actually... furthermore, if you want a 20 foot cable, go out and buy it! No issues whatsoever with magnetic shielding... Its a SoundBlaster for heaven's sake! I have also not had any problems with the installation (even though it took a good hour!) or recognition. It does help if you "Safely Remove" it and/or plug it in before booting up... Otherwise the remote does not always work properly. Also, talking about CD sound, Jeff (even if he is a computer guru, as he claims) did not do his homework. By default your CD-ROM drive converts the digital audio into analog for playback. If you do not adjust this setting, that is the way it will stay after you install the new hardware. Come on Jeff! That was both in the help file and the tutorial program! You should have read those!
Woody Jin's comments also amuse me. There apparently is a white noise that you can't really hear, but its there. What??? :| If you can't hear it.. its not there by definition... Right?
As a matter of fact my experience has been that my onboard laptop audio sounds like a woodsaw compared to this.... Actually the Audigy2 does not produce *any* background noise. At all...
My only "problem" with this device is that it almost neccecitates a speaker upgrade... I am eagerly awaiting my new set of speakers right now, in order to better experience the explosive sound of the Audigy2 card...
10 Not worth the purchase
This product is a waste of money and I can't strongly enough recommend users away from it. First, the sound quality is just not very high. I barely noticed an improvement from using the computer's on-motherboard sound. This product slightly, but definitely noticeably, gives off a clipped & distorted sound, like a poorly encoded MP3. In addition, this product isn't well magnetically shielded, and must be placed as far as possible from any other part of your computer - not so easy when it's packaged with such a short USB cord.
Playing a CD through my computer and this soundcard, vs just playing the CD from a Discman, showed a night and day difference - the sound from this product can't compare. Running this product through recording software, even with short shielded wires, showed me a background hiss of -55 dB. Most consumer electonics will have S/N ratios a few orders of magnitude better than that. You wouldn't want to record your LP collection using this product, which is part of the reason I bought it.
In addition, the product is buggy. It worked fine at the beginning, and then as I added to my computer and changed the system configuration, it would act very erraticly. If I plugged the device into different USB ports, it would have completely different behaviors, none of which were correct. The installation software is buggy, I've been caught it loops where trying to exit merely re-starts the installer!
Creative's Support was very quick and attentive, but not helpful. I know computers well, and I've worked with plenty of hardware, but I've never experienced such a buggy product. As the product is so mediocre even when it is working, I can't recommend this product to anyone.
11 Bad analog recording, Background noise for digital music
I purchased this product mainly for recording my LP collection into digitial format using my laptop. I thought that this could be a good product for that purpose, until I used it. This product could not record properly from analog input. It's even much much worse than recording using laptop's analog input. Not only the recording level was so low, but also the recorded mp3 or wma had so much artificial noise that it was unusable. I used USB2 connection all the time. It seems to me that USB2 doesn't help any better.
Playing digital music was relatively OK, except that it produced slight background white noise. Still directly connecting from my laptop to the speaker produced much better result.
I wonder what the purpose of this device might be ?
Not recommended.
12 Noise in the headphone jack, s/w install probs
I had terrible problems getting the Creative drivers to *install*. (They won't install unless the installer sees the device, and it couldn't. I kid you not.)
After much messing around, emails to Creative tech support, and more messing around, I got lucky and the drivers installed.
Sound out of my speakers was very good (*much* better than the AC '97 audio on my motherboard).
Sound out of the headphone jack was disappointing--there's a definite hiss. Tweaking levels in the mixer made no difference.
CAVEAT: I use isolating in-ear headphones (Etymotics), so I don't hear any background noise (like computer fans). If you're using typical headphones in a typically noisy environment you might not notice. Still, it's ridiculous for the headphone jack to be anything but quiet.
13 Best USB Sound Device, For the price
I bought this to replace the cheap 5.1 surround sound/dvd player i had bought a couple of years ago, and to play everything off my laptop, on the tv. This sound card's CMSS is one of the best 2-channel converter i have heard! The audio on music tracks is truely amazing with 24-bit sound, i can hear a complete new depth to my music, and now i find myself listening to older songs and discovering new depth to each one. I really reccomend this product to anyone, desktop or laptop, it's worth every penny!!!
14 Incredible Difference VS Built-In Laptop Sound, A Must-Buy
This device is absolutely incredible. Your same speakers (assuming they are relatively high quality) will sound at least twice as good using this sound card compared to what your laptop has built-in. Even when not playing DVDs and just listening to music, the clarity of the sound is greatly enhanced. I would strongly reccomend this product to anyone who uses powerful speakers with their laptop, give it a try.
15 Good, could be great!
I bought the Audigy 2 NX to hook into my laptop into my surround receiver. I'm especially pleased with the CMSS 3D surround "up-sample" feature. CMSS 3D beats SRS Circle Surround 2 upsampling (which only provides a mono signal to the surround speakers) easily, and is very competitive (although quite different!) with Dolby Pro Logic II upsampling.
However, I have several issues/problems.
1) The Audigy doesn't remember the mixer volume settings (eg Master and Wave) across a power up/down cycle of the Audigy hardware. I really hate having to go in and reset the volume every time I turn the system on.
2) I would like to apply CMSS 3D to my radio and other analog signals, but cannot because CMSS 3D does not get applied to "line in" signals, only to Wave signals.
3) There is no way to set the speaker distance to compensate for speakers that are at differing distances from the listening position. Competitor products like the M-Audio Sonica Theatre and stereo receivers have this capability.
4) There is no speaker size setting (eg small, medium, large) to ensure proper bass management. If the surround speakers are small, bass going to them should be routed to the front speakers or subwoofer (if present). Again, the M-Audio Sonica Theatre has this capability, as do stereo receivers.
5) It would be really useful to have VU meters for input and output (all channels) built into the driver. The M-Audio Sonica Theatre has very useful VU meters. Unfortunately the M-Audio also makes my system (XP) crash!
6) I find all the different "consoles" to be confusing and time-consuming to launch. They should combine the Surround Mixer, EAX, Graphic Equalizer, and Speaker consoles.
