Open your ears with the Audigy

Twelve years ago, a little-known company called Creative Labs revolutionised the desktop PC with the introduction of the Soundblaster audio card. This did for computing (and PC gaming in particular) what the printing press did for world literacy.

Users could, for the first time, experience affordable 8-bit sound in games and applications. Who could forget Doctor Sbaitso, the psychologist who could answer all your questions about life, the universe and everything else in that decidedly tinny American accent?

Fast-forward to 1998 and the introduction of the Soundblaster Live! when Creative, by now the top dog in the PC audio industry, proclaimed the second PC audio revolution. The company touted the Live! series of cards as the industry`s first to support software upgrades and PC audiophiles could therefore afford to invest in a high-quality sound card and simply update their sound fonts and environment audio effects (EAX) as it becomes available for download.

The possibility of playing games like Quake 2 in surround sound was just too good an opportunity to pass up. Now gamers could hear exactly from which direction someone was attacking them. The uptake of the Live! series spread like wildfire.

Which brings me to the card Creative believes will usher in a new era of PC sound. The latest Soundblaster sound card with Audigy processor and EAX Advanced HD technology was introduced in August this year.

Now, you may ask, how much better can the Audigy be than the Live! series? I mean, sound as featured with the Live! cards can only be as good as real life, right? With this in mind, I was first in line to ask our reviews editor for the chance to play with the Audigy.

Installing the Audigy

The Audigy Platinum ships with a variety of cables, ranging from a digital CD audio cable (for a DVD player), a useful power supply splitter cable and an internal SB1394 cable (more about this one later).

Installation is as simple as one can hope for in such an advanced sound card, although the Audigy drive, which is a front-facing control box fitted into the PC drive bay slots, does require a fair amount of manoeuvring for the smaller PC cases. The supplied installation chart covers how to connect all the cables (and what they are used for) and is probably one of the better help guides out there.

It is indicative of the product that the software and driver installation take more time than the hardware installation. Having said that, I recommend users to install all the available software on the disc (taking approximately 20 to 30 minutes depending on your system), as it is easier to uninstall the different elements.

Unfortunately, I did have some problem with the IRQ of the Audigy after Windows 2000 decided that the sound, network and graphics cards must all run on IRQ 07. However, after fiddling with the Mixer properties of the Audigy, I managed to correct this quite easily.

Two aural demos (the Audigy Experience and Gold Mine) ship with the Audigy. The Audigy Experience takes the user through the card`s full suite of features and technologies. This takes the form of interactive demos similar to the ones used by the Live!, and covers areas such as occlusion and how different barriers affect sound quality.

The Gold Mine demo, on the other hand, illustrates what the Audigy will be able to do once games start incorporating its environmental effects in their programming code. I particularly enjoyed the "before" and "after" toggle switch in the demo. Hearing the difference in how Audigy differs from Live! is the best way Creative could convince users to upgrade. Especially entertaining were the demos on environment morphing and panning.

In true Creative fashion, a bevy of useful software is included with the Audigy Platinum. Familiar titles include Vienna SoundFont Studio and SoundFont Control, WaveStudio, Surround Mixer, Recorder and TaskBar. The look and feel of these titles has been upgraded, as one would expect.

PlayCenter 3, Remote Center, MiniDisc Center, Diagnostics and the Oozic Player and Reactor are all welcome (and entertaining) additions. Oozic replaces the Lava music video software that was introduced by the Live! The Creative Diagnostics is, as the name suggests, a trouble-shooting application that automatically checks for errors on the audio card.

However, one of the more useful applications is PlayCenter 3. Users are able to create, organise, transfer and playback any MP3s or CDs. Although the interface does take some getting used to, users of WinAmp and Media Player 7 should be right at home.

I also found the audio clean-up feature of the PlayCenter useful when playing low quality MP3s and even when recording audio through a microphone. The now-standard EAX audio effects also contribute to the overall audio quality when listening to audio through the PlayCenter.

The Audigy also features the Advanced HD Audio Architecture. Without going into the technicalities, the sound quality delivered by the new architecture is frankly amazing.

The Audigy processing module features a new 32-bit multi-effects engine which is able to render four audio environments simultaneously. To put this into perspective, even the Live! could only support one audio environment at a time.

The multi-environment support enables each environment`s acoustical sound to feed into the other`s. The good news is that the demos sound truly amazing when utilising the multi-environment support. You can accurately identify where each sound should originate from in the demo. The bad news is that games and audio applications are only starting to catch up now on the features of the Live! This means that gamers and audiophiles will probably have to wait for a while before they can use programs that can truly exploit this technology.

Environment morphing, panning and reflections also add to the immersive qualities of the Audigy sound experience. Environment morphing is where a natural audio transition from one locale to another can be experienced, eg walking from the inside of a building to the outside while a thunderstorm is underway.

Environment panning enables sound developers to position an environment in 3D space as required, eg the echo sound of a tunnel as a car approaches it. The third of these environment effects, environment reflections, simulates sound bouncing off different surfaces, eg the sound of a bird screeching as it flies through a canyon.

All told, these technologies do sound beautiful and impressive in the demos, but the lack of programs that support these features will be a problem.

Wrapping up

The Creative Audigy Platinum is certainly the best audio card on the market at the moment. Unfortunately, while everything about the card is brilliant, the lack of support in commercial software and games does cause a problem. Also, the Audigy is quite an expensive investment to make for users who were told that the Live! series was the ultimate in audio technology.

Having said all that, I did not willingly part with the review product and will be the first in line to get an Audigy (not the Platinum though, but the entry-level model) as soon as I have acquired the necessary funds.

Judging by the reaction of our network administrator when I showed him the Inspire 5.1 speakers, this surround sound system had a lot to live up to. The first thing I was asked was whether the speakers are digital. They`re not, but don`t let this detract from what is a great system for PC audio aficionados.

Setting up the speakers is probably the step that most end-users (and reviewers) worry about the most. However, it took me all of 10 minutes to unpack the five 6W RMS per channel speakers and connect the audio cables to the 18W RMS subwoofer. The bass control at the rear of the subwoofer and the wired volume control keeps the system settings easily accessible.

I was disappointed to see that the rear-speaker stands, standard issue in previous speaker sets, are now optional extras.

The sound quality of the Inspire 5.1 speaker set is excellent. The bass remains steady (and loud) when the sound is cranked up to full volume. Different audio genres, from classical to heavy metal, perform brilliantly on the system. In fact, I had to force myself to reduce the volume when I received angry glares from co-workers in the same office (or in different offices as the case may be).

At R1 400, the Inspire 5.1 5300 is a great system to have, both for the sound quality and the aesthetics of the speakers. Except for the lack of speaker stands, this system will take pride-of-place in many a home environment and complements the environmental effects of the Soundblaster Audigy perfectly.