Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Sound Card Reviews

• Very happy with it

  
  By A1YK56DPXS5DFX on 2003-04-08
  Let me start right off by saying that I am not an audiophile and maybe I can not discern between a good/bad quality audio stream, so the fact that I purchased this audio card would seem like a big waste of money.

  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
  
  

• The All in Wonder and the Audigy 2 are incompatable!

  
  By on 2002-12-17
  The All in Wonder and the Audigy 2 are incompatable!

  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
  
  

• Mindblowing Audio

  
  By A23CBMTLDISU13 on 2002-10-21
  The Audigy2 is the best sound card out there.The 6.1 surround sound and dobly digital ex sound is amazing especially while watching DVD movies and gaming.The sound quality is far better than the Audigy, u can feel the difference.ALso supports DVD Audio, so ur ready for the future.GO, get the Audigy2 right now!
  
  

• fabulous sound but watch out...

  
  By A39SFZTNK1JCHR on 2003-03-11
  this is probably one of the best sound cards you'll come across. great sound and great features.

  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.
  
  

• Very Pleased

  
  By on 2003-01-10
  Creative Labs has created another great premium sound card. The difference between this card and the standard or integreated sound that most computers ship with can be compared to the difference between a home theater and a boombox.

  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.
  
  

• Just my 2 cents....
  By A18D1RLW38LVLW on 2003-08-01
  This is one of the most talked about sound card these days, above this being the platinum edition. For the hard core gamer, the movie fan & mp3 listener, this card will do the job just right. I purchased this card for a new system I built, and it's performed like a charm since installation.
  The quality of the sound is clearly above my old sound blaster live card. If used with high quality speakers, the sound card will really bring out that monster inside. You'll hear music, movies, even games with such clarity, that you may even hear sounds that are there that you never heard before.
  One of my favorite features of this card is the EAX Console. Here you can choose from a wide variety of effects for your audio, which, again, if combined with good speakers, can make the listener feel right in the action. Also, included is a creative player, which I do not use, but I'm glad it's there just in case I get tired of my current player and want to test it out.
  You also have diagnostics, speaker settings, surround mixer, & other features.
  You can easily combined a speaker system with 5.1 speakers; that's going to add a lot of joy to your listening experience.
  If you want to listen to your music in a different level, want to experience games & movies in a better way, then definitely get this audio card. It beats the sound from the built-in audio controller that comes with most of today's motherboards.
  The difference will be heard.
  
  
• When it works like it should its quite a good deal
  By A2BCHJ05XQD7AU on 2003-12-26
  My experience with this product is divided into two "eras".
  The first one was up until a few months ago when it gave me real headaches and problems. The second one is ever since it managed to solve itself (I don't know how, but I'm not asking either).

  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.
  
  

• Reformat
  By A3G8W5RJCZO6B on 2003-12-21
  Junk, absolute junk. Don't even try to complain to Creative. Talk about a bunch of losers. If you have a soundblaster already installed, you might as well reformat to get the new one to work. I am a computer engineer for crying out loud. The soundblaster uninstall does not work, and you can spend forever trying to track down all the files that need to be deleted so that your new card will install correctly, but you will never find them all.
  
  
• This sucka rocks!
  By A2SGAVGO5I5KKN on 2003-01-05
  I love this card. I owned the first Audigy card and it was mindblowing as well, but I received this card for Christmas because of the fact that I'm a fan of EAX gaming and an audiophile. The reasons I deducted a star is because of the driver situation and the mediasource issue. The drivers can be a real hassle to install if you have XP imho. What I would suggest is downloading the latest XP drivers from their site and be prepared to use them if things don't work well for you. The mediasource issue involves not being able to open the application from the pull down menu. Once updating it, it works fine. Since installing the updated drivers everything sounds and works great! The included installation guide should help the newer computer owners.
  
  
• card's just wonderful, drivers suck in XP
  By A1N2D7LLBAY25B on 2004-01-13
  If you can get 6.1 in a game your do'n good, it sounds great. That is IF you can get even 4.1. Mostly this card reverts back to it's primitive 2.1 speaker state(even though I have a 6.1 speaker SET from creative ITSELF!). When playing games, two out of three will revert the sound card drivers back to 2.1. In windows 98 SE this is not a problem in XPPro it is a major one. Games that revert back include Star Trek Bridge Commander, Dungeon Siege(a microsoft "designed for XP" game), Hidden evil(most Star Trek games in fact), Fellowship of the Ring, System Shock2 (with EAX enabled), Ultima 9(EAX enabled) and most of the others I am too tired to find and referrence right now. In fact the only games that play in more than 2.1 sound(EAX) are Neverwinter Nights and most Bioware Infinity titles. That's funny becasue everyone knocks Infinity Engine, but it must have something going for it to work a nit-picky sound card such as this in 6.1 EAX. Everything else gamewise(EA, Dreamscape, Sirtech, ect) doesn't work at all. I have heard others complain about this and say Winamp can rectify the problem, it does not... Don't bother with the 2ZX 7.1, it's nothing special either and is just as bad. Try a Herc or Phillips.

  Doood! It's Creative!

  so what?
  
  

• Software was written by gibbon monkeys.
  By A3DNGV4EKQKK1 on 2005-11-29
  I have had this card for 2 years now and it has worked fine for me as long as I didn't play with Creative's drivers or software.
  
  All of a sudden, sound quit coming out of my rear speakers ONLY in certain Creative applications, and the speaker calibrator quit putting out any sound. So I uninstalled the drivers and tried to reinstall them.
  
  Be aware that -
  
  1. Creative will NEVER offer a driver pack on its webpage. You MUST, I repeat MUST start with your original CD to load some drivers, and then you can get Creative's patches from their webpage. Now that my CD is 2 years old, there appears to be a conflict with *its* drivers and creative's patches. Apparently not enough bananas were bought for the gibbons, and they wandered out to the jungle in search of nourishment before finishing a full driver package.
  
  2. There is a good chance that once you go to reinstall your drivers, you will get a "Hardware not found" message (see Creative's tech support forum) and not be able to install the drivers. Want another banana, Creative programmer? OOO OOO OO AHH AHHH AHHH!
  
  My card is now a steaming pile of $100 poo since their driver system is not working for me.
  
  Wish I had my old Turtle Beach Santa Cruz back.
  
  
• Hardware is exceptional; drivers are abysmal.
  By APCIY57ONMWV7 on 2006-12-30
  I use a couple of Audigy 2ZS in my recording business. No other soundcard on the market, then or now, offers the flexibility and just great sound capturing capabilities of this card. Interestingly, all the later Creative products no longer support 192k/24 bit sampling, so this card is truly unique. The only other manufactured card supporting this brilliant sampling clarity costs US$250 more!
  
  If you only get a hold of one of these cards to see how good audio CAN be on your computer, do it. It's jaw-droppingly good.
  
  But I have to reinforce the driver problems described by others. I have dealt directly with the driver team at CL, and to say they are unhelpful is an understatement. Early drivers (e.g. those shipped on the CD) had some pretty bad flaws, but at least they allowed the card to work to its full potential (which is really astonishingly good!).
  
  All the latest drivers (since late 2005) use the Creative "universal" driver model, which means they are designed to work correctly ONLY with the newer, low market level CL cards. All the new drivers have significant bugs and "showstopper" flaws, and completely prevent the card from being used properly (i.e. nowhere near it's actual technical specifications). Then there's a whole other discussion about CL supporting more than one card in any computer system. Old drivers worked beautifully with multiple cards, but new drivers just lock out inputs and confuse mixer settings and just don't work, full stop.
  
  So if you want one of the clearest, most flexible, highest sample rate cards ever on the PC market up to this year, get one of these if you can (I've bought 3 spare cards in case any of my current ones die, as CL no longer support the product at all). Just don't expect the latest "mass market", "cloth-eared consumer" Creative labs drivers to work properly, and don't expect CL to help you with any technical problems. Ever.
  
  To be honest, my next card will be anything BUT a Creative Labs product. But for me, the Audigy 2ZS is the BMW of the older audio card market. Have a drive, if you can. You just probably wouldn't want to own one.
  
  
• The All in Wonder and the Audigy 2 are incompatable!
  By on 2002-12-17
  The All in Wonder and the Audigy 2 are incompatable!

  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
  
  

• Good, once it works!
  By on 2003-06-09
  This is an excellent sound card, but there is an issue that I encountered while installing it. As another review stated, there is the 'squeal of death' issue. I found to fix this you need to download the correct bios update . I went to the dell website, clicked on the support section, and then went on to download 'FlashBIOS' update drivers. This solved all of my sound problems, and I now am very happy with this soundcard, as well as the creative 6.1 speakers I also purchased.
  
  
• Review from an audiophile.
  By on 2003-11-23
  PROs: GREAT sound, Games are even deeper, digital audio is amazing. THIS IS A SOLID CARD. clear highs, superb mids, and powerful lows can be produced. If you are hardcore music or gamer then get this card. NOT at a retail store but online where the price is normal, I paid 100.00 (doh!!).

  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
  
  

• Great-Sounding Stuff
  By on 2004-02-05
  To suggest that this soundcard is a dramatic improvement over on-board sound is a massive understatement. I recently purchased a new computer, one far more powerful and speedy than my old one, but I soon discovered that my media didn't sound nearly as good as I was used to hearing. I'd had a Sound Blaster Live card in my old unit, but I could not install that in the new computer: It was not compatible with Windows XP. Hence, I had to buy a new soundcard, not something super-fancy or compatible with speakers in 100 different rooms: Just something that kicks out good stereo sound for a good three-speaker setup, not to mention the ability to utilize more channels should I ever decide to go that route. The difference in the sound blew my mind: So much richer, deeper, more full in both lows and highs. This thing makes my computer sound wonderful, whether I'm playing it through my computer speakers or running it through my stereo. Helps with cd burning as well, as it allows for full-range copying of discs with 24-bit sound. Highly recommended!
  
  
• No input
  By AQGSLUMPQKD8S on 2004-09-02
  I had this card installed in my Dell when I ordered it and I will say it does sound great BUT there is one proplem with it that I need and that is the input will not work. I called Creative Labs, Dell and got no where. Now maybe not many people need to use the input jack but it is a must for me. My old computer had a simple card but it did work. So if you want just great sound, this card is good but if you need to record albums, etc. then forget it, this card won't do it, or at least mine won't.
  
  
• The All in Wonder and the Audigy 2 are incompatable!
  By on 2002-12-17
  The All in Wonder and the Audigy 2 are incompatable!

  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
  
  

• Ultimate Sound in One Neat Little Package
  By A2DU061PO9VCPV on 2003-08-29
  Creative Labs has long been known as the definitive manufacturer for sound cards and computer audio. That being said, the Audigy 2 can be considered the pinnacle of their art.
  Without having to blow your entire paycheck on the Platinum series, the Audigy 2 card provides top notch sound for gamers and audiophiles. It also enhances your DVD viewing experience and allows you to get the surround sound quality that your collection deserves.
  
  
• Outstanding Sound Quality
  By AQIQYWLWSS5IP on 2003-11-12
  This sound card produces the best sound quality I've ever heard from any sound card. The clarity and crispness is unmatched in games and music. It definately outdoes my old Live! card. I highly recommend this card to music lovers and gamers alike.
  
  

• Creative Labs Inspire 6600 6.1 Computer Speakers (7-Speaker, Black)