Audigy 2 review

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muskgrave

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okay, obviously not the card of choice around here..but just in case anyone was interested, Toms Hardware Guide has a review of the card today. It DOES support DVD-Audio, which is a really nice feature and you'd spend quite a bit more on a standalone dvd audio player than this card.

dlv
 
Wouldn't you need a DVD-A player then? I thought The formats (DVD,DVD-A) are not compatible and regular DVD players up until now cannot play DVD-A discs. You need a player/drive that can actually read DVD-A.

Also, think about what you just said:

It DOES support DVD-Audio, which is a really nice feature and you'd spend quite a bit more on a standalone dvd audio player than this card.
Click to expand...

Do you really think you're getting the same quality?

As far as pricing, you can pick up a Panasonic 5 disc CD/DVD/DVD-A changer for around $300 nowadays.

I'm not trying to point out something wrong with your post, but I do think Creative's Marketing/Product Development team has their heads up their arses and it has been that way for quite some time now - they have no idea who their market is and really don't understand fully the markets they are going after.
 
The market Creative is shooting for are serious game players, and people who dabble in audio - MP3 downloader types - rather than serious audiophiles.
 
Just Gamers?!

I would say that Audigy has always shot for games but with 24bit/96kHz (yes it is that and not downsampled) and 106 db SNR....the Audigy 2 is far from a gamers card. I'm an electrical engineer who does a lot of audio stuff and the specs on this thing are phenominal. You would be hard pressed to get these types of specs our of competing Audio-Industry products. In fact, there are only a few test instruments out there that could actually confirm these numbers they are so low. Naturally, audiorecording products tend to have nice features for recording people, but this thing is going to make a lot of companies re-think there product position. For about 180 bucks retail, this is a real deal. I'm seriously considering this one. I think the only thing that would stop someone from considering the Audigy 2 is there own bias...wake up and smell the specs.
 
Wake up and smell the "everything looks the same on paper." There's a hell of a lot more to sound than specs...and its specs aren't even that great.

Every one of these companies offers products that beat the Audigy 2 on paper and in application and in a few cases, price:

http://www.m-audio.com
http://www.echoaudio.com
http://www.motu.com
http://www.lynxone.com
http://www.aardvark.com
http://www.rme-audio.com
http://www.aardvarkaudio.com
http://www.protools.com

That's not to say the Audigy 2 wouldn't be a good unit to have around for 5.1 and DVD audio...but I sure as hell wouldn't build my recording DAW around it.

Slackmaster 2000
 
DVD-Audio

"Wouldn't you need a DVD-A player then? I thought The formats (DVD,DVD-A) are not compatible and regular DVD players up until now cannot play DVD-A discs. You need a player/drive that can actually read DVD-A."

Well think about what a DVD-A player is...it is a dvd drive yes..but what else is involved? There has to be some type of decoding device (A/V card) that can understand the information that is on that drive. There is a certain brand of DVD players that some models can play different mpeg files you download off the internet (not the dvd standard mpeg format) and others that will not..the DVD drive is the same...it's the decoder card that is different. I can't say that for sure about dvd-a, but I had to respond to your battering with something! :)

ALSO! as far as your comments about it not being good cause it's not expensive enough..thats the glorious thing about a computer...you have to pay 150 or so for a good standalone DVD player but only about 40-50 for a good DVD rom for your computer..would you say this is a worse quality product? Certainly not! In fact on a high resolution moniter it looks way better.

I know you really really hate sound blaster cards and that's fine, but you are kinda hard on people that mention them. there was another post where someone was asking about whether or not an sblive could perform a certain task just to get information and instead of giving them a straight answer you just told them it was a gamers card and they were wasting their time. For your punishment you will receive 12 lashings and be senteneced to no less than 3 months of tree hugging.

dlv
 
Re: DVD-Audio

muskgrave said:


ALSO! as far as your comments about it not being good cause it's not expensive enough..thats the glorious thing about a computer...you have to pay 150 or so for a good standalone DVD player but only about 40-50 for a good DVD rom for your computer..would you say this is a worse quality product? Certainly not! In fact on a high resolution moniter it looks way better.
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Whoa, not so fast - a DVD drive on a PC cannot provide the same quality if you are using a software decoder player. Once you factor in the additional $100 for a video card that supports hardware accelerated DVD playback, you are either at the same price or higher than a standalone DVD player.

Being a professional that works as a designer in product development, I understand the economics behind this stuff.

You cannot tell me the Audigy 2 can compete with a $1000+ Onkyo THX certified receiver - it just aint gonna happen. You cannot provide the same functionaly/quality at 1/5 of the cost.

Creative had to cut corners somewhere and yet their marketing department blatently midleads the consumer by making false claims. If you read the fine print, you will see that they actually don't have the THX certification yet and I highly doubt they ever will...
 
Re: Just Gamers?!

Busy said:
I would say that Audigy has always shot for games but with 24bit/96kHz (yes it is that and not downsampled) and 106 db SNR....the Audigy 2 is far from a gamers card. I'm an electrical engineer who does a lot of audio stuff and the specs on this thing are phenominal. You would be hard pressed to get these types of specs our of competing Audio-Industry products. In fact, there are only a few test instruments out there that could actually confirm these numbers they are so low. Naturally, audiorecording products tend to have nice features for recording people, but this thing is going to make a lot of companies re-think there product position. For about 180 bucks retail, this is a real deal. I'm seriously considering this one. I think the only thing that would stop someone from considering the Audigy 2 is there own bias...wake up and smell the specs.
Click to expand...

THANKS FOR AN HONEST STATEMENT AND NOT JUST REPEATING THAT "CREATIVE IS FOR GAMERS" THAT'S BEEN ON THESE FORUMS FOR YEARS. I HAVE AN AUDIGY THAT GIVES ME GOOD PERFORMANCE IN RECORDING AND PRODUCTION. MY REVIEWS ON ACID PLANET ARE ALWAYS HIGH AND I AM CURRENTLY NEGOTIATING A PUBLISHING DEAL BASED ON WORK I'VE COMPLETED ON MY HOME SYSTEM.

I AM UPGRADING TO AUDIGY 2 IN ANTICIPATION OF THE 24 BIT RECORDING.
 
Slackmaster2K said:
Wake up and smell the "everything looks the same on paper." There's a hell of a lot more to sound than specs...
Click to expand...

Driver stability and latency are two that come to mind.
 
more explanations...

if you're a gamer though you already have a good video card that has a hardware dvd decoder :P. in that respect..yes you are paying less .

As far as the audio quality..i never said it will rival a 1000 dollar unit...why is it you have gone from using the example of a 300 dollar unit to 1000 dollar unit anyways?...i think we might just be arguing for the sake of it now :). I understand what you are saying and i do not disagree that creative labs is an inferior product when compared to a standalone dvd-audio player, or a dedicated audio recording card...and a dvd rom with software decoding is not going to be as good as a standalone with the hardware...totally agree...but in my own situation and others as well since i already have a hardware decoder on my video card and a dvd rom this would be the economically sound decision for me...but i'm still not buying it cause i don't have the deep pockets some have. Wasn't I originally just posting a link to a review of the new product??? I guess this is one of those no no words...like "pyramid", "pyle", "legacy" would be on a car audio bbs.
dlv
 
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DVD drive may cost you $50 or even less, but in reality all your rig becomes the DVD player, because all of its parts are working, even if idling. So now you are looking at 1000 - 1500 worth DVD player. Compare THAT to standalone $200 player.
 
Re: more explanations...

muskgrave said:
if you're a gamer though you already have a good video card that has a hardware dvd decoder :P. in that respect..yes you are paying less .

As far as the audio quality..i never said it will rival a 1000 dollar unit...why is it you have gone from using the example of a 300 dollar unit to 1000 dollar unit anyways?...i think we might just be arguing for the sake of it now :). I understand what you are saying and i do not disagree that creative labs is an inferior product when compared to a standalone dvd-audio player, or a dedicated audio recording card...and a dvd rom with software decoding is not going to be as good as a standalone with the hardware...totally agree...but in my own situation and others as well since i already have a hardware decoder on my video card and a dvd rom this would be the economically sound decision for me...but i'm still not buying it cause i don't have the deep pockets some have. Wasn't I originally just posting a link to a review of the new product??? I guess this is one of those no no words...like "pyramid", "pyle", "legacy" would be on a car audio bbs.
dlv
Click to expand...

The reason I brought up the comparisin is because the article spends like 2 pages talking about the supposed THX certification for the Audigy 2, which like I said earlier, is a bunch of bologne and is being used to hype the product.

It was the same case with the original Audigy - "24 BIT AUDIO" posted everywhere, but when you read the fine print, it said in tiny letters "playback only".

That is why I don't trust and buy Creative products anymore.

I agree with erichenryus about drivers as well. I have yet to see working WDM driver for the SB Live off the Creative website.
 
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sad times

that is a pretty sorry thing for creative labs to do, and it's even sorrier that you can get away with lying about a product in the advertisements...they shouldn't be supported just because of the fact that they lie to people..so i guess there is good reason to stop people from buying them....oh well..i'm crappy at recording anyways :) and my games sound fine on 2 speakers

dlv
 
webstop...just...stop

"DVD drive may cost you $50 or even less, but in reality all your rig becomes the DVD player, because all of its parts are working, even if idling. So now you are looking at 1000 - 1500 worth DVD player. Compare THAT to standalone $200 player."

Okay, no one has suggested...by any stretch of the imagination whatsoever to buy a 1500 dollar pc for the sole purpose of listening to DVD-Audio. The party is over...everyone has gone home...the argument wagon has left town...and you're 10 minutes late for the door.

dlv
 
Re: webstop...just...stop

muskgrave said:
Okay, no one has suggested...by any stretch of the imagination whatsoever to buy a 1500 dollar pc for the sole purpose of listening to DVD-Audio. The party is over...everyone has gone home...the argument wagon has left town...and you're 10 minutes late for the door.
dlv
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Wasn't it you, who made ridiculous statements like "thats the glorious thing about a computer...you have to pay 150 or so for a good standalone DVD player but only about 40-50 for a good DVD rom for your computer..."? You are right, your argument wagon is somewhere else.
 
The point is that a PC is multi-purpose. You have a PC, and it does a lot of things. For another ~$50 it can be a good DVD player as well. Seems simple enough...
 
Slackmaster2K said:
Wake up and smell the "everything looks the same on paper." There's a hell of a lot more to sound than specs...and its specs aren't even that great.

Every one of these companies offers products that beat the Audigy 2 on paper and in application and in a few cases, price:

Slackmaster 2000
Click to expand...

You make a good point that there is more to sound than specs. I'm not an music-recording specialist so I don't speak from that pedestal, but I do lab scale audio monitoring which I imagine is more demanding than music recording for CD and what-not in the purest of specs. There is a lot more and someone mentioned latency in drivers. Drivers can be the biggest stumbling blocks. The Audigy2 hardware is EXTRODINARILY similar to may of the competing prodcut you mentioned (I can discuss the various Shure Audio ASICS(OEM), Analog devices AD converters if you like) that many of them share. It comes down to how well they put them together and fought the various noise and distortion problems. Copper trace to Copper trace, these babys are the same (some are downright copies on their layouts). I hate to say it again, but the Audigy2 is still better "on paper" in it's hardware performance than most audiorecording-industry you listed. What it comes down to is integration with software, ease of use in your applicatoin, integratoin with exisiting systems and not loosing audio integrity, and drivers. Many of these areas folks at Motu, Echo, etc..do a terrific job and they will continue to do well since that is their market focus. I still find it amazing that Creative is able to deliver all the hardware, software drivers that will work for most home recording applications, for a fraction of the cost since it supports the PC audio system also. I still think that Creative Labs is a bad word among most audio-only companies because they are very concerned about their market share. Everyday we see Creative take a little more away from the other guys, someday they may become the microsoft of audio and just win it all, they are a juganaut company and can gobble up others easily....Imagine "The Creative Pro-Tools Audigy Systems"
 
info

thanks for the post busy..and Bigus, yes it does sound simple enough doesn't it? I didn't see anything ridiculous or hard to understand at all about the point I was making with a dvd rom costing less than a standalone player. Maybe i'll draw a picture for webby next time.
dlv
 
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