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As with the Audigy 2, the Audigy 2 ZS is
a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to music playback. On one
hand it can play 24-Bit 96/192 kHz DVD-Audio without
resampling, yet stick in a CD (44.1 kHz) or enable the
effects engine and it’ll resample to 48 kHz. It’s worth
restating that DVD-Audio output is only available using the
Analog outputs.
For playback of CDs & MP3s I used
Winamp 5 with
MAD &
ASIO Output plug-ins. The MAD Input plugin was
configured as follows:
Whereas the ASIO Output plugin was
configured like this:
For testing music playback I used a
variety of sources including Rob Dougan – Furious Angels (2
CD), Where Eagles Dare Soundtrack (CD), Garbage – Garbage
(CD), The Matrix: Reloaded Complete Soundtrack (MP3), The
Matrix: Revolutions Complete Soundtrack (MP3), Kill Bill:
Volume 1 Complete Soundtrack (MP3), Equilibrium Completed
Soundtrack (MP3), The Last Samurai Soundtrack (MP3) & other
various CD/MP3 Soundtracks.
As with the Audigy 2, the Audigy 2 ZS by
default plays Stereo sources ‘as is’, i.e. over the front
left/right speakers. Unlike the Audigy 2 however a Stereo
X2/X3 mode is available in the EAX Console, which will no
doubt please many who hated having to use CMSS/CMSS 2 for
multi-channel music playback. If you happen to like Creative
MediaSource as your preferred media player, an online update
adds
DTS Neo: 6 Surround support as another optional
up-mixing feature.
Sound quality didn’t seem perceivably
different from the Audigy 2, which isn’t a bad thing, as I’d
consider that to sound better than the Audigy 1, Extigy,
NVIDIA’s APU, Aurilium, Fortissimo III… basically every
Soundcard I’ve tested previously with the only exception
being M-Audio’s Revolution 7.1. That said, my perceptions
are somewhat limited by the set of speakers available to me,
so the Audigy 2 ZS could conceivably differ on higher end
systems, though with the Inspire 7700 being the ‘best’
Speakers available to me at the moment I can’t say that’s
the case.
Another benefit of the Audigy 2 ZS is
that it finally offers a multi-band Equalizer – No longer
need you tolerate only the Bass & Treble sliders available
in Surround Mixer.
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