Creative Labs SB Audigy Player Review

Posted by Thomas McGuire on December 17, 2001
Manufacturer: Creative Labs     Product: Sound Blaster Audigy Player

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Specifications

On this page we’ll list the rather considerable specs for the Audigy. Yeah!!!

32-bit Professional Quality Effects Engine 

• Creative's Audigy patented effects processor.

• Support for real-time digital effects like reverb, chorus, normalizer, pitch shifter, or distortion across any audio source.

• Capable of processing, mixing & positioning audio streams using up to 131 available hardware channels.

• Full 32-bit digital mixer maintains all sound mixing in the digital domain, eliminating noise from the signal.

• Customizable Plug-In Effects Architecture allows new audio effects to be downloaded via CreativeWare from the Web.

High Definition Audio Quality

·         Playback of 64 audio channels, each with its own independent sample rate.

·         24-bit Analog-to-Digital conversion of analogue inputs at 48kHz sample rate.

·         24-bit Digital-to-Analog conversion of digital sources at 48kHz to analogue 5.1 speaker output.

·         16-bit recording with sampling rates of 8, 11.025, 16, 22.05, 24, 32, 44.1 & 48kHz.

·         Supports Sony/Philips Digital Interface (SPDIF) format input signal of up to 24-bit/96kHz quality.

·         SPDIF output up to 24-bit resolution at selectable sampling rate of 44.1, 48 or 96kHz.

• Low latency multi-track recording with ASIO support.

EAX ADVANCED HD, Advanced Audio & 3D Audio Technology

·         Optimized user-selectable settings for headphones, two, four or six speakers & external A/V amplifiers.

·         Dolby Digital audio decoding to 5.1 speaker channels in both analogue & digital modes.

·         Upgradeable 3D audio architecture for future improvements.

·         Hardware acceleration of EAX ADVANCED HD for games.

·         Creative Multi Speaker Surround (CMSS) technology places any mono or stereo source in a 360 degree audio space.

·         User-selectable EAX ADVANCED HD music presets, pre-configurable DSP modes simulating various acoustic environments.

·         Advanced time-scaling functionality increases / decreases playback duration without altering pitch of original content.

• Audio Clean-up functionality removes noise & 'clicks' from playback of vinyl disk or cassette tape recordings.

SB1394 Connectivity

·         High speed connection to IEEE1394-enabled devices with up to 400Mbps transfer rate.

·         Hot-plug support for ease of connecting or disconnecting external devices.

·         Interconnection of up to 63 devices for peer-to-peer communication.

• SB1394 Certification Program thoroughly tests & certifies participating vendors' 1394-enabled devices with Sound Blaster Audigy for optimal performance & ease of use.

Realistic Wave-Table Synthesis

·         Creative's Audigy music synthesis engine.

·         64-voice hardware polyphony with E-mu's patented 8-point interpolation technology that reduces distortion to inaudible levels.

·         Uses SoundFont technology for user-definable wave-table sample sets.

·         Unlimited sample size can be loaded into host memory for professional music reproduction (limited to available system memory size).

·         Scalable PCI wave-table synthesis architecture with multi-timbre capability.

• 48 MIDI channels with 128 GM & GS compatible instruments & 10 drum kits.

MIDI Interface / Joystick Port

·         Support for analogue & digital or DirectInput game devices.

• Support for 2 simultaneous MIDI devices with Sound Blaster Audigy Drive (upgrade option).

Sound Blaster Audigy On-Board Connectors

·         Analogue / Digital Out (Analogue Center & Subwoofer / 6-channel SPDIF Output).

·         Line in.

·         Microphone in.

·         Line level out (Front) / Headphone out.

·         Line level out (Rear).

·         SB1394 port.

·         Telephone Answering Device in.

·         Analogue CD Audio in.

·         Digital CD Audio in.

·         Expansion header to an external 15-pin MIDI / Joystick port.

·         Internal SB1394 header to Sound Blaster Audigy Drive (upgrade option).

• Expansion header to the Sound Blaster Audigy Drive (upgrade option).

Works with the Following Standards

·         Windows 98SE, 2000, Millennium Edition & XP.

·         Sound Blaster MIDI & General MIDI .

·         Plug & Play.

·         Sound Blaster PCI.

·         EAX ADVANCED HD.

·         EAX.

·         Microsoft DirectSound, DirectSound3D & derivatives.

·         PCI 2.1 compliant.

·         AC '97 compliant.

·         Dolby Digital.

• ASIO.

Sound Blaster Audigy Audio Performance

·         Signal-to-noise Ratio (A-Weighted) = 100dB.

·         Crosstalk (Left/Right & vice versa) = -100dB.

·         Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise at 1KHz (A-Weighted) = 0.004 %.

• Frequency Response at -3dBr = <10 Hz to 22 kHz.

Specifications are based on digital-to-analogue audio playback (e.g. CDDA, WAV, MP3, Dolby Digital)

Select SB Audigy - Installation & Manual Technical Specifications Creative Software and Software Bundle Drivers & IEEE-1394 Connectivity API Support - EAX Advanced HD Performance - Stereo/Digital Audio playback & AC-3/DVD playback Performance - Gaming Performance - Benchmarks Final Thoughts and Conclusion

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