3DsoundSurge Review: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live!

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Important Info:

Price : SRP $99-$200

API Support : DirectSound, DS3D, EAX 1.0, EAX 2.0 and A3D 1.0 (by translating to DS3D calls, works with most but not all titles)

Minimum System Requirements:

Genuine Intel® Pentium® class 166MHz or faster processor
Intel or 100% compatible motherboard chipset
32MB system RAM (64MB recommended)
Windows® 95, Windows® 98, Windows® NT 4.0, Windows® 2000 or Windows® Millennium Edition
Open half-length PCI 2.1 compliant slot
Headphones or amplified speakers (available separately)
CD-ROM drive required for software installation

Reviewers PC:

Mark
- Win98SE/Windows 2000
- Celeron 333a o/c 416
- 128MB PC100 ram
- Creative TNT
- Creative Voodoo Blaster 12 M
- 6.1 and 13 GIG EIDE HD
- For four speaker testing purpose I hooked the card up to Videologic's Sirocco Crossfire speaker system using the analog inputs as well as MidiLand S4-7100. For 6-speaker testing I used the MidiLand S4-7100 and the Abit SP-50. For two speaker testing purposes I used the same speaker systems but only connecting to the front channels as well as the Diamond Audio Technology HPM-4100 and for headphones testing I used a set of Sennheiser HD525s. Digital output was tested with the MidiLand ADS-2000 as well as the Cambridge SoundWorks DTT2500 and Creative DTT3500.

Mikael
- Win98
- Duron 750
- 256MB PC100 ram
- GeForce DDR
- 6.4 GB Quantum SE
- For four speaker testing purpose I hooked the card up to Videologic's Sirocco Crossfire speaker system using the analog inputs and later in testing I used Videologic's Digi Theatre speaker system for 6-speaker testing. For two speaker testing purposes I used the VideoLogic Sirocco Pro as well as the same speaker systems but only connecting to the front channels and for headphones testing I used a set of Sennheiser HD5570

Specifications

Wave-Table Synthesis

E-mu^® Systems EMU10K1^™ music synthesis engine
64-voice polyphony with E-mu's patented 8-point interpolation technology
Uses SoundFont^® technology for user-definable wave-table sample sets; includes 2MB, 4MB and 8MB sets
Load up to 32MB of samples into host memory for professional music reproduction
Scalable PCI wave-table synthesis architecture
Up to 1024-voice polyphony with multi-timbre capability
48 MIDI channels with 128 GM & GS-compatible instruments and 10 drum kits

Effects Engine

E-mu Systems EMU10K1 patented effects processor
Supports real-time digital effects like reverb, chorus, flange, pitch shifter or distortion across any audio source
Capable of processing, mixing and positioning audio streams using up to 131 available hardware channels
Customizable effects architecture allows audio effects and channel control
Full digital mixer maintains all sound mixing in the digital domain, eliminating noise from the signal
Full bass, treble, and effects controls available for all audio sources

Environmental Audio & 3D Audio Technology

User-selectable settings are optimized for headphones and two or four speakers
Upgradable 3D audio architecture allows for improvements over time
Accelerates Microsoft^® DirectSound^® and DirectSound3D
Accelerates Environmental Audio^™ property set extensions
Creative Multi Speaker Surround^™ technology places any mono or stereo sound source in a 360° audio space
Creative Environmental Audio - user-selectable DSP modes that simulate acoustic environments

Hollywood-Quality, 32-Bit Digital Audio Engine

Processes bit resolutions from 8- to 16-bit
Processes sample rates from 5kHz to 48kHz
All sound sources are handled with 32-bit precision for highest quality output
Analog and Digital I/O modes supported
Hardware full-duplex support enables simultaneous record and playback at 8 standard sample rates
Utilizes AC97 audio codec

MIDI Interface / Joystick Port

Supports MPU-401 UART mode
IBM^® compatible 15-pin joystick port with analog support
Support for digital and DirectInput^™ game devices

On-Board Connectors

Digital Out (Front & Rear S/PDIF Output)
Line In
Microphone In
Line level out (Front)/Headphone Out
Line level out (Rear)
MIDI/Joystick Port
Telephone Answering Device In
MPC-3 Analog CD Audio In
Expansion header for Optical Digital I/O card or Live!Drive (available separately)

Live! Drive II Front Panel Connectors

S/PDIF In (RCA/coaxial jack)

S/PDIF In (Toslink/Optical)

S/PDIF Out (RCA/coaxial jack)

S/PDIF Out (Toslink/Optical)

Headphone Out (1/4" stereo jack with volume control)

Line In (1/4" stereo jack with shared Microphone In)

Microphone In (1/4" jack with gain control)

MIDI In (standard DIN)

MIDI Out (standard DIN)
Aux in (left and right RCA)

Works with the Following Standards

Windows^® 95
Windows 98
Windows NT 4.0
General MIDI
MPC-3
Plug-and-Play
Sound Blaster PCI
Environmental Audio Extensions
Microsoft DirectSound^®, DirectSound 3D, and derivatives (= A3D 1.X)
PCI 2.1 compliant
AC97 compliant

Creative Technology Ltd. was founded in 1981 and has grown to become the world’s leading provider of advanced multimedia solutions for personal computers. Its solutions include the latest in advanced 3d digital audio technology, 3d graphics, PC-DVD and desktop internet conferencing products. A pioneer in the industry, Creative defined and set the standard for PC audio with its Sound Blaster Line of cards. For years, the most important thing to see on a sound card was Sound Blaster compatible!

That strangle hold on the retail PC audio market has been loosening over the past few years with challenges coming from companies like Turtle Beach and Gravis (remember the Ultrasound?). However, most of these were coming at Creative on Creative’s own turf. That is they were limited to competing with products that had to claim Sound Blaster compatibility but with superior MIDI performance as their claim to fame.

That all changed in 1997 when Diamond introduced the original DSP based Monster Sound, which was the first retail sound card to use the PCI bus. This cards weak point was Sound Blaster compatibility. However, its support of A3D 1.x and DS3D (in hardware via Direct X5) caught the imagination of both the gaming press and the buying public just as the Windows 95 and DirectX had started to become more popular and reduce the importance of DOS SB compatibility. Creative’s state of the art card at the time was the venerable Sound Blaster AWE 64. The Monster Sound retail success in North America and wide support in the gaming press was a big wake up call to Creative.

Ensoniq was also in the market with the AudioPCI, which at the time had better SB compatibility than the Monster Sound but no A3D support. Creative saw a good thing in Ensoniq’s DOS compatibility mode and bought the company. Aureal moved beyond providing drivers and algorithms to hardware partners and entered the chip and board market with the now widely adopted Vortex 1 chip. It was not until Comdex 97 that Creative started to hit the press with their upcoming 10K1 chip and Sound Blaster Live Product which was eventually launched in August of 1998. Creative has a bit different spin to the sequence of events and point out that with the R&D time needed to develop the 10K1, they were actually ahead of the game. That’s not how my eyes see it but regardless of the chicken and egg discussion by the time the Live was announced they clearly had lost their strangle hold on the retail PC sound market.

This meant that it was going to be extremely important to the company that the Live be a big success, especially since Aureal was also coming to market just a couple of months later with their own new Vortex 2 board along with their then new A3D 2.0 API. To help make the Live special, Creative worked to develop a new extension to Direct Sound 3D called Environmental Audio Extensions (EAX). Over two years after the launch of the EMU10K1, the Live!, Live!Value and its successors (Live!X-Gamer, Live!MP3+, Live!Player 1024 and Live!Platinum) can be considered an unqualified success. Creative has been responsive to the needs of their customers with enhancements to the software through their innovative marketing mechanism called Live!Ware.

In this review we will take a generic look at how the Live card performs for playing music, games and DVD movies. We will also compare it to other soundcards. The cards released under the Live name are CT4620, CT4670, CT4830, CT4831, CT4832, CT4760 and SB0060. The CT4620 and CT4670 are the original Live and Live!Value respectively, both released in the fall 1998. CT4760 is the retail card released fall 99 that was sold under the Live!X-Gamer, Live!MP3+, Live!Player 1024 and Live!Platinum depending on region, software and hardware (that is Live!Drive) bundle. All these retail cards are now replaced by the SB0060 that’s sold under Live!X-Gamer 5.1, Live!MP3+ 5.1, Live!Player 5.1, Live!Platinum 5.1 and Live! Digital Entertainment 5.1 names depending on region, software and hardware (that is Live!Drive IR) bundle. The CT4830 is a generic OEM product, CT4831 and CT4832 are custom OEM products made for a specific vendor. The CT483x products are often sold under the Live!Value name in North America and Live! 1024 in Europe. There are not many hardware differences between the boards released the last 2 years but where differences exist we point them out. It’s worth noting that there are other Live products released in Japan such as the Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 1394 but we are not going to cover them here. If you are interested you can check out the Creative Japan site for more info.