3DsoundSurge Review: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live Player 5.1

Important Info:

Sound card By : Creative Labs

Price : £79/EUR129 (incl. VAT and shipping when ordered directly from Creative Labs)

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

Additional System Requirements for Game Titles:

Pentium 200MHz
64MB RAM
3D accelerator with a least 4MB of texture RAM
4X CD-ROM drive
DirectX 6 or later
60-300MB HD space

Reviewers PC:

Mikael
- Win98SE/Windows2000
- 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

Playback and Recording Sources

Sound Blaster 16 Emulation in DOS box and real mode DOS.
Playback of 64 audio channels each at an arbitrary sample rate. Each audio channel can function as a WaveTable Synthesizer voice.
Each audio channel can playback either 8 bit or 16 bit data from host memory.
Pairs of audio channel can be programmed to play 8 or 16 bit interleaved data from host memory.
48kHz recording from AC97 sample rate converted to 8 common rates to host memory.
Playback Recording Sources: CD_IN, AUX_IN, LINE_IN, MIC_IN, TAD, MIDI and Wave, CD-SPDIF IN.
Full duplex recording and playback.

Wave Table Synthesis

E-mu Systems EMU10K1 music synthesis engine.
64-voice hardware polyphony with E-mu’s patented 8-point interpolation algorithm for excellent fidelity
64 hardware and 1024 PCI wave-table synthesis
48 MIDI channels & 128 GM & GS- instruments and 10 drum kits
Uses SoundFont technology for user-definable wave-table sample sets; includes 2MB, 4MB and 8MB sets.
Up to 32MB of samples into host memory for professional music reproduction.

Effects Engine

E-mu Systems EMU10K1 patented effects processor.
Supports real-time digital effects like reverb, chorus, echo, flanger, pitch shifting, vocal morpher, ring modulator, auto-wah 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.
Bass management functionality for centre & subwoofer channels in 5.1 mode.
Only Bass Management Configuration 0 with Bass (LFE) redirection implemented.

Environmental Audio and 3D Audio Technology

User-selectable settings are optimized for headphones and two or four speakers.,5.1 speakers.
Accelerates Microsoft® DirectSound® and DirectSound3D, EAX.
Creative Multi-Speaker Surround™ (CMSS™) technology allows real time panning and mixing of multiple sound sources using two or more speakers
Creative Environments – user-selectable DSP modes that simulate acoustic environments like concert hall, cave, underwater, and many more environments to any audio source.

Hollywood-Quality, 32 bit Digital Audio Engine

User-selectable bit rates from 8-bit to 16-bit.
User-selectable sample rates from 8kHz 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 and Joystick Port

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

Audio Performance ( Typical Values)

Reference signal is set at 1kHz
Frequency Response @ –1dB 10 Hz to 47KHz
Record & Playback Sampling Rates
Recording (8 supported sampling rates); 8.0KHz, 11.025KHz, 16.0KHz, 22.05KHz, 24.0KHz, 32.0KHz, 44.1KHz, 48.0KHz
Playback: Any arbitrary sampling rate <= 48KHz
Line In Full Scale Input 2.0 Vrms
Line Out Full Scale Output 2.0 Vrms
Microphone Full Scale Input 0.2 Vrms (without 20dB boost)
CD Audio Full Scale Input 2.0 Vrms
Microphone Input Impedance 5.0Kohms
Line In Impedance 10k ohms
CD Audio Input Impedance 10k ohms
LINE_IN / LINE_OUT @ 2Vrms, 1kHz (Measured with band limited filter from 22Hz to 22kHz)
Signal To Noise Ratio (SNR) 94 dB. (A-Wtg)
Total Harmonic Distortion 0.006% +Noise (THD+N)
LINE_IN / LINE_OUT Record & Playback @2Vrms, 1kHz (Measured with band limited filter from 22Hz to 22kHz)
Signal To Noise Ratio (SNR) 82 dB (A Wtg)
Total Harmonic Distortion 0.02 %+ Noise (THD+N)

Power Consumption

Vcc, nominal current 400 mA
+12V, nominal current 160 mA
-12V, nominal current 50 mA

Resolution

AC97 Codec 16 bits

Temperature Range

Operating 10 °C to 50 °C
Non-Operating -40 °C to 125 °C

For the third year in a row Creative Labs has decided to release new soundcard based on the emu10k1 chip, a chip that thanks to driver updates still manage to remain competitive against more recent chips. Just like the fall of 1999 Creative Labs decided to not only refresh the software bundle but also enhance the connectivity of the boards to be competitive with the new slew of boards. In the Fall of 1999 Digital Output started to be more common and Creative Labs addressed this by introducing a Digital output jack as standard rather than exclusive for the top of the line Live board as the previous year. During the last year we started to see more boards offering not only 4-speaker output but also 5.1 analog outputs and this fall almost every new $50-100 soundcard offers that functionality. To address the new competition Creative Labs refined the Digital Output jack so it could do doubly duty as Digital Output and analog subwoofer/center channel. To do one better than their competitors Creative Labs also included the ability to do Dolby Digital Decoding as part of the Live 5.1’s drivers rather than to having to rely on the Software DVD player.

To reflect the change in connectivity the names for the retail cards changed to X-Gamer 5.1, MP3+ and Platinum 5.1 in North America while Europe uses the Player 5.1 and Platinum 5.1 names. As the previous edition of the retail Live cards all the boards are identical with the only hardware difference being that the Platinum cards include the Live!Drive IR. Compared to last year’s Live!Drive II the only major change is the addition of an IR allowing simple navigation of audio playback using the bundled wireless remote control.

In this review we will offer an overview of how the Live!Player 5.1 performs for playing music, games, DVD movies and only going into more detail where it offers features not common for all other Live 5.1 boards, that is the different software bundle. For a more detailed look at the Live we suggest you check out our Live reference review. If you Live in North America we suggest you instead check out our Live!X-Gamer/MP3+ 5.1 review.