News Roundup
November 23, 2003

• Creative has released EAX 4 drivers for all PCI Audigy sound cards, with Multi Environments being the key feature. LucasArts' Jedi Academy supports EAX 4.
• Gear has a sadly disappointing review of Sound Blaster Wireless Music
• Many companies in China have copied the successful design of the MuVo and Creative will fight back by producing and selling cheaper versions of their products (More: The Register)
• For our readers in Singapore, the next warehouse sale will be held this coming Friday and Creative is heavily promoting the ProdiKeys DM with a money-back guarantee. (Such guarantees are not common in Singapore.) (More: Straits Times. Note: Straits Times will remove the article in a few days.)

News Roundup
October 13, 2003

• Sound Blaster Wireless Music was just introduced. It isn't a new sound card, but a wireless device that enables music to be streamed off a PC. (More information: Gear, Product Page)
• Creative will be launching the new GigaWorks series of high-powered 5.1 and 7.1 speakers soon (more information). Thanks to Devin for the information.
• Gear takes a look an early look at the GigaWorks
• THX will be certifying some video games from Electronic Arts. Will this be coming to the PC soon?
• Sudhian Media reviews the Extigy
• The Register reviews the Sound Blaster MP3+

Audigy 2 NX and MuVo2 Press Launch
September 16, 2003

We had the opportunity to attend the press launch for the Audigy 2 NX and MuVo2 held at Creative's Singapore headquarters. Check out our report!

Live! 5.1 and Audigy 1 WHQL Drivers
September 13, 2003

Warp2Search has news that Station-Drivers has obtained the latest version 5.12.1.291 drivers from an IBM package.

WinDVD Plays DVD-Audio
September 12, 2003

InterVideo breaks the Audigy 2's exclusive ability to play DVD-Audio on PCs. An optional DVD-Audio Pack will be available for WinDVD 5 Platinum and Gold editions to allow DVD-Audio playback on any sound card. (Press Release)

However, if you own an Audigy 2 and have the DVD-Audio Pack, it will be able to output the audio at 24-bit 96 kHz, just like the bundled MediaSource DVD-Audio player. (Press Release)

Audigy 2 NX Press Release
September 11, 2003

Here a link to the press release and the product page for the Audigy 2 NX.

Audigy 2 NX Officially Announced
September 10, 2003

Creative Singapore issued a press release to introduce the Audigy 2 NX. (As of the publication of this news item, it is still not posted at the Creative Singapore web site yet.) It is a followup to the previous external Extigy box. Here are some highlights:

• USB 1.0 support initially
• USB 2.0 support is in the pipeline with a future firmware update
• USB 2.0 only works for Windows XP
• 24-bit 96 kHz DACs
• 5.1 channel 24-bit 96 kHz DVD-Audio playback is only possible with USB 2.0 support
• Extrapolating this information, a USB 1.0 connection will probably only allow 4 or even less channels of 24-bit 96 kHz audio
• 7.1 speaker support
• EAX gaming and DirectSound3D support
• No EAX 4.0 support

GigaWorks S750 and Audigy ZS
September 9, 2003

Devin sends us a link to a Gear news article, with information on the mammoth 700 watts GigaWorks S750 7.1 speakers, and street prices and availability for the Audigy 2 ZS products.

Audigy ZS Officially Announced
September 5, 2003

After days of anticipation, Creative Technology has finally announced the Audigy 2 ZS series of products, including the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro which is an upgrade of the Audigy 2 Platinum eX released just 7 months ago. The Audigy 2 ZS is the basic sound card-only model. As always, Creative has released a set of budget 7.1 speakers to go with these new 7.1 cards (press release, product page).

Creative Press Event in Brussels
September 4, 2003

Our roving reader Devin provides us with a link to a Creative press event recently held in Brussels. He writes:

The site says that Creative presented a small part of their new product line (over 50 new products), including the Audigy 2 ZS and the Inspire T line. Other new products mentioned are the Inspire G series for game consoles. The site also talks about the “MegaWorks 7.1.” The site hasn’t posted any pictures of this speaker, that’s why it’s unclear whether the 7.1 version will be just the MegaWorks THX 6.1 650 with another speaker added and called the MegaWorks THX 7.1 770/ 700 or wether it will be a new design, the GigaWorks THX 7.1 770.

The site also talks about a few secret products that cannot be shown. Judging by the design of the product hidden behind the stars in the pictures, I would guess that these are the Nomad MuVo² and the MuVo X-trainer.

MediaSource Patch
August 27, 2003

Creative has released Creative MediaSource 1 Web Update Version 1.01.09 (CMS-WEBUP-4-LB). Some minor new features are added, and lots of bugs are fixed. MediaSource is for the lucky group of Audigy 2 users only. (The rest of us can only use that old thing called PlayCenter.)

New Sound Blasters and Speakers
August 27, 2003

Devin writes in and provides links to sites with more tidbits and pictures of upcoming products!

Here is more info on the Audigy 2 NX, the possible follow-up to the Extigy. The site even has pictures.

It seems that the "Audigy LS" I found on the windows catalog site is actually a new separate card.

Creative is also making new speakers to go with the Audigy 2 ZS: The new Inspire T line of speakers. There is even a 7.1 speaker set.

Creative is also releasing a successor to their top-of the line MegaWorks THX 6.1 650: The new one will be the GigaWorks THX 7.1 770. Their will be also two new MuVo models: the MuVo² and the MuVo²X-Trainer. They will have 1.5GB and 512 MB of storage. Link

Audigy 2 ZS and Audigy 2 NX
August 21, 2003

More information has surfaced about three new Audigy 2 products coming our way, courtesy of Digit-Life and Warp2Search. These models are for the Japan market, and as Creative has done in the past, the naming may be changed for different regions.

• Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Digital Audio: sound card-only model, 7.1 analog output, comes with optical I/O daughterboard
• Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum: sound card, internal Audigy Drive similar to previous design
• Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro: similar to the Audigy 2 Platinum eX with external module

These new cards will tout specifications like 108dB SNR, ASIO2, and the new EAX 4.0 Advanced HD for gaming.

The Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX is being listed for preorder at the TVG UK store, and the page states that it will be released in 29 days. This might be the new external USB Audigy 2 NX that was listed in the Windows Catalog site. We can speculate that the Audigy 2 NX will be an update for the Extigy, and it will probably have 6.1 or 7.1 speaker support, and a more dependable USB 2.0 interface. With this greater bandwidth, we may even see proper EAX gaming effects and SoundFont support.

Thanks to Devin for the excellent detective work. If you have any more information, do contact us!

Rumor: New Audigy Products?
August 19, 2003

Devin writes:

I was on the Windows Catalog website. So I decided to look for the Audigy soundcards and typed in “Audigy 2.” The search results came with a product called “Audigy 2 NX” The site also says that no info is available on the product. Could this be the follow-up to the Audigy 2 and Creative gave pre-release info to Microsoft and it was released on the site before the release of the product? I noticed that this soundcard has “NX” in it’s name, this is interesting because just release two new models to there MP3-player line-up: Nomad Zen NX and the MuVo NX. I wonder if all new Creative products are going to have the NX name?

Editor's Note: The site lists at least two new products, the Creative USB Audigy 2 NX and the Sound Blaster Audigy LS. Could these be the names of the new Audigy products coming in the upcoming upgrade cycle which usually happens around September every year?

90 Products from Creative
August 7, 2003

Yes, you read that right. When announcing a fourth quarter net profit of US$4.6 million, the company revealed that it would be launching 90 new products from now until the end of the year. Creative will also be making products for OEM partners which will not carry the "Creative" brand name. On the financial side, the company has started delisting from NASDAQ.

The company is not depending on their once-flagship Sound Blaster products for profit, as this product segment becomes more and more commoditized by built-in audio solutions in motherboards.

Chairman and chief executive Sim Wong Hoo said yesterday: 'We are moving away from a heavy dependence on the sound card and personal computer markets.'

He explained that 70 per cent of the company's revenue now comes from computer peripherals and personal devices like MP3 players.

The company's core sound card product has seen sales decline as computer makers increasingly use cheaper alternatives that provide basic computer audio functions.

New Products from Creative
July 27, 2003

Creative released a barrage of new products on Tuesday. A slightly slimmer version of the Zen, dubbed the Nomad Jukebox Zen NX, is available in 20 GB and 30 GB sizes at very attractive prices (press release). Creative opted to rework the design of the Zen NX by adding a white finish to the case, which reminds many people of the king of hard drive players, the Apple iPod. The design of the I-Trigues have been updated (press release) and they now come in two colors, black (L3500) and white (L3450, shipping in August), and also includes a M-PORT which connects directly to the new MuVo NX audio player. The MuVo NX now has a LCD display, and comes in 128 MB and 256 MB versions (press release).

PowerDVD 5
June 18, 2003

DVD fans take note! CyberLink will be releasing version 5 of the popular PowerDVD playback software, with many new visual-processing features to improve playback quality on LCD and CRT monitors. It will be available at the end of June. More: Press Release

MegaWorks 510D Recall
June 18, 2003

Creative Europe is recalling certain units of these 5.1 speaker system due to a "potential electrical problem". If you own one of these, check out the recall notice to find out if your unit is affected. You lucky people will be receiving a MegaWorks THX 5.1 550 and a free MuVo 128MB MP3 Player because the 510D costs more than the THX 5.1 550.

Creative Takes Aim At "Crappy On-Board Audio"
June 15, 2003

Creative's Asia site is running a "no compromise" campaign, touting the benefits of the Sound Blaster series of products.

kX Project Drivers Updated
June 6, 2003

Aokromes sends news that the latest version 5.10.0.3533b beta of these free alternative drivers for the Live!, Audigy and APS is out. More: Information | Download

Sound Blaster Digital Music
May 9, 2003

More details on this new Sound Blaster. Creative has some press releases up (America | Asia) and several product pages (Official SB site | Asia).

Many Names
Again confusing everyone, this product is known by several names. It is the "Sound Blaster MP3+" in some areas, including America, while it is labeled the "Sound Blaster Digital Music" in the official SB site. It is also called the "Sound Blaster Go!" when the device is bundled with a pair of noise-cancelling headphones.

Target Audience
This product is targeted mainly at notebook users who are tired of the often noisy and poor sound from the headphone outputs. It even comes with a clip that allows the device (which is "lighter than a PDA") to latch onto the top of a notebook's LCD screen. However, PC users should be able to use it as well, since it relies on a standard USB 1.1 connection. It should provide clean sound for headphones and unamplified outputs if you have a speaker system connected. It even has RCA line inputs and outputs for connection to hi-fi systems. (Creative usually uses mini-jack connectors.)

Vs Extigy and Sound Blasters
It is not a full-blown 5.1 device like the Extigy (read review), but we can see that this device probably uses some of the architecture and driver codebase of the Extigy to pump audio through a USB connection. This is a stereo device with basic EAX support, and provides none of the 3D audio and Dolby Digital features of the other products. It should work great for music, hence the myriad of music-related product names.

On the software and driver side, it has a new 10-band equalizer, "noise removal" and "bass boost" features, which are not available on any other Sound Blaster we know of. (That includes the Live!, Audigy and Audigy 2!) The MediaSource application used with the Audigy 2 (but not the Audigy) suite is provided, and provides the smart volume management (SVM) and audio clean-up features.

Audigy and Audigy 2 Beta Drivers Improve EAX Performance
May 8, 2003

Quite uncharacteristically, Creative has new drivers for high-end gamers. These drivers will disable the applications that are provided with the sound card, and will stop working on August 1, 2003. Performance improvements:

• 10%-15% performance improvement for EAX ADVANCED HD
• 3D audio streams increased to 64 for the Audigy (something we've suspected all along that the Audigy is fully capable of)
• 10 times faster reverb preset changes in games
• Up to 2 times performance improvement for EAX environment morphing

Improvements in these drivers will be integrated into the official drivers in the future, which are due to be released in August. Only install these if you really need the performance. Do let us know how they perform for you! Source: TechSpot

Creative 3Q Net Profits Drop By 68%
May 8, 2003

Creative Technology's third quarter net profits dropped by 68% to US$4.8 million, which the company attributed to slow consumer demand due to recent world events. What's interesting to note is that sales of the Nomad line of MP3 players is up 80% from a year ago, and non-PC products now make up more than 50% of sales. More: ChannelNewsAsia Article 1 | ChannelNewsAsia Article 2 | Press Release (America) | Press Release (Asia)

New Portable USB Sound Blaster
May 4, 2003

TechSpot has information of Creative's upcoming Sound Blaster MP3+. It is a small USB audio device with features that are scaled down from the costly Extigy (read review). The unit is thoughtfully USB-powered, so no more power bricks to lug around. It has RCA line inputs and outputs, optical inputs and outputs, a mic input, and a line/headphone output.

News Roundup
May 2, 2003

Its time for another news roundup! Some exciting things have happened recently:

iTunes Music Store
We all heard the big news about Apple's new iTunes Music Store, which has many people raving, including TechTV. Wired News reports on some rumored first-day sales figures. Of course, this service is only for Mac users at the moment, so the rare few who bought a SB Live! for the Mac would be able to access it. Apple has said that it will make the music store available for Windows by the end of the year. Also check out Time's interview with Steve Jobs.

iTunes for Windows
iTunes, of course, is considered one of the most intuitive (if not best) jukebox software around. Its Mac-only at this point, but fear not! Although nothing's been said officially, its more than confirmed that the iTunes jukebox software will be available for Windows. A job posting at Apple confirms this.

New iPods
The Apple iPod reaches its third generation, with 10, 15 and 30 GB sizes, a slimmer design that's thinner than 2 CD jewel cases stacked together, non-mechanical and touch-sensitive controls, some PDA-like features, a more powerful amplification unit, but a shorter battery life than their predecessors (around 60%) probably due to the use of older lithium ion batteries compared to lithium polymer on the old iPods. Mercury News and WSJ have reviewed them, and this site has tons of pictures comparing the iPods.

New Products from Creative
Creative tries to steal the thunder by introducing a Jukebox Zen with a monstrous 60 GB notebook hard drive, costing US$100 cheaper than the US$500 30 GB iPod. (The iPods use a special tiny hard drive, which makes them significantly lighter and smaller than the competition.) The press release touts the value-for-money proposition of the new Zen against the iPod. Strangely enough, at the same time, Creative plays to the iPod crowd by introducing white-colored i-Trigue i3350 speakers and the TravelSound i300, both with titanium speaker drivers. Check out the preview page and the press release.

Microsoft Takes on DVD
Microsoft is aiming to further entrench their new Windows Media 9 video and audio codecs into the mainstream and have struck deals to place an extra DVD in the upcoming releases of "Shadows of Motown", and the ultimate edition of "Terminator 2: Judgement Day". The video will be playable on Windows Media 9 Player, and is higher in resolution than DVD video. Of course, there's also multi-channel audio. More: The Inquirer

New Developments in PC Audio
Microsoft is also previewing new audio and video architecture for the next consumer version of Windows, codenamed Longhorn. Intel is also introducing a new motherboard audio specification, as an update to the dated AC'97 specs in use for several years now. NVIDIA and Dolby are also working together on a PC audio validation program.

News Roundup
March 27, 2003

• Creative teams up with Microsoft to produce Media2Go portable video player (CNET News, IGN)
• Creative moves into contract manufacturing; expects profits to soar (Channel NewsAsia)
• Winamp to port new features of bloated Winamp 3 to the faster-performing Winamp 2 (Winamp Forums)
• DirectX 9 to stay, while Microsoft preps exciting new gaming features for next version of Windows codenamed Longhorn, including a standard gaming controller, a centralized "My Games" interface, centralized game patching, and running games directly from CD without installation! (GameSpot)

Audigy 2 OEM Version
March 16, 2003

Akiba PC Hotline has a news item with some images of the Audigy 2's OEM version. (This is a very large page in Japanese with lots of images. The news item about the Audigy 2 is around the middle. View the individual images with these links: Image 1, Image 2, Image 3, Image 4.)

The card's model number is SB0240. It looks similar to a standard Audigy 2, but has the "cheaper-looking" color-coded connectors. Creative is also bundling this card with the latest model of their SLiX small form factor PCs (available only in certain regions), which are OEM versions of the Shuttle XPCs. Thanks to Ronnie for this information.

Live! Drivers Updated
February 28, 2003

Creative released updated drivers for the Sound Blaster Live! Most of these drivers and patches are for Windows 2000 and Windows XP users. Patches for Recorder, PlayCenter 3, MiniDisc Center and Remote Center are also available. More information in the drivers section.

Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum eX Review
February 19, 2003

Pawel Pilarczyk pointed us to his detailed review of the new Audigy 2 Platinum eX. The site is in Polish, but there are some pictures too.

Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum eX
February 6, 2003

Mentioned when the Audigy 2 launch 5 months ago, Creative finally announces the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum eX. This version of the Audigy 2 comes with a Audigy 2 External I/O Module with many connection options for musicians, as well as drivers for 6-channel 24-bit 96 kHz recording (something the Audigy 2 doesn't do), and ASIO 2.0 support for software compatible with the popular Steinberg interface. More: Press Release, Product Page

DirectMusic Producer
January 31, 2003

Microsoft released the DirectMusic Producer for DirectX 9.0 for composers and sound designers to author music for DirectX audio. More: Microsoft

Creative Announces Earnings, To Delist from Nasdaq
January 29, 2003

Creative announced better than expected earnings. Citing increased costs of maintaining a listing and low trade volume, the company signaled their intention to delist from Nasdaq after being the first Singapore company to list there about a decade ago. The delisting and buying back of shares would take about 6 months. More: Press Release 1 | Press Release 2 | The Straits Times

Sound Blaster Counterfeiters Fined
January 10, 2003

Cosmos Trade-Nology was fined S$800,000 (US$461,000) by a Singapore court for selling counterfeit Sound Blaster Vibra cards manufactured in China, as well as illegally copied version of the driver CDs. More: Bloomberg

Creative Introduces Audigy 2 Platinum eX
January 9, 2003

At CES, Creative is unveiling the Audigy 2 Platinum eX, geared for musicians and enthusiasts with an external breakout box. They are also previewing the upcoming MegaWorks THX 6.1 650 speakers, as well as the recently launched I-Trigue 2.1 3300 speakers. More: CES Details, Press Release

New Stuff from Microsoft
January 7, 2003

Microsoft announced the final release of Windows Media 9 Series, which includes Windows Media Player 9 Series used by all of us, Windows Media Encoder 9 Series for encoding audio and video using Microsoft's latest (and proprietary) codecs, and Windows Media 9 Series SDK for developers.

The new Plus! Digital Media Edition for Windows XP is also announced. This US$19.95 package includes applications for digital photography, music and audio, as well as movie editing.

The Register ponders if Microsoft will license their proprietary codecs, which may allow Linux clients to be developed.

A New Year!
January 1, 2003

Happy New Year to all our readers! Hope you've had a great holiday and thanks for your continued support!

The Sound Blaster Live! Book
December 31, 2002

Lars Ahlzen of Live!center and I have been hard at work for many months to bring you the only book dedicated to the Sound Blaster Live! Published by No Starch Press, the book demystifies much of the complexity behind this sound card.

More information and links is available at this page. Also check out the official page for the book at No Starch Press.

You can get it directly from No Starch Press, Amazon.com, Borders or your favorite computer bookstore.

click here for More News!  >>

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