The Audigy Card
In terms of features and hardware, the Audigy is most similar to the latest Live! 5.1 card (model SB0060) with its 6-channel (5.1) output via three mini-jacks, giving the sound card the ability to connect to 5.1 multimedia speakers and home theater receivers with 6-channel discrete inputs.
The Audigy card we received is the SB0090, and like the 2nd and 3rd generation Live! cards, all Audigy retail products use the PCI 2.1-compliant SB0090 Audigy card - from the more costly Platinum products to the US$99 cards. This is reassuring because no matter which retail version you purchase, you know that you are getting the same Audigy card.
To give the Audiy an expensive and elegant look, Creative has once again used the brown PCB and gold-plated connectors. The color-coded PC99 connectors were removed and Creative justified it is a sacrifice for better sound quality. OEM versions of the card are made with a green PCB and PC99 color-coded connectors.
The components added for the SB1394 chipset and the new connectors for the separate joystick/MIDI support makes the Audigy card about 20% longer than the Live! cards. The Audigy Processor is also slightly larger than the EMU10K1 found on the Live! Overall, the card itself seems to pack more stuff than the Live! which is a good thing for us since we pay the same price!
Internal Connectors
The usual connectors for internal peripherals like CD/DVD-ROM drives and telephony cards are found at the top of the Audigy's circuit board. The connectors are labeled TAD, CD_IN, AUX_IN, PC_SPK, SB1394 and CD_SPDIF. (The PC_SPK connector are two small vertical pins in between the AUX_IN and SB1394 connectors. Squint! You'll notice the tiny PC_SPK label.) Apart from the SB1394 connector, the others are also found on Live! cards.
The TAD connector is used for telephony cards that have such outputs. The CD_SPDIF is a great feature to get a direct digital feed from the CD/DVD-ROM drive to the sound card when CD audio discs are played. The CD_IN and AUX_IN are similar stereo inputs that obtain analog sound from CD/DVD-ROM or CD-RW drives. This is useful if you have more than one drive and CD_SPDIF is already used.
Backplate Connectors
The backplate has the usual mini-jack connectors that hook up to speakers and provide audio inputs. Like the Live! 5.1, the Audigy has three line-level mini-jack outputs for 6-channel output to a 5.1 multimedia speaker or a home theater receiver with 5.1 discrete inputs. The three outputs are the front, rear and center/woofer outputs.
The center/woofer mini-jack doubles as a digital output when "digital output only" mode is enabled in the Surround Mixer. This is used to connect compatible speakers with a Digital DIN or a similar mini-jack digital input. The usual analog line-in and microphone inputs are also provided on the backplate.
As you can see, the Audigy does away with the PC99 color-coded plastic connectors, which can be a great aid when connecting numerous cables to the sound card. This may prove troublesome for those of us who rely on color-coding to make connections to the sound card. But then again, most audio cables are not color-coded anyway, so there's really not much harm in removing them.
In its place are nicer looking gold-plated connectors previously seen on some Live! cards. Creative has said that this is a sacrifice "for better sound quality". Whether gold-plated or not, the type of connectors used is less crucial, especially in sound cards where the build quality, noise shielding and DACs are more important factors in determining the sound quality of the analog inputs and outputs. Fortunately, the Audigy excels in this area and the analog inputs and outputs are clean and quiet, sometimes surpassing the Live!
Undoubtedly, the most striking difference in the Audigy is the missing joystick/MIDI connector that was a mainstay in sound cards for more than 10 years. (Imagine that!) Now that USB peripherals and joysticks have gone mainstream, Creative finally removed the often unused joystick port. In its place is a modern, high-speed SB1394 connector. Find out more about this connector in the SB1394 page.
The joystick/MIDI functionality is still built into the Audigy but the connector is moved away to a small bracket included in the retail Audigy packages. A cable connects the Audigy to the expansion bracket, and the bracket of course takes up another slot in the PC casing. In the Platinum eX, the bracket is not provided. Instead it is built into the thick data cable that connects the Audigy to the external Audigy Drive.
For the Platinum eX, the joystick/MIDI connector is built into the cable that connects to the external Audigy Drive.
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This joystick/MIDI bracket is included with all retail Audigy cards except the Platinum eX. |
Most of us have graduated to the plug and play convenience of USB gaming peripherals, and a majority of users do not use MIDI ports, so removing the joystick/MIDI port to make way for SB1394 seems like a very wise move by Creative.
5.1 output, good built quality like the Live! cards, a SB1394 connector on every Audigy card (including the OEM ones), and the option to add more connectivity by adding the Audigy Drive makes the Audigy card a good successor to the Live!
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