home   |   about   |   contact us

news

|

Audigy™

|

features

|

musician

|

tech/info

|

drivers

|

download

|

wishlist

|

polls

|

links

Extigy @ ALive! Sound Blaster Extigy Review Last updated on Feb 12, 2002 Main Features With traditional sound cards, you installed them and they worked whenever the PC is turned on. The Extigy's Plug and Play USB connection adds more flexibility as users can conveniently remove and reconnect the Extigy to the PC. The drivers would disable and re-enable the Extigy as the primary audio device automatically. The sound chips on notebooks or sound cards in the PC are overrided when the Extigy is inserted in the USB port, although you can go to the Control Panel and change it back. When connected to the PC, the Extigy basically works like any other sound card. Playing MP3s and other wave audio work as expected, and the sound quality from the Extigy is very good indeed. Isolating the DACs and ADCs away from the noisy components inside the PC case definitely has its benefits! Remote Control The remote control provides a convenient way to access the features of the mixer and PlayCenter, Creative's media jukebox player that is also bundled with the Live! and Audigy sound cards. The black remote control unit is identical in design to the ones provided with the Live!Drive IR and AudigyDrive with a few buttons changed to support the features of the Extigy. The same RemoteCenter software used by the Live!Drive and Audigy Drive is upgraded to support the Extigy's remote control codes. It works great, but as with the Live! and Audigy, we wished RemoteCenter had easily configurable features so that other applications like software DVD players and Winamp can also controlled. Dolby Digital The Extigy has a Dolby Digital decoder built into it so that it can decode the 5.1 channels of audio encoded in Dolby Digital soundtracks commonly found in DVDs. With a software DVD player like PowerDVD or WinDVD set to S/PDIF Output mode, the Extigy automatically turns on the Dolby Digital decoder. The Extigy can also decode Dolby Digital audio from DVD players and other devices with Dolby Digital output connected to the optical or coaxial inputs. Of course with this setup, you'll need to use a pair of 5.1 multimedia speakers like the Inspire 5300 that Creative is heavily promoting the Extigy with, or a home theater receiver with analog 5.1 inputs. CMSS (Creative Multi-Speaker Surround) Utilizing Creative's own upmixing algorithm, any stereo sound source can be expanded to 4 or 5.1 speakers, creating a wider sound field and allowing stereo programs like music, television broadcasts and movies with stereo soundtracks to utilize the center and surround speakers as well. Since when did a Sound Blaster have a power button?! DirectSound3D and EAX Gaming The Extigy works surprisingly well with games. A custom DSP in the Extigy performs the EAX processing. Since the Extigy relies on the CPU for some audio processing tasks, so there may a slight decrease in frame rate. CPU utilization of the drivers in many games hover around 10-20% on our test system, but that may change with newer and faster processors, or improved drivers from Creative. The new EAXAHD gaming features introduced with the Audigy are not available on the Extigy because of, again, USB bandiwdth limitations. The Extigy only does up to EAX 2.0 type of processing, similar to the Live! The EAXAHD logo is there on the Extigy only because it supports the CPU-processed EAXAHD Music features like Audio Clean-Up and Time Scaling in PlayCenter. Very controversial indeed! For hardcore gamers, an internal sound card like the Live! or Audigy is still the preferred choice because of the minimal CPU utilization and the faster PCI connection. No 8-point Interpolation The Extigy loses the 8-point interpolation found in the EMU10K1 and the Audigy Processor. It makes lower sample rate wave audio sound much clearer, like the 22 kHz sound effects often used by games. Performing 8-point interpolation of all wave streams can be a very expensive process since the Extigy does mixing with the CPU so this was not implemented. Compared to the clear and punchy sound effects of games like Counterstrike and Medal of Honor: Allied Assault on the Live! and Audigy, we could instantly hear the slight drop in audio clarity with the Extigy. MIDI and SoundFonts The Live! and Audigy use instrument samples stored in main memory to generate MIDI music. But due to the bandwidth limitations of the USB connection, SoundFonts are not supported in the Extigy. To support SoundFonts would mean that Creative had to provide some form of on-board memory to cache the instrument samples like the old AWE32 cards using the slow ISA bus. Even then, the transfer of a huge 32MB SoundFont would take ages over USB. For basic playback of MIDI files, the Extigy comes with a software synthesizer that uses the CPU to generate MIDI music. After music generation, the music is mixed together with other wave channels that may be playing at the same time, and this combined wave audio channel is sent over to the Extigy via USB. Full-size DIN MIDI input and output are also provided at the back of the Extigy, so that external music keyboards, synthesizers and sound modules can be used for MIDI composition and playback. Without the PC The Extigy can also be disconnected from the PC and used as a stand-alone device. When disconnected, the "sound card" features like wave audio and MIDI playback would not be functional, but since the decoders are already built into the Extigy, Creative decided to make Dolby Digital and CMSS decoding available. You can leave the PC turned off while you watch a movie or play music with a portable CD or MP3 player in 5.1 surround sound. DVD players, VCRs, cable and satellite TV receivers can be connected to the optical, coaxial and analog line inputs of the Extigy for CMSS and Dolby Digital decoding, without requiring the PC to be turned on. The volume control, mute and CMSS on/off buttons on the remote control work, and the Extigy can also be turned on and off with it.

recent stuff Audigy 2 Information on Creative's latest sound card! The Audigy Forum is open! Extigy Review Audigy Review Contribute information & news Talk in the ALive! Forum Our Sponsor:

Back To Top	h t t p : // a l i v e . s i n g n e t . c o m . s g	Copyright © 1998-2003 ALive! and its writers.