Audigy 2 - Wavetable - PCI - 24 bit - Internal - MPN: 70SB024000007
Strengths: Great sound quality. Plenty of control. Very simple install. (XP Pro)
Weakness: downloaded software updates sometimes "break" the Audigy software
The Audigy 2 is a MAJOR improvement over the Audigy. This card sounds great and practically installs itself. I've installed 3 in computers I've built over the past 9-12 months (All WIndows XP Pro) and they have worked spectacularly. I haven't had any problems with freezes related tothe sound card during any games or other applications. But then again I always had the latest drivers and patches for my software. The only bug I noticed was when I downloaded the updated software from the Creative Labs site once. After installing the updates the Audigy 2 task items crashed the computer. This only happened once and it's possible that it was user (or Windoze) error. All-in-all this card is a must have; especially if you have a nice speaker system and want to utilize it.
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TopStrengths: Works as advertised. Great Sound. Bought a couple of DVD-Audio discs and had my mind blown! Of course having the MegaWorks THX speakers helps.
Weakness: Diagnostics have never worked even with numerous software updates. Fortunately, I've never needed the diagnostics (knock on wood!)
I admit that the software update process is a tough one if you attempt to download and install all the various drivers manually. However, once I found out about their automatic update service here:
www.americas.creative....
...I've had no problems whatsoever.
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TopStrengths: SQ is good. Haven't had install problems like other.
Weakness: Setup program is terrible. Not enough options.
I've had this card for 3 months with no complaints. For under $100, you can have great sound quality - assuming you can get it installed. I could get it installed on my fresh copy of XP Enterprise, but I wouldn't doubt others have had problems. The install program is terrible and does not have enough options. Overall, this is a solid 5.1 card.
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TopStrengths: No blue screens of death, able to boot almost every time dispite other troubles. Only took 13 days to find out it wont work with the only flavor of Windows that is gaming friendly.
Weakness: crashed every other game, the ones that didn't crash had the worst skipping sound/dropped sound. Driver installation "succeded" 1 out of 3 times (the worst system hang I've ever had).
First time I installed the drivers they installed, I rebooted, and the new creative sound/logo was chopped and skippy. I tried playing every game I had installed, and a few of them crashed back to the desktop, the rest had choppy/skippy sound and the intros were visually skippy, with skippy sound. I reinstalled the drivers multiple times, downloaded the "updated" driver, used their online support.
3 out of 4 times I installed the drivers it froze at 95%, and I had to manually install, after the reboot, .dll files from cd/Driver location.
Support suggested changing the pci slot, getting the card on its own IRQ, taking out every card but video/SBA2, and changing the IRQ bios setting (they also told me to change 2 non-exsistant settings).
I did all of these, and over the course of 3 support feedbacks and 10 days I tried every combonation of these suggestions. Non of these did anything at all.
The online support was prompt, they mentioned my choice of OS was a good one for gaming, and asked good questions and gave suggestions that would seem to help. The only thing I didn't like about the experience was that they didn't help do anything but eliminate every possibility except bad hardware design/drivers.
I am running a Via KT333 chipset with raid, usb 2.0, tried 3 diffrent 4in1 drivers. My OS is Win98SE.
As requested by support I tried the card in my server, Win2k 500mhz PIII with an old 440bx chipset, right above the ISA slot, and it worked fi
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TopStrengths: Card sounded excellent
Weakness: Quality is lacking
I bought the card eight months ago, and was highly impressed with the sound quality that it produced. After five months however it began to have problems. The card was not recognized by the Creative software. MS XP would install a driver for it anyway, and the card would produce sound, but not the quality that it originally had. It took three months to get an RMA from Creative. I sent the card in and after three weeks of hearing nothing or seeing any updates on their website I called. Turned out that my proof of purchase was incorrect and that the card had some “user damage” so they wanted twenty bucks to test it to tell me what was wrong with it, but they weren’t going to call me and tell me this. I’ve bought a lot of Creative products over the years and have been loyal, installing them and recommending them to people, but after this, and a CD-ROM drive that isn’t working, I’ve lost faith in Creative and will look for other makers instead.
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TopStrengths: none
Weakness: can't get it to work, locks up the computer, no tech support helped
I bought this card thinking that it would be a simple installation. I am running Windows XP and have all the requirements met with eas. I am also Cisco sertified so I know what I am doing. I read the instructions on the POSTER and started the installation but when it got to 95% it just locked up the machine. I never have complete lockups since I installed windows XP on an NTFS format hard drive. I had to manualy restart my computer. When windows started it ask to install an unsigned driver. I told it ok then it ask for a .dll file. I did a search to find it then it ask for anouther. This contenued for quite a while but when I got to one it just fully locked up again. I manualy restarted it once again and it gave me the exact same install an unsigned driver message. I tried once again but failed.
4/7/03
I called tech support where they gave me instructions to switch the PCI slot which it was in and to download service pack one for windows XP both of which did nothing.
4/8/03
I called tech support and they said to change some things in the BIOS which also did nothing.
4/11/03
I have just about had it with this card. I try to install the drivers and it does but when I restart it locks up the computer on boot and I have to use the "last good configuration" tool. Downloading the new drivers did nothing.
4/12/03
I returned the card for a full refund.
Moral of the story:
The card did not work for me but maybe it will work for you.
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TopStrengths: Nice sound
Weakness: Doesn't work well with windows XP all the time out of box webpage is horrible for understanding/ downloading what driver updates you want. Never got it to work on first installation try.
Well... The sound quality of this card is crazy and for gaming/watching dvd's azesome. But that's it. I have never been able to install sucessfully a sb live audigy or audigy 2 card. Seems that there is a bug with windows XP and errors with blah.dll cannot be found, please reinstall. Yeah, tried that and outside of the fact that their site goes in circles thier own drivers part of the wepage was down for me (still is) so I cna't update the windows problem so I can get sound, but can't use any program 'cause it errors. Reinstalling/repairing seems to screw it up more then it was in the beginning. So in all, nice sound... but everything else failed horribly. Very poor product as far as I'm conserned, drivers are all over the place, never seems to work first time round. driver download pages down so you can't fix the problems you have. Does work with windows XP straight from box? Must be taking after Microsoft. I'd suggest getting your act together and start releasing a better product before ppl start going elsewhere for a cheaper and better product.
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TopStrengths: Decent sound, when working
Weakness: drivers just plain suck
I have installed this card twice, once on WXP, and now on W2K. It took me forever to get it to work on XP, it was not just a matter of no sound, or crashing games, like in a normal bad install, nooooo, this baby locks up the whole system. It crashes both xp and w2k on startup. I mean total lock ups, BSODs, system freezes, and restarts on loading. Major havoc. On w2k it was on a fresh install, (with sp4, and pertinent updates). I have always had trouble with Creative sound card drivers in the past, but nothing like this. I will never buy another Creative product again. Yes there are some people who have no problems, but if you look around, there is a large percentage of people with problems, and not just no sound, but major system stability issues. The price is right on this product, but don't do it, it just isn't worth it.
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TopStrengths: very good sound playback of recordings, its awsome ...i am no computer pro but i instaled i no problem and it has never crashed my computer !i dont know what these other retards are talking about.....
Weakness: needs more inputs and better ones i had to buy all sorts of adapters to modify it to my home studio
i purchased it at a very reasonable price hoping i could use it to start a little home recording studio ...because i am on a budjet i cannot afford a rack mountable $1000.00 sound card!
after buying the nessacary adapters i hooked it up to my mixing counsoul and low and behold presto ...i have a recording studio i run reason cubase and fruity loops simaltainiously without a hitch.... so if your on a budjet like me, get it... it sounds good to me and i know sound i have been djing clubs and raves for 8+years and am a huge music buff
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TopStrengths: looks and name
Weakness: bad quality control
Bought audigy in a box in one retail store.Couldnt even run a simple game in fifa 03 and nba live 03. One TSR actually lied to me that I can only have an RMA if I purchased the product on their web site? huh. I read the warranty statement and it doesnt say anything about it.I just wanted them to check if its a bad hardware. Creative is just lucky they dont have a good competition in the market otherwise I'd never buy their product again.
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TopStrengths: Sound improvement, Sound quality really improved, looks.
Weakness: Drivers are too bad, make me sick about my win xp pro(a Bug collection). Won't cure my win crashing problems(always suddenly a blue screen.)
I used to have SB live card before, audigy, and audigy2 now. when I purchased it, I feel pretty good about the sound quality. It really has improved its sound, you can hear the differece between it and audigy. the problem is I thought it could possibly fix my windows crashing problem. it has collision with my hardware. so sometimes blue screen will suddenly appear and so weird sound. I tried so a lot of drivers, they did nothing but made my windows even worse than before.(dirvers will brake other softwares) I gave up on this problem already, and will build another system.
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TopTo the Cisco Sertified idiot,
Try Windows XP service pack 1 like it says in BIG words on the BIG poster which comes with it. I read it. I did it. Mine works and I am not even Cisco Sertified.
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Top
Opossum9000
- Jan 29, 2008
Strengths: Good sound quality for the value
Weakness: Really poor customer support, card doesn't work as described.
I purchased the Audigy 2 as an upgrade to a Live card for two reasons, 1 - the live card wasn't able to keep up with the load on games; sound would get choppy, 2 - I wanted full 5.1 surround sound.
I installed the card, purchased a Digital I/O Module and plugged it into a JVC Home Theater System.
It sounds great, better than I expected; only problem is it won't output 5.1 surround. The JVC Receiver shows the card as sending only FL, FR and Center - This makes watching movies interesting.
The only support I am able to get is email and they have yet to provide any useful input. Reinstalling the drivers [their only useful suggestion] made no difference.
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Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 sound card
Strengths: Easy Setup, Excellent Sound
Weakness: None
To the person who gave it a 1 star just because he doesn't know how to install a sound card. Give me a break....I install the Audigy 2 sound card in 5 minutes. Work fine and trouble free. Great sound card and I recommend this sound card to everyone who doesn't want to spend the money for the Audigy 2 Platinum EX.
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