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mmead
Location: USA
Posts: 88
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 Posted - Wed May 22, 2002 9:51 am
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Who can say exactly what it is the SB people do in the manufacturing that creates such wrath in the CEP forum Members. Is feces really used at some point in their process? I've heard many voices allude to this. Just *how does* one go about making such a BAD sound card?
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Graeme
Member
Location: Spain
Posts: 4663
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Posted - Wed May 22, 2002 10:04 am
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Truth be told, there's not that much wrong with SB cards. They do a fair job of what they are intended for, for the money asked.
The 'problem' is not with the manufacturing side of the organisation, so much as the marketing side. All the products are oversold, with respect to features, etc., which leads a lot of less knowledgable purchaser to buy something which is not quite what they thought it was.
By the very nature of what most people on this forum do, a 'jumped-up' gaming card is not going to provide the quality level the users want - or the one one that Creative claim.
Creative Labs would probably get a much better press from us if they were not so devious in their claims.
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VoodooRadio
Location: USA
Posts: 3971
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Posted - Wed May 22, 2002 10:20 am
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At one point in my trying out different cards in search of the holy grail (by the way... not there yet) I installed a Sound Blaster AWE 64 Gold. I have heard all the trashing of SB and admit to agreeing with most of it. The AWE 64 was a good card. Yes it was only 16bit, and yes it wasn't up to the standards of some of todays "higher end" cards. But... IMO it did appear to be Creative's best effort thus far. I tried alot of cards and settles on a Seasound and will surely upgrade again when the budget cooperates. BTW, the SB cards are really good for skimming across the pond if you get the a chance.  Good Luck Voodoo
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SteveG
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 6695
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Posted - Wed May 22, 2002 2:43 pm
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| Truth be told, there's not that much wrong with SB cards. They do a fair job of what they are intended for, for the money asked. |
Hmm... That may be true, but the trouble is that now, there are a lot of cards doing a good job for similar money. Voodoo is not alone in his thoughts about earlier Creative cards - I thought that some of the earlier ones sounded better, too. I think that Creative got a bit complacent, both in their design and their marketing. Once you have reached the position that they have in the market, stuff sells on the name alone. So why bother to make a good product, when you can tell any old tales you like about what you sell, because people are going to buy it anyway? Yes, the Audigy sounds a little cleaner than the Live! (I actually went and listened to an Audigy carefully in the end), and with no other terms of reference, most people would think it sound fine. That is, until they've compared it to a good card.
So I agree entirely that the real problem is mainly in Creative's marketing strategy. I don't really care how good or bad their cards are, as long as they don't over-sell them, effectively conning people out of their hard-earned cash with unachieveable claims. It's a wonder they haven't been sued. (Or have they?)
Steve
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Graeme
Member
Location: Spain
Posts: 4663
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Posted - Wed May 22, 2002 4:08 pm
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| Truth be told, there's not that much wrong with SB cards. They do a fair job of what they are intended for, for the money asked. |
Hmm... That may be true, but the trouble is that now, there are a lot of cards doing a good job for similar money.
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In terms of gaming, I think the SB's still stand up in terms of value for money and that was the point I meant to get across. The real problem is that Creative decided they wanted a share of the audio market without wanting to do the necessary work to back it up, other than an extended advertising budget.
Anyone who has used a Live card with APS drivers will know that the usefulness of the card (for straight audio work) is greatly enhanced, but Creative couldn't even be bothered to take that step for themselves (in spite of the fact that they actually own both companies) and it was left to third parties to create what was, essentially, an illegal hack.
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John Logan
Posts: 11
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Posted - Wed May 22, 2002 6:08 pm
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They are gaming cards with pretentions of being audio cards. Real D/A converters cost real money and for that reason alone they will never be great audio cards. They are sold mainly on price. Look at where prices on real sound cards have gone $250.00 will buy you much more then $400.00 or $500.00 would have just a couple of years ago. That's also the reason that you seldom find midi on pro audio cards. Pro audio cards are designed to get the cleanest least altered sound into your pc that is possible for a given design. The other reason that pro audio cards are expensive is that the market for them is tiny compared to the gaming market. I guess that reiterates the view point that something designed for audio only has to better then the one size fits all approach taken by creative labs.
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SteveG
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 6695
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Posted - Thu May 23, 2002 2:12 am
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I think that creative's actual approach could more accurately be described as 'one size f***s all'... 
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John Logan
Posts: 11
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Posted - Thu May 23, 2002 9:22 am
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| I think that creative's actual approach could more accurately be described as 'one size f***s all'... |
I couldn't agree more!
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Arup
Posts: 3
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Posted - Thu May 23, 2002 8:33 pm
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Recently I too got bitten by the Audigy bug and decided to add it to my collection. One incentive was the built-in Firewire support and the Live drive (was tired of going to the back of the PC to hook up wires). Sadly though the experience has not been satisfactory at all. The drivers are no great shake and the sound is nothing to write home about. This is my first SB product as I have always been a Yamaha man.
This card sounds so-so and nothing to compare with my rickety old Yamaha DSXG Waveforce Digital. The Yamaha without all the Creative bells and whistles sound far superior and musical not to mention warmer to the Creative product and this with patchy Yamaha Win2K drivers. Mind you I am not comparing the Creative with my other Yamaha card which is the awesome Pro SW1000 XG, which would blow the doors of any Creative product.
So now the Audigy sits in my gaming machine and I use the Firewire to capture movies from the DV cams. For gaming, the card is pretty good with the famous EAX support and therefore for musicians I only recommend Pro stuff like Yamaha, Turtle Beach, Roland etc. and urge them to stay off Creative products. Like Windows OS it is more hype than quality.
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beetle
Location: USA
Posts: 2591
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Posted - Fri May 24, 2002 4:25 am
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They don't see us audio types. They still see the gamers who swear by their cards. Gamers aren't particularly interested in quality sound, they usually just want loud and surround. They see the people who want all-purpose cards.
Creative knows what they are doing and it shows in their customer support and their unwillingness to disclose the true specs of their cards.
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Craig Jackman
Location: Canada
Posts: 909
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Posted - Fri May 24, 2002 4:58 am
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I've said it before and I'll say it again ....
I spent years slagging off on SB cards, thinking they're great for games, lousy for everything else. Then I got a new computer that already had a SB Live in it, and so I put the digital i/o on it too. With the SPDIF hooked up to my DAT machine, and a Symetrix mic processor hooked into the line in, this card is fine for the radio stuff I wind up doing at home. Are there better cards? Yes, thousands. Do you have to whip out the SB card that came in your new machine? For most audio uses no, though the digital extension makes life easier, and always use an external mic pre and never ever use the cuddy mic in.
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Arup
Posts: 3
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Posted - Fri May 24, 2002 5:15 am
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They don't see us audio types. They still see the gamers who swear by their cards. Gamers aren't particularly interested in quality sound, they usually just want loud and surround. They see the people who want all-purpose cards.
Creative knows what they are doing and it shows in their customer support and their unwillingness to disclose the true specs of their cards. |
The fact that one has to disable ACPI under Win2K or XP for Creative Audigy cards refelcts their commitment to the musical world. If ACPI is enabled there is a bad latency issue in MIDI which is a no-no for any musician.
Die hard Creative fans can be seen in the Creative news group lamenting the fact that there has been no updated to the drivers for a long time in spite of the numerous complaints to Creative.
It is a gaming card and the Live drive is as pricey as a high end Turtle Beach so I would give preference to the musician oriented cards.
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SteveG
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 6695
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Posted - Mon May 27, 2002 1:22 pm
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| Is feces really used at some point in their process? |
Absolutely. The marketing department is full of it - it leaks out all over the place, and they never clean it up afterwards. It puts a nasty smear on the sound as well. (I must be having a bad day - I'm not normally quite this rude...)
As an antidote to the Audigy, there's always the TerraTec DMX 6Fire 24/96. Tom's hardware (usually a pretty reliable place) is fairly impressed, and they actually did a shootout..
http://www4.tomshardware.com/video/02q1/020115/terratec-01.html
Steve
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ozpeter
Location: Australia
Posts: 3200
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Posted - Mon May 27, 2002 5:53 pm
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The review SteveG mentions makes very interesting reading. The frequency responses for analogue input (which - mic or line? I don't think it says) are particularly illuminating - see
http://www4.tomshardware.com/video/02q1/020115/terratec-09.html#converter_quality_benchmarks
- the response of the Creative device is I think the worst I have ever seen for any audio device! In fact it stretches credulity. Surely there's some mistake??
Having said that, the rest of the review, if I'm not misreading it, seems not totally to damn the Creative card if using its SPDIF input. It would have been interesting to see figures for the response of the analogue outputs only - I only use my Live Platinum card for playback, all input to my system being from CDR recorded on standalone units. I wonder whether I really would change my mastering decisions if monitoring via a more sophisiticated card.
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MusicConductor
Location: USA
Posts: 1524
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Posted - Thu Jun 06, 2002 11:27 am
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Steve & Co., what on earth could create such a bizarre response curve in the SB test? It looks as though some comb effect or other cancellation is occurring, and the fact that it occurs every 500Hz in the spectrum adds to the suspicions.
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SteveG
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 6695
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Posted - Thu Jun 06, 2002 5:06 pm
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After some discussion with a few mates, we are inclined towards a DSP problem. Even Creative Labs A-D-D-As probably wouldn't cause this. But I still have a few suspicions about this particular response. But since I've talked everybody I know out of even considering the purchase of one, I can't even replicate the test to see if it's typical. But if it is, it's something of a joke...
Steve
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