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By Rajan Minhas (rminhas@onepc.net) - April 29, 2001

Infobox

What? SoundBlaster Live! Platinum 5.1 Product Page Who? Creative Technology, Ltd. Home Page How much? $199 USD (Est. Street)

People have been complaining about sound cards on computers for many years. "My sound isn't clear", or "I can't get digital output on this dang thing to hook it up to my stereo!" and "where the #$%@ did the optical outs go??" Well, Creative heard ya. Their top of the line sound card, the SoundBlaster Live! Platinum 5.1, is the perfect solution for those of you who can't settle for less than perfect sound. SoundBlaster Live! Platinum 5.1 comes from the Live! Series of sound cards from Creative which also includes Live! X-Gamer, Live! MP3+, and Live! Value. Creative put together their brains to make something that will blow people's ears away. The whole point of the card is for people who need good quality sound and all the features. Although the card is pricey, it is justified by the amount of features and software included. Never be frightened by bad sound again (though your bank account after the purchase will probably scare you!)!

Specifications

Synthesizer Chip: EMU 10K1 Synthesizer Type: Wavetable (Scalable PCI) Polyphony: 64 (with 8-point interpolation) ROM size: NA RAM size: Based on system RAM, up to 32MB Sample Sets: 2, 4 and 8MB Synthesizer Effects: Reverb, Chorus, Flanger, Pitch Shifter, Distortion, etc. MIDI Channels: 48 Duplex Type: Full Duplex Max. Recording Depth: 16-bit Max. Recording Rate: 48 KHz Max. Playback Depth: 16-bit Max. Playback Rate: 48 KHz Signal-to-Noise Ratio: >96 dB Soundfont Support: Yes Built-in Amplifier: No Windows 9x/ME/NT4.0/2000: Yes General MIDI: Yes MPC3: Yes Plug & Play: Yes Sound Blaster PCI: Yes

EAX Support: Yes Microsoft DirectSound: Yes Microsoft DirectSound 3D & Derivatives: Yes PCI 2.1: Yes AC97: Yes MPU-401 UART: Yes Microphone In: Yes Line In: Yes Line Out (Front)/Speaker Out: Yes Line Out (Rear): Yes MIDI/Joystick Port: Yes MPC3 CD Audio In: Yes Auxiliary In: Yes S/PDIF In: Yes Telephone Answering Device (TAD) In: Yes Live!Drive: Yes - Bundled with Live!Drive IR 4 Speaker Support: Yes Live!Ware Upgrades: Yes Creative MultiSpeaker Surround: Yes Creative Environments: Yes Dolby® Digital 5.1 decoding: Yes

With a $200 price tag, the SoundBlaster Live! Platinum 5.1 is Creative's top of the line sound card; obviously, you can expect it to be fully loaded. There are many features, and they are covered here.

The first feature worth noting is that it comes with built in automatic settings for the amount of speakers you have. These include two, four, or six speaker configurations. These configurations ensure that you get the best sound balance, and the best 3D sound experience possible. The SoundBlaster Live! Platinum 5.1 also comes with a pretty new technology called EAX. It basically is a complex 3D API that will control the different environments (for example hall, concert, and rock) for developers of, let's say games, can utilize to enhance their applications.

The processor behind all this is the EMU10K1 Digital Signal Processor. This is what gives Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1 it's big kick since, as they claim, it has about the same horsepower as a Pentium 90MHz. Now, I'm sure that's not a fair comparison, since both the EMU10K1 and the P90 are designed for different tasks, it just shows how much power the card has and lets you know that it won't take up much, if any, of your CPU power for its features.

Finally, as Creative is very competitive, they also include support for Microsoft DirectSound® 3D, and DirectSound® gaming. Getting very technical, Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1 produces up to 64 hardware-accelerated channels, 32 3D hardware-accelerated channels, or up to 1024 voices!

Since the SoundBlaster Live! Platinum 5.1 has so much power, it can distort sound-yes, that's right-as it comes with presets for different voices. All you do is plug in the included microphone, punch in the voice you want, and then speak! You can even make yourself sound like Zeus! For those of you experienced in sound distortion, you can even make your own FX and voices by mixing the different FX's that are available!

It also includes a neat little utility called the Live!Drive IR. Now, you say, what the heck is the Live!Drive IR anyway? Well, ever wanted to plug in headphones, or a minidisk recorder to your computer? Then you know how annoying it is to have to pull your computer out, reach behind and hope you get the right jack! All this changes with the Live!Drive IR. It brings the most commonly accessed jacks, and puts them right on the front of you computer in a 5.25-inch drive bay! This brings Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1's headphone and mic jacks, volume controls, S/PDIF coaxial, Optical In/Out, a few analog input connections, and semi-hidden MIDI In/Out jacks right in the reach of your fingertips.

But wait, there more! The best feature of the SoundBlaster Live! Platinum 5.1 I have left out... Wondered what the IR in the title stood for?? Well the IR is a infrared port put on the Live!Drive that allows you to control your computer, movie players, MP3 players and even the Internet on your computer, through the included remote! With video and sound players supported by the remote software, you can use the play/stop controls to control them.

Finally, we have Creative's Live!Ware. Live!Ware is a technology that uses the reprogrammable EMU10K1 Digital Signal Processor chip in conjunction with software updates. This means that with Live!Ware technology, all you have to do is download the software upgrade and boom! You got the latest in sound technology! Never worry about an outdated sound card again!

Software Bundle
Well... If you thought that the hardware was a wonderful package, wait until you see the software! It comes bundled with some hot new software including some full games. The games include:

Installation and Performance
Well, let me tell you, the SoundBlaster Live! Platinum 5.1 isn't exactly the easiest card to install if you have a built-in sound card in your computer. You have to disable your old one on the motherboard-and so forth. It can really take a while to get working. [Ed: These problems will arise with any card, so we shouldn't blame Creative for them.] Creative's tech support is very friendly and very helpful, so if you get stuck along the way, just call them up (after all, you just spent $200 US to buy it!).

After you get everything all set up, it is sort of complex to actually set the settings you want, as there are too many mixer programs, and a bunch of weird settings that ordinary people like me and you would prefer not to be exposed to. Also, there really isn't enough in the actual hard-copy manual to help you out. You will either have to use the online help on CD or just figure it out yourself.

That's a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo, so what's it all come down to in English?

Well, that's a good question. Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1 is a full-fledged sound card that includes almost everything you need to set up a professional level sound studio on your computer, and have better than theatre sound quality. If you have a set of Dolby Digital speakers or a home theatre, this card is perfect for connecting your computer to the speaker system of your choice. So if you have the cash, have the time and patience to install it, and want sound close to perfection, this card is for you!

[Ed: A reader has indicated to me of the problems that all SoundBlaster Live! sound cards have with some VIA-based motherboards--more specifically, and not including, cracking and popping sounds. The reviewer did not use a VIA-based motherboard, so he did not experience such problems. If you do have a VIA-based motherboard, just be careful and do your research before you purchase a SoundBlaster Live! sound card. --April 29, 2001]

Pros Excellent sound quality Perfect for sound editing, home theatre or just about any other application Hardware EAX support for popular games like Half-Life EMU10K1 DSP provides for loads of raw power Live!Drive IR provides for easy access to common audio jacks and built-in infrared port + remote control adds value Live!Ware ensures that you'll always have the newest sound technologies by Creative Cons Can make your wallet quite a bit lighter Tons of features might confuse some people

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