2D Sound Performance
To test out the 2D sound performance, I decided to play a few of my MP3's. At first, when I first listened to my MP3 files through my 4-speaker set up, I noticed that the sound was completely identical to the sound from my SoundBlaster Live! sound card; however, when I plugged in my SoundBlaster Live! back into the computer, I noticed that there was a slight difference in the sound output from the two cards. I couldn't tell what it was, though.

So, I decided to further test out the sound output of the two cards to find out just what it was that was making this slight difference of sound. Using my very expensive set of headphones, I set the sound cards side by side and played my favourite MP3 file. Sure enough, there was a very slight difference of sound quality between the Santa Cruz and the SoundBlaster Live!. I noticed that the output of the Santa Cruz seemed to sound "brighter" and clearer than the output from my SoundBlaster Live! card. This, I finally concluded after switching between the two cards a few times over, was caused by the Santa Cruz accenting the treble tones just ever so slightly. Ask me which output I prefer better, and I have to say the output from the Santa Cruz, because it's slightly "clearer" when I compare it to the output from my SoundBlaster Live!.

3D Sound Performance
To test out the 3D sound, I decided to play 15 mins of the game Half-Life, a game that, although might be over 2 years old, I feel takes the best advantage of sound effects to enhance its game play. It utilizes EAX 2.0, by the way.

After playing the game over and over on the Santa Cruz and the SoundBlaster Live!, I can tell you that the Santa Cruz does EAX 3D API calls as good as the SoundBlaster Live! card. In fact, I couldn't tell a difference between the two cards whatsoever except for the brighter sound output that I mentioned above in the 2D sound performance section.

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