Customer Reviews

Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum Soundcard

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This is a good sound card for those who wanna be a radio announcer or want to make voice-overs to sFX in radio dramas, but for gamers it's just a lot of fluff. If you are into recording and singing I suggest going all the way and getting the Platnum ex, if you are into games, I suggest the Gamer version, it's (. . .)cheaper and comes with Giants to boot. This card emulates 5.1 channels in most games but is not as good as Phillips in correctly emulating them. The only games I had a real problem with were Baldur's Gate Series(all of them including SoA&ToB). These games cannot emulate speech through the center channel but instead emulate the music/fx in the center. This bothers me personally because BG is my favorite game. Phillips will play speech through center in ToB but not in the others. IceWind Dale works great with this Audigy card but Baldur's Gate II SoA/ToB is terrible. The best games are Creative's 'featured' games, including Diablo, Deus Ex, and a handfull of others. BGII/ToB is on the EAX list but it doesn't work in 5.1(at least not appropriately)
'Advanced' HD EAX has yet to prove itself. When games come out(next 6 mo) This card will show what it can do(hopefully). Not trying to disappoint but the Goldmine Demo was not that impressive to me. This Demo was supposed to show the cards full potential with EAX advanced. Birds chirping arounnd and wing flapping was pretty life like but the other things you can do were nothing shocking. I did notice a bunch of static when I tried to run some game demos in EAX that were supposed to be HD Advanced It is probably a driver issue that will be fixed when EAX 3 comes out.
To conclude, do not buy this product just because it's from Creative, that is not a good reason at all and they're are better cards out there. Hercules is comming out with Maxi Theater X, a 6.1 sound card(six speakers and a sub= 7!) For right now there is Phillip's Acustic Edge which has an excellent player and Power DVD.

I bought the sound card last night and I am sure it deserves writing a review. The installation was very easy, although I am not a computer specialist. Took me about 15 min. I read quite a few reviews that the card and software are not compatible with Win XP which now I know is completely false. After I turned the computer on, windows detected new hardware and asked for drivers. I entered the CD and in about 30 sec I was able to play mp3 files with windows media player through the front panel toslink/rear speaker/headphone connections. It is recommended though to update drivers from creative website, which I did. Software instalation was also flawless.
Now few things that I found really awsome on the card:
- Sound quality is unbelievable, be it MP3, audio CD or game. I did not hear any noise/clicks, and I listened carefully...
- Ripping speed is fascinating (for my "elderly" system)- one CD every 5 min, which is pretty much the time needed to read the cd
- Software is really easy to learn to use and I think I can probably uninstall windows media player now
- The remote control is probably the single best feature available. Before, I knew my computer lacks something but I didn't know what... Gives you full controll and more (shut down/start apps./etc)
- The eax sound effects are also incredible (although many probably not that usefull). Best are Advanced EQ and Audio cleanup
--- I still have to try the rest of the software and my dvd is broken so I don't know how dolby 5.1 works but only for above features the card is worth buying
Cons (so far): $$$.$$
Good job, Creative Labs!
My system: AMD 800Mhz, 384 Mb, 30Gb HDD, Phillips 4x4x32, Nvidia TNT2 16 Mb, Westell ADSL 1.5 Mb/s connection, Win XP Pro, Technics SA-DX1050 amp/ Technics RP HT700 headphones/ Technics SB CR77 speakers; TOS-link optical cable for connections.

I've been using my Audigy for about a month. First, ignore the comments that it doesn't work with XP. Mine works fine with XP using the drivers download from the Creative web page. I bought it because I have a stack of old vinyl albums collected in the 60's and 70's that I want to put on audio CDs (since they are not available commercially as such). The Audigy Platinum makes that job much easier by putting the audio Line In connectors on the front of my PC. Standard stereo cables work fine without the need for an assortment of adapters or trying to decipher the tiny hieroglyphics on the sound card bracket. We also used it for some direct-to-disk recording with a microphone last week and it worked fine for that as well. The audio editing software that came with the Audigy was much easier than trying to do the same with a cassette deck. Again, having a real microphone jack and level control on the front of the PC made it simple to use. I used it to create a couple of MP3 disks and they play fine on my portable CD MP3 player.

It was a bit of a pain to install the internal cables and the drawings in the manual didn't exactly match my unit. Even so, I managed to get everything installed and working in less than an hour. I haven't bought a set of 5.1 speakers yet but probably will since I sometimes watch DVDs using my PC. The sound from the card using my existing stereo speakers is fine regardless of the source of the sound.

Audigy Platinum sounds wonderful. Having the controls in the front is the obvious selling point, especially when you consider you get a free front 1394 port, BUT... I leave mine on mute at all times unless I want to hear something specific. The reason is that every time you reboot the Volume DEFAULTS TO THE LOUDEST setting, waking everyone in the house. Creative has no fix, only a "work around" that doesn't work. It is a pain to pay this much for a sound card and have to leave it off. Stick with what you have until they have a real fix.

Creative has produced on helluva a sound card with the Soundblaster Audigy Platinum. The card works great under Windows XP and there are downloads for the PlayCenter and the Creative software currently available.

Even without the driver updates the card is stable and its audio fidelity is quite good. The included software package contains titles that most users may never use but it's good that Creative included them for the budding musicicans out there. Physically, the Audigy card is bigger than its Live! precessors but still only occupies a half-length PCI slot. The card also features a FireWire port on the bracket and another on the Audigy Drive, which mounts in a 5.25 inch external bay. You can't beat free FireWire!

I highly recommend this card to all users looking to upgrade their existing audio solutions. They will not be disappointed with the power and stability of Creative's Soundblaster Audigy Platinum.

i must say that i am very impressed with the amount of quality and features that creative put in this sound card. first of all it's powered by an e-mu chip, which is used in many high-end audio workstations and digital processor units. it also has the ability to output the digital output signal at 24 bit/96 kHz which dramatically improves the sound quality (compared to a cd's 16bit/44.1 kHz sound quality) the audigy drive is another helpful feature which allows easy access to spdif digital in and out, optical in and out, headphones out, mic in, analog in, 2 midi ports, firewire, and the infrared receiver for the remote. speaking of the remote it is one of the nicest features included with the audigy platinum. with it you can easily play any song in your mp3 collection (or wav,etc.) with the receiver. while many people claim that the processor is the same as the one in the sb live series its not. this processor has well over twice the power of the sb live series chips. while the included software with the sb audigy platinum wasn't that great the features and quality of the card easily make up for the high price. also i don't know what these people are complaining about it not working in win 2k or xp. i have had no problem with it in either of these os. sure there is a little tweaking to do in BIOS but it's easy enough (mostly disabling your motherboards built in sound card if it has one). so for anyone looking for a new sound card look no further than creative's sound blaster audigy series.

Most of the published reviews for the Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum are bunk. Having chatted with numerous end users and techs since initial purchase, my findings have proven common place. Creative Lab's failure to address documented problems dating back to the AWE64 is reprehensible.

Strengths:
Easy installation, front access controls are very nice (especially the addition of a firewire port), sounds are rich, remote control is cute. The command bar up top can be hidden.

Weaknesses:

The card may cause some games to crash resulting in a hardlock.

Summary:
This card replaced an aging PCI 128 Creative Labs. Installation was very simple. The Audigy only takes up an additional slot if your case does not sport a joystick mount.

I first installed the card into my main 1.8GHz P4 Win98SE gaming computer residing in a 19" rack; but sacrificing one of the few external drive slots became a problem as well as crashes and intrusive noises (pops, chirps, etc.). The card was moved to an AMD 600MHz Win2kPro IBM Aptiva tower.

Would I purchase another? If/When Creative Labs updates the drivers to address some game crashing and bothersome noises, possibly; however I am now strongly considering Turtle Beach.

I am running Windows XP Pro, and I got a little frightened when I read a review here on Amazon from a guy with XP saying it wouldn't work right. Well, he was wrong. I got my Audigy Platnium, installed it, downloaded the XP updates from www.creative.com, and everything worked like clockwork. The sound is great on my Klipsch Promedia 5.1 system, and I have yet to encounter a problem. Although it is a little pricy for a sound card, I would highly recommend this card if you have a nice speaker system to take advantage of its features.

i bought the audigy platinum about a month ago and couldn't be more pleased with it. now i'm a little bit of an audio freak and know a lot about sound equipment and what to look for in a sound device. this card amazed me by providing excellent sound quality especially for its price. the amount of inputs was also great and i have had no problem with playing songs of any type with the audigy. i had an internet stream running, mp3, wav, wma, mpg, and ac3 (dolby digital 5.1) file all playing at once and it never skipped or stuttered. my configuration right now is an amd 900 mhz, 80 gig hard drive, hp cd-rw, nvidia geforce 2 mx400, linksys ethernet card, yamaha tss-1b speaker system, win 98 se, and now the audigy. i would definitely recommend the audigy to anyone looking for a new sound card.

I recently purchased and installed the audigy platnium(w/internal breakout box) and have had absolutely no problems with the card. I popped it in and XP(w/SP1) recognized it with no problems.I loaded up the driver disk and in less than 10 mins I was up watching DVD's in 5.1 digital audio. My advice: Get this card since its going down in price due to the introduction of the Audigy 2 line. Its a real steal!