CreativeLabs SB LIVE 24BIT PCI SC ( 70SB041000000 )

by Creative Labs

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0002ZH6XW
• Item model number: 70SB041000000
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #94,488 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 31, 2004

Product Description

Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit Sound Card - Perfect for computers with built-in audio on the motherboard, this basic sound card offers you an upgrade in performance that is anything from basic! You get amazing 24-bit audio reproduction and other audio enhancements that are great for movies, games and digital music. Full Windows Media Player 9 Support Realistic Wave-Table Synthesis Ports - SPDIF Output, Line/Microphone In, & Aux Audio In

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A step up from motherboard audio., July 10, 2005

By 

Danny Wier "~D. ¶¦¬{»" (Austin, Texas USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: CreativeLabs SB LIVE 24BIT PCI SC ( 70SB041000000 ) (Personal Computers)

I noticed a lack of positive reviews for this product, based on its rather exclusive compatibility: it only works for Windows. And that doesn't help much, but if you are a Windows user (including XP; that was apparently a problem with older SB Live! cards) who uses the common Intel chipset and would like better sound without spending a lot of money, I would recommend this.

Even basic sounds like the click you hear when you click your mouse with Windows sound better. I noticed much better stereo separation, for example. A faster sampling rate, up to 96 KHz, also helps a lot. Various 3D effects are available, including reverb, EQ, sound cleanup and other enhancements, are also available. Surround Sound is supported, up to 7.1.

I've read other reviews on SoundBlaster products saying the tech support is bad. I haven't had to call them yet (I found installation was pretty easy, but I'm fairly experienced with installing hardware and software), so hopefully you won't have any problems.

Also, if you plan on using MIDI - and being a songwriter/composer, I do this a lot - I recommend shopping around for a better soundfont. The four-megabyte soundfont file doesn't cut it for me, though it does sound a little better than the GM.DLS used by DirectMusic, and it supports the Roland GS extensions to General MIDI. If you use a very large soundfont (they can run up to 128 MB and possibly even more), you will need a lot of memory: 256 MB RAM at the very least, and a fast microprocessor is a must as well, especially if you use a MIDI controller to your computer, in case you want to make your PC double as a synthesizer.

This product isn't perfect, and doesn't have all the features of Audigy or other higher-end soundcards, but it delivers what it promises.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Value, August 3, 2005

By 

Joshua H. Bretz (Harvard, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: CreativeLabs SB LIVE 24BIT PCI SC ( 70SB041000000 ) (Personal Computers)

I was very pleased with the quality of the bundled software and the performance of the card. However, I needed to make several hardware and software modifications to realize its full potential. This card is capable of 96kHz/24bit. However, the default settings are 48kHz/16bit. Don't ask me why. You have to go to "Control Panel -> Device Control" to change this. "Device Control" is such a generic name, it's easy to miss. Also, I noticed that this card has a low quality resampling algorithm, so if you are playing 44.1kHz files, you might want to get a software resampler to convert 44.1kHz to 48.0kHz before sending a wav output to the sound card. HQSoftProc for winamp worked great for me. I did notice some Sigma/Delta DAC modulation noise when using sensitive headphones. (Shure E5C) The problem was that I was forced to turn the volume almost all the way down to get a reasonable volume. Normal headphones should be less of a problem. But I was able to easily modify the output stage on this card to reduce the gain and thus get more signal out of the Sigma/Delta DAC. It required changing four 0402 resistors. The Audigy series has better SNR out of the box.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great card at a good price, September 21, 2005

By 

SungJin - See all my reviews

This review is from: CreativeLabs SB LIVE 24BIT PCI SC ( 70SB041000000 ) (Personal Computers)

Even though this is a more 'cost efficient' card compared to the Audigy series, the 'Live!' is still a great card, outputting great sound. It's a solid addition to my system (where other sound solutions have caused system crashing).

The software included is good as well. I'm not very interested in the extra media programs (which are nice) as I am with 'tweaking' the actual card. And the driver/configuration program that is provided does this very well!