Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Sound Card

Sound Blaster Audigy 2 offers Advanced Resolution DVD-audio playback up to an astonishing 24-bit/192 kHz in stereo, and delivers an ultraquiet 106 dB SNR that's far superior to ordinary CD and MP3 playback. With 6.1 speaker support, your games and Dolby Digital EX movies will sound more encompassing than ever before. The new Creative MediaSource music player will revolutionize your MP3 experience with its intuitive interface and rich feature set, while the Audigy 2 chip with EAX Advanced HD support delivers awesome power for gaming. Get Sound Blaster Audigy 2 for 24-bit/192 kHz audio fidelity--it delivers simply the best audio quality for music, movies, and games. Nothing else comes close.

Product Description
With the introduction of the Sound Blaster Audigy 2, Creative has once more raised the bar for PC audio, bringing to you the most definitive audio experience yet!Sound Blaster Audigy 2 delivers high-quality multi-channel recording and playback at up to 24-bit/96kHz and is the first PC product to offer playback of Advanced Resolution DVD-Audio at an astonishing 24-bit/192kHz with a stunning Signal-to-Noise ratio of 106dB, delivering spectacular audio quality that has now redefined PC audio standards. With EAX Advanced HD, 6.1 speaker support and Dolby Digital EX support, movies and games will be experienced with a breathtaking level of immersion and intensity, while SB1394 allows super-fast transfer of audio to external players.

I actually purchased this card after I started having a few resource problems between a fire wire card and my onboard audio that were getting to be very irritating.

When I read that this card had integrated fire wire connectivity in addition to the sound capabilities, plus two bundled high quality games (Soldier of Fortune II and Hit man 2) I told myself I couldn't go wrong by spending a few more bucks than the average sound card.

This card does make an extremely noticeable difference in the way we listen to any kind of audio. MP3s just sound better, period. A few of my MP3's that previously were almost unplayable now simply sound better, I don't know how it works, it just does.

My Unreal Tournament 2003 game is a totally different experience with this card. Boy, I was simply mesmerized with the positional EAX sound performance of the Audigy 2 card with this game. With my onboard sound, I had a lot of difficulty locating enemies by using positional sounds, but now it is so much clearer and crisp, it's unbelievable. Here's where I got totally convinced about the true difference between my onboard sound, which I thought was more than enough, and a truly remarkable work of technology.

I also tested the fire wire with my video camera and it works like a charm, plus now I do not suffer from system resource problems anymore.

Card installation is simple: With the PC off, insert the card, make sure to disable onboard sound (via the BIOS) if any, boot up, install the drivers from the CD, restart and done. Make sure to download the latest drivers afterwards.

Don't get intimidated by the price tag. This is one of the best investments you could make for your PC if you want to enjoy true quality audio.

5 stars


The All in Wonder and the Audigy 2 are incompatable!   December 17, 2002
17 out of 27 found this review helpful

The All in Wonder and the Audigy 2 are incompatable!

The audio input does not working correctly from the ATI When using the time shift feature the sound is messed up big time. ATI seems to be aware of this problem, they reccomend using the mic input to solve the problem, I didn't buy a top line audio card to use the mono mic input.

To attempt to solve this problem I contacted Audigy tech support. They gave be a solution that fixed the timeshfiting sound problem. The only problem is that now there is no sound when I toggle timeshifting off. The Audigy people seem to think oit is acceptablel to go back to the windows volume control and manually toggle this setting if you want to toggle the ATI Media Center timeshifting on and off. To me this is totally unacceptable.

It seems to me that a-lot of people have probally bought this combination of incompatable products the ATI All In Wonder and the Audigy 2 for Christmas and I'm sure some of those people will be very disapointed.

I wish Soundblasters response would have told me they were solving one problem only to create another problem so I wouldn't have wasted another hour of my time.

Unhappy customer


Mindblowing Audio   October 21, 2002
sridhar (Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh India)
10 out of 13 found this review helpful

The Audigy2 is the best sound card out there.The 6.1 surround sound and dobly digital ex sound is amazing especially while watching DVD movies and gaming.The sound quality is far better than the Audigy, u can feel the difference.ALso supports DVD Audio, so ur ready for the future.GO, get the Audigy2 right now!


fabulous sound but watch out...   March 11, 2003
alizmus (long branch, NJ United States)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

this is probably one of the best sound cards you'll come across. great sound and great features.

but watch out. for certain motherboard-sound card combinations (like intel, for instance), this card suffers from a "sqeal of death". every now and then a high pitched sqeal is emitted from the card and the computer freezes requiring a reboot. this occurs frequently and is very irritating. the problem is said to be with the software drivers so make sure this problem is fixed before buying this card.


Very Pleased   January 10, 2003
5 out of 6 found this review helpful

Creative Labs has created another great premium sound card. The difference between this card and the standard or integreated sound that most computers ship with can be compared to the difference between a home theater and a boombox.

The sound quality in even my average quality Harman-Kardon 'Champagne' style speakers is so much better now that it's hard to imagine I once thought my old card was just fine.

The Audigy 2 supports formats that are just now coming into their own (ie. DVD-Audio), and promises to be current with sound technology for many years to come. Many people are starting to use their computers for nearly every type of media, so having a card that can produce high fidelity audio in multiple surround sound formats is one of the most important invesments you can make; the Audigy 2 is certainly one of the best sound card buys for most consumers right now. The cost is much less than most other high quality audio components, and it would be difficult to find something that can increase the multimedia power of any PC so much.