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Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Value

Reviews for Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Value

PCI - 24 bit - Internal - MPN: 70SB040000005

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|13 reviews
  • 2
  By member: sgulley - Nov 22, 2005

Not For Digital Recording

Strengths: Decent sound, especially for game players.

Weakness: Impossible to hook up S/PDIF input to record digital to computer.

I read the outside of the box and bought it, assuming that I could go from a digital recorder into the sound card. I quickly found out that Creative advertises selling a "Digital I/O Module" interface to connect a coaxial S/PDIF cable, but they quit selling the add-on.

So, if you want to record to your computer you are out of luck with the SBV2 and most of the other Creative cards. I diffently would have gone with the M-Audio 2496 if I would have know this in advance.

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  • 4
  By member: gtguy01 - Feb 3, 2006

Great Sound Great Value

Strengths: Great Sound, Sound Effects and Cool Things to play with

Weakness: No Gameport (old joysticks).

I am very pleased with the Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Value Audio Card. It has 7.1 surround sound support which means that you can have 7 speakers and a subwoofer hooked up, with different sound coming from every speaker. It is incredible with modern DVD's and with games. The software has many sound presets you can play with. For example you can adjust the sound to sound like you are at a concert hall, a cave, or a bathroom. You can also change the speed of your played back mp3's and the tone (ie can change male singer to female). The Audigy right now is the most supported soundcard in today's games. In order to use OpenAL in games like Quake4 and other games a SoundBlaster Audigy 2 or better must be installed. When I upgraded to the Audigy 2 from the Soundblaster Live, I definitely have a much more booming sound in Quake 4 and other games. The disadvantage is that there is no gameport on this soundcard, so I still had to have my soundblaster live in another PCI slot so I could plug in my old joystick (or steering wheel). Also, I have frequent problems with the system mixer control panel. One time the speaker configuration panel was not working and I had to reinstall the drivers. Now the graphic equalizer control panel is not working and I will have to reinstall the drivers again. The Audigy 2 is specially suited for DVD playback audio, and will give you a higher quality than older sound cards. Benchmarking the Audigy 2 compared to my Live, I see a couple FPS increase in about 1/3 of my games. Make sure you have good speakers if you get this card.

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  • 4
  By member: ChopperSF - Jun 2, 2005

Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Value

Strengths: Creative Labs

Weakness: None

Great sound card for the price. Sound is very vibrant for gaming. The sound card is package with SpinterCell, one of the best pc game in 2002.

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  • 5
  By member: steamrocks - Aug 22, 2006

Great upgrade for analog recording

Strengths: Creative labs quality, low price, recording quality rivaling much higher priced units.

Weakness: Slight tweaking required when using line in. (May not be the fault of the unit)

Most people it seems are reviewing this card for playback use. My primary use is audio recording and I'll look at it from that standpoint.

My audio recording is somewhat demanding. I have a sizeable theater organ installed in my house, and record it using condensor mics through a mixer board with the line out of the mixer going to the line in of the Audigy. The Audigy was an upgrade to the sound card supplied with my computer.

I monitor the recording with headphones and the first thing I noticed was that the Audigy was significantly quieter than the original sound card. This card is so quiet I thought that my mixer was turned off! The sound quality is vibrant and detailed, quite a leap from my previous card.

The only gripe may not be the fault of the card or its drivers at all, may be in my computer. Whenever I start the system up, I must go to the audio control panel in the computer and switch the 'recording in' from mic to line, back and fourth to 'wake up' the system to the fact that I want to use line in as a recording source. Once this is done, it's all good and recording is effortless.

I may switch to using a laptop for this application in the future so I can record organs on location in theaters, too. For that I will use the Audigy 2ZS. The thing I like about this card, however, is that its recording specifications for all practical purposes equals that of other Creative Labs products costing much more. Since recording, not playback, is my primary goal with this computer, this economical card serves my purposes very well.

Note that I did not consider the USB units because the theater organ is equipped with MIDI playback and record, and these features are used to record the audio of the organ while it plays back a MIDI recording in order to eliminate picking up key and pedal clacking while playing 'live'. MIDI is being transmitted through the USB ports, and I do not want this USB usage to interfere with audio. Keeping these two separated makes for a potentially better audio recording since the audio does not have to share USB with MIDI.

Some people might shy away from the card thinking that 'value' in the name means a low quality stripped down product. This is sure not the case.

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  • 4
  By member: splitwire - Jul 31, 2005

Audigy 2 Value

Strengths: Great sound in games and for music, 2.0 to 7.1 channels supported, EAX effects

Weakness: regular price, digital I/O module and analog CD audio cable are not included

I am actually very pleased with this card. I use it mostly for games, I do not listen much to music on my PC. The sound is crisp with my Sennheiser headphones and you can hear environmental effects in games.
There was a creative rebate when I bought this card. For $35 this is a very good value. With the regular price, I might actually look for a deal on the ZS version.
It comes with Splinter Cell and an audio sampler disc that has a few nice songs on it.

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  • 4
  By member: sabor - Jun 18, 2006

Nice sound card

Strengths: Great sound, specially for action games

Weakness: none so far

I am using this card with a Logitech 5.1 speacker system and the sround sound quality is great with movies and games. You will feel the diffrence with an onboard card if you are a hardcore game player.

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  • 4
  By member: roggan - Apr 26, 2006

Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Value

Strengths: Nice improvement from onboard sound card

Weakness: Price?

After I installed the card, I did notice some improvement from my onboard card, although I believe I need better speakers to take full advantage of all the features offered (I have logitech Z3 5.1 right now). I'm not an audiophile, so the current level of sound quality is adequate for me, but I am also curious what this card can do with a better speaker set.

Card came with Splinter cell, which I already had. I can just give it to someone else I guess.

Anyways, it's a good purchase. Not a lot different in sound quality from Audigy ZS while playing games and movies , which sells for much more.

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  • 4
  By member: jayarebee3 - Feb 28, 2006

Nice upgrade

Strengths: Relatively inexpensive upgrade to integrated sound. Software has decent amount of customizable options. Easy installation. Comes with full Splinter Cell game (better than nothing).

Weakness: No fiber optical in/out connections for connecting to a/v receiver.

This is the first audio card I've bought and must say that it offers noticable audio quality improvement. I got it for $40 after rebate at compusa so the price was right. Installation was like any PCI addition, just plugging into an open slot and installing drivers. Software has equalizer and other customizable options for various speaker set ups. I've got my computer hooked up to my a/v receiver with 5.1 sound. Unfortunately I've just got it plugged into the headphone jack with a y-split cable because there is no fiber optical input. Nevertheless, sound quality is noticeably louder and clearer than integrated chip even with this set up. But can't complain for a mere $40. If looking for more options the price range would inevitably move up the ladder.

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  • 5
  By member: liuyong226 - Jun 3, 2005

Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Value

Strengths: Full EAX 4.0 ADVANCED HD performance.

Weakness: Not found yet.

It's an awesome card. I have tried the game "Splinter Cell" which is designed with EAX 4.0 ADVANCED HD technology and got totally shocked by the sound effect. This is definitely a necessary component for a gamer computer.

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  • 4
  By member: erikanderson - Jun 7, 2005

Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Value

Strengths: Great sound quality, cool software, quick setup

Weakness: Needs a separate component for optical output

I am using this with a fairly decent set of analog speakers. Sound quality is superb; better than my previous sound card. CPU usage for playing sound is now fairly minimal as it is more of a hardware than software solution.

The included drivers and software features some cool little gizmos such as an option to change the voice of the output sound to sound like a female to a male or vice-versa. It does fairly well at maintaing the rest of the sound quality while changing the frequencies the voice resides at to sound like you want it to.

It came included with Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell as opposed the the Lara Croft game previously advertised (to my pleasant surprise).

Overall a great card. Well worth the money.

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  • 5
  By member: txqoo7 - Jan 7, 2006

Awesome sound for a "value" sound card

Strengths: Great sound for listening to music & watching dvd on computer. Way better than on-board sound. Great companion for middle to high end speakers (the Logitech Z-2300 for example). Low price w/ rebate.

Weakness: None

I've owned this sound card for almost a year and enjoyed it so much that I just bought another one for a newly built computer for a relative. Highly recommeded.

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  • 4
  By member: leshan - May 29, 2005

Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Value

Strengths: Good

Weakness: Good

This sound card has fair sound quality as the price. The music quality is fine. The game sound quality is greate. This card has ulta reallistic sound quality.

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  • 4
  By member: TheHobbit - May 17, 2006

Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2

Strengths: Another great card from Creative Labs

Weakness: None.

I'm upgrading from onboard sound card to this card. As always, Creative delivers another quality product. You can hook it up to your stereo system and listen your MP3 colletion. Installation was a snap. I opened up my PC and plugged it in an open PCI slot, closed it, turned the PC on and ran the install CD. That's all it took.

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