X-bit labs

Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS Notebook: Serious Audio for Portable Systems (page 2)

Category: Multimedia

by Vasily Melnik

[ 08/31/2005 | 03:20 PM ]

An Engineering Masterpiece

If you compare visually an Audigy 2 ZS card for the PCI bus with this PCMCIA card, you may get a vague feeling of being deceived. You realize at first sight that there’s no chance to put all the components of the PCI card into this small case. The EMU10K2 processor alone would take up a quarter of the available space. So, is this miniature device really worth our time?

In fact, it is! For you to believe this, too, I am offering you its specification as compared with other Creative cards among which I also included the well-known Audigy 2 ZS. I marked in red some things I consider the most important.

So, the PCMCIA-interfaced Audigy 2 ZS Notebook card is the only notebook-oriented solution from Creative to support EAX 4.0 Advanced HD (for gamers) and ASIO 2.0 (for musicians). Its capabilities for organizing a home theater are officially confirmed with THX certification. In fact, this audio card is no worse than the PCI-interfaced Audigy 2 ZS in characteristics, at least the manufacturer claims so. Let’s see how it performs in practice.