X-bit labs

Creative Sound Blaster Audigy4 Pro Sound Card: Nothing New? (page 5)

Category: Multimedia

by Sergey Samarin

[ 05/06/2005 | 01:41 PM ]

In the third page you can set the cutoff frequency:

Graphics Equalizer

One of the most important utilities is the Graphics Equalizer. However, I think that 7 bands are far not enough for a serious sound card like that. For example, I would expect the bass frequencies to have more flexibility, actually.

MediaSource Player

The most powerful piece of software from Creative is the MediaSource Player. I personally was very happy with the number of options it offers, its ability to playback absolutely any audio formats and to enable fast enough the audio effects implemented in Creative Audigy4 Pro.

EAX Console utility contains audio environment settings. The section consists of five pages:

• Effects. Here you can set the audio environment effects. They serve to add special coloring to the music you play.
• Karaoke. Here you can almost completely suppress the vocals in CD, MP3, VMA or WAV-files.
• CMSS 3D. CMSS 3D (Creative Multi Speaker Surround) function includes three 3D modes for enhanced stereo playback over headphones or multi-channel speakers:
• CMSS: standard 3D-upmixing, ideal for MP3, WMA, and other stereo formats;
• CMSS 2: 3D-upmixing effect with additional simulated room acoustics, ideal for DVD-movie playback;
• Stereo Surround: in multi-speaker setups the standard audio signal will be played over each speaker pair.
• Clean-Up. Activated audio clean-up removes unwanted noises in the digital audio file or audio from external sources, which can pop up during playback as a result of low recording quality.
• Time Scaling. This function allows speeding up or slowing down the playback without pitch changes (it works only with the MediaSource Player).

When the sound volume is changing, the following information window pops up on the screen over all other windows. Its location can be adjusted with the help of the following utility:

You can set the screen volume level indicator location manually.

Well, just like in the entire Audigy sound card family, we once again saw high functionality of the brand name software bundled with the card. Right now Creative Labs offers the best software for its sound cards from the functional point of view.

For you to enjoy the advantages of the ADVANCED HD 4.0 technology, the package also includes a DVD disk with full versions of the well-known games, such as Thief: Deadly Shadows and Hitman: Contracts.