X-bit labs

Creative Sound Blaster Audigy4 Pro Sound Card: Nothing New? (page 8)

Category: Multimedia

by Sergey Samarin

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

Conclusion

Well, let’s sum up a few things now. Creative Labs replaced the converters with better quality ones and pushed the product into the market. Therefore, the actual hardware of the sound card got only a few small changes. It would be fun if next time Creative launches not the fifth version but maybe the tenth right away, why wait? Maybe the next offspring will be designed for PCI Express, but I am not quite sure about it yet, because in this case they will have to completely modify the CA-102-ICT, which implies additional financial investments in RND.

I don’t think you should upgrade your Audigy2 to Audigy4. All you might want to do is update your software. Of course, Audigy4 Pro will be an ideal choice for a wealthy gamer, but under no circumstances for a music professional.

In most cases, when all contemporary mainboards come already bundled with integrated sound of pretty high quality, it will get harder and harder to make users invest into add-on sound cards.

Highs:

• Very high sound quality;
• Very functional software bundle.

Lows:

• No difference from the Audigy2 ZS Platinum Pro;
• No real-time Dolby Digital encoding option (like by NVIDIA Sound Storm);
• No PCI Express version of the card yet;
• No fast driver support.