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| Creative PCMCIA Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Notebook Sound Card |
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List Price: $176.60
Our Price: $229.99
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Creative Labs
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Electronics
Brand: Creative Labs
Color: Silver
EAN: 0054651076891
Feature: Music - Dramatically improve your digital music listening experience
Is Autographed: 0
Is Memorabilia: 0
Label: Creative Labs
Manufacturer: Creative Labs
Model: SB0530
Publisher: Creative Labs
Studio: Creative Labs
Variation Description: Silver
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Features
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Music - Dramatically improve your digital music listening experience
Movies - Enjoy amazing surround sound with headphones and 5.1 or 7.1 speakers
Games - Hear sound effects so real, you'll feel like you're actually in the game
Recordings - Create studio-quality, low-latency recordings with high-fidelity inputs
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Editorial Reviews:
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The PCMCIA Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Notebook opens a new era of possibilities for the notebook user. It delivers features previously only available to PC users but now available to notebook users (even those that are highly mobile). This is achieved by combining ultra-high quality audio with advanced, hardware-accelerated features all in a tiny PCMCIA format card! For instance it delivers THX certified 24-bit ADVANCED HD audio quality playback with incredible 104dB SNR, allowing the highest resolution audio playback with support for DVD-Audio at up to 24-bit/192kHz and Windows Media 9: 24-bit multi-channel audio format.The Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Notebook also provides encompassing 7.1 surround sound for Dolby Digital EX as well as DTS-ES supported DVD movies; any DirectSound3D games and CMSS 3D virtualized 7.1 stereo music. Gamers will love the hardware accelerated EAX 4.0 ADVANCED HD that not only brings games to life, but delivers maximum performance! Musicians will also enjoy true 24-bit recording and low latency ASIO support for the ultimate audio recording platform. Notebook audio just got very, very interesting!
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| Spotlight customer reviews: |
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Not for you if you have Vista OS
Comment: This card is handcuffed by Vista OS. Few of its cool features work with Vista OS. The Creative web site says it's compatible but in the fine print describes the "Vista" known problems. From the Creative web site:
"Drivers updated from the web will comply with UAA standards. However, due to Microsoft's new Windows Vista(tm) architecture, some features may be lost. Please refer to the Web Release Notes (WRN) found with the new driver downloads for details. In addition, the Creative Speaker Settings will not automatically synchronize with Windows Vista(tm) Speaker Settings."
"Known issues(with the Vista download):
Applications from the original Sound Blaster Audigy CD will not work with this download. Users are advised to use Audio Console included in this download to change speaker configurations.
This driver does not support the following:
--Decoding of Dolby® Digital and DTS(tm) signals
--DVD-Audio
--DirectSound®-based EAX games
--Gameports
--6.1 speaker mode.
--SPDIF passthrough is supported on Vista 32-bit only."
"Known Incompatibilities:
There have been reported compatibility problems with PCMCIA Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Notebook and the PCMCIA controllers listed below...
--ENE Tech CB1411
--Ricoh R5C476(II)
--Ricoh R5C475(II)
--TI PCI-1520"
Creative Labs PCMCIA Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Notebook ( 70SB053000012 )
Customer Rating:
Summary: It always worked for me
Comment: I like the simplicity of this card and the great sound it has. I have been told that it does not work in all computers and you would have to test it. In mine it did but in a friend's compaq laptop with very similar carachteristics as mine it did not work. So watch out and make sure you can return it. For the ones that work, you are in for a great experience with many different audio options.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great specs, sounds great but crashes computer when ...
Comment: Would give it a higher rating but crashes the Dell Latitude (Win XP) when you stop the device (as recommended) and remove the card! Bought it to use the laptop for Software Defined Radio, where the higher bandwidth would be very useful and a stereo sound in is required (most laptops have mono-in). If you don't try to stop or remove the card then everything works really well. Quite a bit of the software that comes with is pretty badly implemented - sucks up processor power. Hopefully the crash issue will be fixed.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great for some things, only so-so for others
Comment: The analog output was always a little noisy when my laptop was charging.
Creative also fixes their digital outputs so that they only output at one word length and sample rate, (in the case of this card 24-bit, 96 Khz) and I could never for the life of me get them to sync properly with other digital equipment.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great for musicians who want to record their playing
Comment: I have bought this card for the purpose of recording my guitar into mp3 files. I have gotten way more than I asked for.
My integrated soundcard was awful when it came to recording my gutiar. The microphone volume had to be adjusted perfectly to the sfx my guitar was using through my pedal. The recordings sounded cheap, staticy, poor, and homemade. When it came to recording with accompanying mp3's to accompany my guitar playing, it would be a big mess because the guitar or the mp3 would override one another.
But the Audigy 2 ZS fixed all those problems. The software that comes with it can do an analysis of your playing to determine what the microphone volume shoudl be set at and will adjust so it doesn't distort. It can even automatically play an mp3 once you hit the record button so the accompanying mp3 and instrument are synchronized.Not to mention, the recording interface is extremely simple but yet amazing, and the recording quality is amazing.
Some really cool features about this card is it can change the key of any mp3, but can only go up or down 4 semitones. It sounds amazing to hear a song you've heard forever in the key of E instead of the key of D. Also, it has a playback cleaner that takes the hissing and popping out of any song while its playing. It supports up to 7.1 speakers to create a THX surround sound experience.
There's a whole bunch of bells and whistles, but I think the highlights of this card are the recording and mp3 playback capabilities. I give it a 5.
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