SBLive! 5.1 Platinum review

mailto:michael@hexus.net THE CREATIVE Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Platinum (what a mouthful!) is Creative's current top of the line sound card. Its UK retail price is £152 from the creative European home page. Its main competitor at the moment is the newly released Hercules gaming theatre XP, which is also a 5.1 card.

It is compatible with Windows® 95, 98, NT4.0, 2000 and Millennium Edition General MIDI, MPC-3, Plug and Play, EAX, Microsoft DirectSound, DirectSound3D and derivatives, Dolby Digital.

I'll start with the hardware that this card has to offer, then onto software…so, when I received my lovely creative soundcard through the door back in January this year, just after the 5.1 model had come out, replacing the existing SoundBlaster live cards. It sure felt like a heavy box when I took hold of it from the postie, and I wasn't surprised to find the box, upon opening, crammed with things…so, what do you get out of the box:

Creative Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 sound card
This is the sound card, which operates on a PCI bus. By the looks of it, it's exactly the same card you would get if you got a SBLive! 5.1 package, minus the IR Drive and remote, and some software. Its heart is equipped with the same powerful EMU10K1 processor of the original SoundBlaster Live! Processor, which also has EAX, Creative's home-grown audio enhancement package, which allows for games to add echo effects, or the like, to increase realism. More games are compatible with this, such as valve's half-life, than the rival system A3D, from Aureal. To the rear of the card are outputs for mic, line in, line out, rear out, digital out, and a midi/joystick port. On the cards PCB is a Telephone Answering Device in, MPC-3 Analogue, CD Audio in, Digital CD Audio in and the Audio extension connector for the IR Drive expansion panel.

Creative Live Drive II with IR
The Live Drive II is a expansion panel, which one slots into a spare 5"1/4 slot. Its main feature is to allow connection to your system with a Varity of different I/O connectors. It's also got the infrared sensor, which you point the remote at. It's only available in white, which could be a problem for those of us who have a black system, but it didn't bother me too much. Onboard connectors include PCM S/PDIF In and Out (RCA/Coaxial Jack) Headphone Out (1/4" Stereo Jack with Volume control) Line In (1/4" Stereo Jack, shared with Microphone In) Microphone In (1/4" Jack with Gain control) MIDI In (mini DIN) MIDI Out (mini DIN) Optical S/PDIF In and Out, Stereo Auxiliary In (2 x RCA/Coaxial Jack) and the Infra-Red Receiver.

Creative Remote Control RM900
The remote, one of the additions during the 5.1 upgrade of the SB Plat range, is a handy little thing, which when using the creative mp3 player, allows for remote control of tracks. Also, with the on screen display you can control volume levels and switch EAX on or off, preference pending. Its quite slim line, and has a nice high quality feel to it, as does everything else in the package.

Bits n Bobs
The Box also came with a heft assortment of screws, cables, a high quality base mounted mic, with a sticky to slap it on the side of your screen, two ribbon cables for connecting the live drive to the Sound card (one spare) and its more than long enuff for full towers. Molex connectors come too, along with the midi cables for converting the ps2-sized midi ports to ps1 sized, an optical cable…and the software….well….>

Creative Software
Bundled with my SoundBlaster came a number of titles. Lets start with the drivers, which in this case are the liveware 3. It's a pretty comprehensive set of drivers with a full GUI, and you have access to configure all the features the card has to offer like the EAX mode's, the speaker outputs, be it 5.1, 2 speakers, headphones etc, also, you can turn AC-3 decoding (which is another name for Dolby digital) on and off. Also, you can view the demos that are built in for configuring a digital connection, what EAX does and the like. It's all accessed thru a large taskbar that goes at the top of your screen.

Also included were the media ring software, for online chat, and the creative playcenter two, which is like realjukebox/winamp and pixmaker, which allows you to make 360 degree swivel images.

Also with the package comes a fat whack of games and musical software. Games included in my bundle was world rally two and mdk, (both full versions) but where is really shines is the audio software it gives you. I got Media Talkring, Mixman Studio, Creative Keytar, Creative Rhythmania, Creative WaveStudio, Cubasis VST/Wavelab/ReCycle Lite and Kool Karaoke. Also it has minidisk studio for recording mp3's to your minidisk player via the optical out.

To read the rest of this review, click here. µ