Board Design

The card Itself

If you look at the Audigy, you'll notice that it looks like a regular sound card, almost like the Live! Of course, some components have changed -- for one, the Audigy DSP is one of the largest ICs ever implemented onto a sound card. Because of this trend, we believe it won't be long before Creative changes the chip packaging from EPA (edge pin array) to BGA (ball grid array). BGA enables larger chips that utilize the room they are situated on more efficiently. They are also less susceptible to damage and dust because the connection interface lies beneath the chip.

Profile view

As big as a northbridge

The Audigy includes all the necessary internal connections for your drives. Included are ports for: CD_IN, TAD, Aux, CD S/PDIF and an internal SB-1394 connector for those who will be using the Internal AudigyDrive or front chassis FireWire.

It's worth noting that the internal and external AudigyDrives are nearly identical in function, with the only exception being automatic microphone-type detection on the external drive. All speaker connections are on the back of the sound card where they should be, and the rest of the connectors like SB1394, IR port, MIDI DIN connectors, digital optical connectors, and headphone and microphone jacks reside on the AudigyDrive for easy access.

A fully-functional remote is also packaged with the two Platinum editions of the Audigy. With the remote, you can control all your audio and video functions while sitting back in your seat. We can't find a tangible use for the Creative remote since most of the time, you'll be already at your computer using your mouse, which is substantially faster when you're working. If your computer is primarily an entertainment center that's placed near your home theater setup, the remote definitely comes in handy when you're laid back on the couch flipping through tunes or channels. Other than this particular situation, there's no real use for the remote if you're always at your desk.

It's still a 16-bit sound card

Creative Labs is boasting that its Audigy is a true 24-bit/96kHz sound card, but what it didn't say is that internally, the Audigy still processes all of its audio functions at 16-bit/48kHz. How will this matter? The DACs and ADCs (digital/analog converter) in the Audigy are 24bit to give the Audigy processing headroom when it performs operations on multiple 16-bit streams; on a regular sound card, multiple operating streams will saturate the sound card. Also, when the DACs are handling many 16-bit streams, the resulting stream will have a lower quality output than the original streams. Creative has also developed improved algorithms to process all the digital and analog streams going in and out of the Audigy, claiming higher quality.

We anticipate people will have a good number of questions regarding Audigy's true capabilities. What good is 24-bit/96kHz output if all processed audio is downsampled to 16-bit/48kHz first? We suspect that the fatter DAC/ADCs will yield most of their benefit due to higher build quality. Theoretically a 24/96 DAC will process 16/48 signals better than a 16/48 DAC. But in the end, it looks the high-end output will simply be an upsampled 16/48 signal.

SB1394 (FireWire)

One of the value added features that comes with every Audigy is FireWire connectivity. Even though it's dubbed SB1394, it's still fully compliant with IEEE-1394 specifications and supports all FireWire devices. While you can freely connect FireWire devices like DV cameras, hard drives and CD writers to the Audigy, note that it only supports passive devices on its own. The Audigy doesn't have enough power to support a hard drive or CD writer without an external power source. Internally, the SB1394 connectors only feed 2 watts of power and therefore you must make sure that any devices connected to the Audigy do not draw too much power, else you risk burning out the headers or damaging the Audigy itself! To prevent stress, look for peripherals touting "SB-1394 compliance."

One of the features we really like is the Audigy's ability to act as an ad hoc Ethernet card. With the included FireNet utility, the SB1394 port can be used with another FireWire connected system to perform networking functions. The best thing about using FireWire for networking is its blazing 400Mbit/sec transfer rate. This is theoretically four times faster than regular 100Mbit fast Ethernet and the bonus is the Audigy supports this right out of the box. We love this!