Smoking Hot! Creative Audigy 2 Platinum $129.99 at Best Buy

[DestruyaUR]

Originally posted by: leonc
Picture link for the ZS models is now dead (they have moved on to new topics).
Real dilemma here. If I am going to buy a high end audio
card, it would seem to make sense to wait and spend the extra
money to get 7.1 and the other new features they are adding.
I'm not planning to upgrade audio every few years. What do
others think? Will it be worth double the price for the new features?
Don't see much/any 7.1 format product now, but since my receiver
can handle it and I have the 7.1 speaker setup now anyway, it
would be a shame to limit the HTPC output, right?

I found pictures on an Akiba site:

Base Model Box Art

Base Card - Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum

Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro (AKA "EX")

In terms of sheer CHANGES, the base card's biggest thing of note is the inclusion of an optical in/out daughterboard - this will be HUGE for some people. With the Platinum models, the only noticable thing over the existing ones is the new remote. The breakout box doesn't seem to have been changed, so previous Audigy 2 Platinum users MAY (emphasis on "may," since they deliberately changed the pins from the Audigy to Audigy 2 to screw people out of doing this) be able to buy the base card and still utilize their existing breakout box (note that this WON'T work for EX users). With the external model, the only difference I can see is the WELCOME addition of an on-card CD-IN and Digital-IN plug - they were omitted on the Audigy 2 Platinum EX. Ideally, an AUX-IN would have been nice, but beggars can't be choosers. With the A2Plat EX, the much vaunted DVD-Audio capability would have been a MASSIVE system hog since without those internal connectors, all sound data would have had to have been carried over the length of the data stream instead of directly through a simple audio wire.

My take on the "ZS" line (at least initially) is that Creative is pulling another "Live! 5.1" scam. Remember that? Where the only difference between a Live! and Live! 5.1 was a SINGLE register in the core logic of the chip which was easily hackable? Creative themselves obviously had a marketing meeting sometime to discuss whether to call this the "Audigy 3" or not, and probably decided it wasn't different enough from the Audigy 2 to warrant it, and knew some reviewers would find that out and pan the product as a rerelease and not an evolutionary upgrade. Maybe the best thing we could hope get out of this would be to get a newer driver release which MAYBE might be decent.

7.1 makes NO sense for a desktop PC (unless you're running an HTPC), IMO - same with 6.1. Even 5.1 is pushing it. Where in God's name are you going to start putting the speakers? The DTS-ES decoding ability is a nice touch, though, for those with 6.1 systems.