"Why buy one when you can buy two for double the price." Don't give the RTX 30 Series buyers any ideas Phil.

@philscomputerlab

3 жыл бұрын

LOL

Support from Windows 95 to Windows 10, that's damn impressive

@ZeroHourProductions407

3 жыл бұрын

Creative itself might have stopped before then, but the daniel K drivers pick up the slack, seeing as the drivers for the Audigy Rx has inf data for everything before it, making it real easy to support the rest.

@Felix-ve9hs

3 жыл бұрын

@J Fz I have an ASUS Pro B460M-C/CSM with a PCI Slot (4th Slot) (PCIe 16x - PCIe 1x - PCIe 1x - PCI) I use this Mainboard with an i3-10100 and 32GB DDR4 as a Proxmox Server. New Intel and AMD Boards with PCI will still come out for a while, but they won't have RGB since these are for "Business" PCs

@jcfb1470

3 жыл бұрын

@J Fz There are some pci-e > pci bridges. It may not be practical but it should work, specially if you use a micro-atx motherboard on an ATX case.

@batteryman2852

3 жыл бұрын

@J Fz I'v seen LGR using a industrial motherboard for legacy support , like his Triangle case build, and images has also shown boards with ISA and PCI-e . But i guess your seen it, or maybe not. I was quite impressed at least :-) G41 775 Industrial Motherboard with 2*DDR3 4*PCI 3*ISA

@batteryman2852

3 жыл бұрын

@J Fz Yes, if you want to use something else, an Audigy Rx would be a better option. But then again, you wouldn't run Windows 98 se on your main rig, thats way those industrial motherboard would be nice for a hybrid retro build.

This may be my favorite piece of computer hardware EVER. I've had dreams about it even. Saving up $30 a week to buy an Audigy and later a 9700 AIW card made me feel so spoiled as a high schooler. The Audigy 'gamer edition' even came with Deus Ex GOTY and Giants Citizen Kabuto.

@philscomputerlab

3 жыл бұрын

Giants Citizen Kabuto is such a cool looking game :)

@DyceFreak

3 жыл бұрын

@@philscomputerlab It's a fantastic cult classic. I wouldn't have really known about it without the Audigy.

@supabass4003

3 жыл бұрын

I got an AIW 9700Pro, used to play Xbox Live on my Athlon XP 2500+!

@plumage_again

2 жыл бұрын

It certainly was a must for EAX games! :)

Your driver bundles are a wonderful tool! i've installed both SB Live & Audigy with your driver packs, as well as your MSDOS configuration, on my 90s computers - no problems whatsoever. Thanks very much.

Phil is using Government logic, why buy 1 when you can buy 2 at double the price...

@RedLine_Renesis

3 жыл бұрын

Black Friday is rather similar in concept. Buy anything for half of the double.

@tenminutetokyo2643

3 жыл бұрын

Except he doesn’t cash in on the contractor/lobbying kickbacks like pols do.

I am still using the exact same SB Audigy in my (more or less) modern day rig. The hard part was finding an adequate Socket 1151 motherboard with a PCI slot. lol This is the longest I ever stuck to a computer part. Still works beautifully without a glitch and I always liked the sound. I even sold an external sound card I once bought after a month of using it, because it didn't quite give me that dynamics and punch on the bass that Audigy does so well.

@alaricjeard269

3 жыл бұрын

Feel exactly the same about my 2ZS i bought back in 2005. I've never find anything near it!

@philscomputerlab

3 жыл бұрын

Just the number of ports outdoes most modern sound cards. Some of the latest Creative cards don't have optical inputs anymore, things like that...

@xan1242

3 жыл бұрын

You should still be able to get away with a PCI to PCIe bridge even under DOS, but that will kinda break the case compatibility (unless you run a PCIe ribbon cable)

@kosmosyche

3 жыл бұрын

@@xan1242 Thanks, I'll keep this in mind for my next rig.

The gold mine experience? Wow, I haven't seen that in a while, that brings back some memories. Brilliant video as per usual Phil

This Sound Cards series was AMAZING! Thank you Phil!!!!!!!

I had a plan to record every 1990's k pops caset tape I own by using "record what you hear" option through AUX line to microphone.

I had one of these with the front live drive a long time ago! I remember routinely recording sound from an electric guitar just playing around and also recording live concerts that played live on TV with this setup

@necrodh

Жыл бұрын

I record wav files from the soundblaster to my minidisc player, and the sound its so vivid, i have spent too much money on modern dacs, op amps, and "hi res" gear, but no one can match the old soundblaster quality

I'm glad I still have mine around. One of my most favorite cards around~

Brilliant Phil. I have just managed to get hold of this very card. It appears to offer everything I’m looking for. Thanks for the recommendation and access to the drivers on your website 👍🏻

Followed your instructions and it works perfectly in DOS. Thanks

Soundblaster + MIDI Whole days sequencing music in the 90’s

I have good memories with this card, i still have a Audigy laying around somewhere. Back in the day it was really a step up from the live! cards. The favorite sound card i used.

Always a good day when Phil uploads a retro part

I had the Audigy 2 and was amazed by the sound quality.

12:20 Nice. Quake 3 Arena. I still play that from time to time on Steam. Q3A capture the flag used to be my favorite game for over 3 years long. Until Mafia: The city of lost heaven was released.

Phil, your channel is best on youtube in retro pc theme. Every your video is always pleasure for me. Soulful and qualitatively :)

Always love your videos thanks for doing such. Wonderful job.

Cool, I had one of these many moons ago. Awesome sound card.

I Have one on ordered for my windows xp computer! Excited to experience that 3D SOUND.

That brings back memories! I also had the sound card back then. Soundblaster Audigy SB0090, Athlon XP 1800 +, MSI K 7 Turbo mainboard, Geforce 4 TI and a CHIEFTEC DRAGON PC case in beige. I even modified the side part with a window-kit (with Nuclear Power sticker (ha) ) and a green cold cathode light. That was popular back then. This was my first self-assembled PC. Those were good times!

Just got my uncle's old PC and it has a A64 3000+ too (Newcastle) which runs pretty hot on idle, on a MSI K8NM-FISR and a little Radeon 9600 Pro. Pretty decent retro PC, was looking for a suitable sound card and this Audigy seems to be a nice fit. Thanks for the video Phil !

Thanks Phil. These are great cards for sure.

Thank you for providing the Live! drivers. Sound works great in Win98SE and DOS with SB16 emulation.

Great topic for a video! I remember using this card (along with a couple of SB Live!) with a third party driver that made them a real workhorse for music production on a slow system. The configuration interface allowed you to connect inputs and outputs through DSP effects, mixers, and even using DSP synthesizers that ran independently of the CPU. I think the driver was called "kX driver". Left me feeling like these cards were kind of neutered by their official drivers, but in hindsight they'd be great options even today for consumer audio.

Nice video. I still own an Audigy Platinum Ex, that one with an external rack. It was really something a long while ago. Thanks for sharing.

Good memories! My dad had one of those back in the day. That startup jingle is burned in my head. Never got dos sound to work as a kid, but that was on an nvidia chipset with me having no dos driver experience back then.

Saw many of them back in the day. The black pcb and the gold connectors made them look impressive.

Have this exact card in my retro Tualatin build, together with an AWE64 Gold. Good stuff!

Ahh, awesome. I have a Platinum CIB, with the audigy drive and remote. Now I have to give it a try.

Good video, thanks Phil!

Excellent video, thanks! All other reviewers for this card just mention specs and connection ports but never actually show the card in action. I was especially interested in that sound font thing, especially for retro gaming, now I know which sound font to get for Doom!!! Thnx again 🖖🏻

@philscomputerlab

4 ай бұрын

Glad you liked it!

Speaking of Doom, I was replaying the recent update and for the first time I fall in love with the music 'I sawed the demons'. The 2nd episode, 1st level.

I had various Live series, then Audigy as well... few in that series back in the day. Good card.

I just bough one of these for a old HP that was in storage since 1999 in Detroit and it was sealed in the original box! I might have to make a video on it...

I only ever used the Daniel_k driver pack for my Audigy and Audigy 2 ZS cards. They add a couple bugfixes and pretty seamless support under win7 and win10 x64.

@philscomputerlab

3 жыл бұрын

Yes these drivers are gold for XP and later :)

@MasterControl90original

3 жыл бұрын

I used them for my live 5.1 but I had to switch over the integrated sound card because the live caused issues playing source games for whatever reason

I still have this card in my collection as well as my Sound Blaster Live! Platinum, Audigy 2, X-Fi XtremeMusic and current Audigy RX. Great cards that did well in their respective periods but the software/ drivers were always a bit subpar. I wish Creative would bundle free games with the new cards like they did in the past.

Still got one of these floating around in my spare parts. My son was using it (digital out using mini-8 to coax on a Yamaha TSS-15 amp) until we retired his X58 board a couple of years ago.

Great card. Have one running on my WInXP socket 478 build.

Perfect, will be grabbing one of these for sure and will use until I get lucky with an a3d card (prices on those on ebay are pretty high right now)

Very nostalgic. Yes really is.

Opened video at 486 views :)

Your last three videos is just the right content of your channel, quality retro gear! I prefer watching videos like this instead of new low end pc china parts. Watching you over the years I realize that you favourize more sound than graphics judging by quantity of videos uploaded for those two. We all know SoundBlaster created a audio standard and produced many great sound cards, but if you could in-depth have a look at Aureal Vortex 2 or Gravis Ultrasound please. In my humble opinion they are superior to Creative's counterparts. Best regards and thank you for great upload

I am litterally about to install one of these into my win98 retrobuild, and downloaded the cds from your site 3 days ago! Its like you knew

@philscomputerlab

3 жыл бұрын

Let us know how you go :)

I have also worked at a mod/update of the kx audio driver for macOS, and so now i got this audigy card (and many other cards from the audigy series) running on macOS catalina and even macOS big sur, so it's a very versatile sound card

@xan1242

3 жыл бұрын

Sadly kX only ever implemented the audio codec in macOS / OSX, nothing more. The rest of the sound card goes pretty much unused.

@ITzTravelInTime

3 жыл бұрын

@@xan1242 it implements more than that, but that it’s mostly left into the windows-only code of the driver, things like midi would almost require a second driver to be written to be able to port the windows code

@xan1242

3 жыл бұрын

@@ITzTravelInTime That's why I said specifically macOS / OSX. Also it would be really nice if someone worked around the 31 bit DMA problem of the 10k1 because I'd like to be able to run my Live on my main PC someday...

Thanks Phil

This man does gods work keeping old drivers available thank u from every retro man woman and child

AWESOME , as always an awesome video - awesome detailed information which I add to my knowledge and retro building.. say it would be cool if you could talk a bit about the CD music audio quality output on / listening - tweaking SB audio cards settings .. with Audigy / Audigy 2 / SB Live / SB Live 5.1 .. A LOT of the audiophiles would appreciate it .. ( best sound settings via SB software hubs for best quality output ) Don't know if that would interest others , but sure would for me ..

Very nice video, I was sleepy in work an now I'm not :3 tech just brings me to life

@philscomputerlab

3 жыл бұрын

Glad to hear it!

Last year I got mine bundled with a FX5200 for 10 USD and it was one of the best deals I've made. For nostalgia's sake I'm considering an Audigy Rx for my current daily driver.

Wow! Another Friday vid

Nice video! Have a 15 year old Audigy 2ZS thats still going strong in an old Dell w/ Linux Mint :0) Unfortunately my new Windows 10 build doesn't have a PCI slot, but debating getting a PCIe adapter to run it maybe with the KX drivers i used to use.... I miss it! Cheers!

I had one of these, back in the Jurassic age...then on board sound got to the point where I didn't need them, then when I did need them again (music production with live WAV recording) there were better products (Line 6 HX, FocusRite etc.) I understand that they still make these things...which really blows my mind.

that was my first sound card, pretty nice with a 5.1 altec lansing. the only other car i ever bough is the maudio 2496 (best suported card ever).

Great! I have audigy 2 zs in Windows 10 64 bits. Great cable on ebay thank you...

I just bought the Audigy and the Live 5.1 for a Windows XP machine. US$ 6 each from a local store. They were recognized by windows but we didnt have the drivers at hand. Whish me luck 😂😂

Wow! DOS compatibility with PCI audio card. I thought this only worked with an ESS audio card. Now I just might be installing Tomb Raider 1 Gold for DOS after first buying this card Phil.

Excelent video, unos dias atras compre una Audigy 2 ZS.

This is the card in my 2002 gateway xp computer. Midi sounds great for the older games.

I bought a couple of these for $2 when Goodwill Computer Works was clearancing them a few years ago. I guess I should've bought the lot of them! :D

I had this card with the break out box. yeah that was cool.

All these years and I never knew that TAD stood for Telephone Answering Device. I suppose I could have Googled it, but... :-)

@philscomputerlab

3 жыл бұрын

LOL

@jonchapman6821

3 жыл бұрын

I was thinking the same thing 😆

@philscomputerlab

3 жыл бұрын

I like studying the user manual when doing a review, I usually find something interesting. Back in those days, the user manual actually taught you something and had good information, not like now. I recently looked into a TCL TV and the manual doesn't even show the menu options...

@lanceashlock9727

3 жыл бұрын

@@philscomputerlab Here in the US TCL is selling a DTV model with nonworking legacy A/V inputs (looking at you Walmart). A total waste of $$$.

@philscomputerlab

3 жыл бұрын

@@lanceashlock9727 And let me guess, no review looked at this? I tell you what, TV reviews are the worst! Totally subjective and nobody checks the specifications, like basics, what panel? VA or IPS? And show us the menu options...

I paid 200 bucks for one of these when it first came out. I used most of the features on it though so it was worth it ...and the like 105dB signal to noise ratio was crazy good! The worst thing about it tho was all of the audio jacks were super close together so hooking up multi channel direct sound and a microphone was a nightmare and strained the jacks and cords. Lol

I would have thought any decent SATA HDD from the past few years would be capable of double the output a ATA133 port would allow. Fun setup though, always a joy to watch all this! On a side note SSHDs really shine in TV PVR boxes. Basically a few reboots and the OS/system software gets pushed to the flash and you do get a much smoother PVR!

@philscomputerlab

3 жыл бұрын

In this case it's the SATA to IDE convertor chip chip that is the bottleneck.

@jabezhane

3 жыл бұрын

@@philscomputerlab Yes indeed. Did you ever get any of those IDE flash modules you could buy years ago? They just plugged into the IDE port with 16 or 32GB of flash. I never got round to trying them.

A very big advantage of the Audigy / Audigy 2 / Audigy 2 ZS cards in MS DOS is the fact that, through some weird magic (probably due to the way their emulation works), many speed sensitive games (especially those with the Turbo Pascal "200 divide by 0" error, or those with sound related speed issues) just work even on a Core 2 Duo PC without any type of throttling (Monkey Island, Jazz Jackrabbit, Lemmings, Titus the Fox are just a few examples). So these cards are pure gold for overkill Win98/WinXP builds with good DOS compatibility (too bad they don't have a real OPL3 :-) )

Nice vid as always. Wait till next near-lock down, here in the Netherlands every time a lock down is in place people become insecure and stop buying stuff, specially on the 2nd hand market. With low amounts of buyers prices drop like crazy... its great.

@jonchapman6821

3 жыл бұрын

It was the opposite in the UK, prices of pretty much everything spiked. I didn’t notice much of a change in CPU prices though 🤔

@mealot7613

3 жыл бұрын

@@jonchapman6821 Thats weird, got a fx 5950 ultra for like 80 dollars, audigy 2 zs for 15 and 2 live cards none oem for less then 15 each. Also asus striker 2 extreme new in box for 55 dollar, a asus p6t ws pro, with x5650, noctua d14 and 6 sticks of corsair dominator ram for 120 dollar, antec 550w for 25 dollar and so on... these prices are forcing a buying frenzy on my side lol

I rather enjoyed this video. Brings back a lot of memories. Hey Phil, could you do a video on the comparisons between the Live!, Audigy, Audigy2/ZS, and the X-Fi cards?

@philscomputerlab

3 жыл бұрын

I like that idea :)

i've had an audigy platinum ex for a while and could never get it working. doesn't install properly with any driver cd - might just be broken. so i bought one of these too. thanks for the driver cd!

Kids today.... don't know the struggle.... the pain....

@GiSWiG

3 жыл бұрын

But back then, I don't remember video cards going over $1000. ~$500 was the average enthusiast cards. Darn NVIDIA!

@Zellonous

3 жыл бұрын

now the struggle and pain is worse now in my opinion. back in the day you could get a pc to work correctly. now with software the way it is you can get it working halfass and call it a day

@itnaklipse1669

3 жыл бұрын

Kids today may not need to struggle, but their computers are not in their own control, either. And problems are worse.

The Audigy line has some fantastic features - I've always loved them clear through to the X-Fi line. I think the DAC in these is still fantastic today with excellent sampling rates/SNR plus tons of features to play with to boot.

@necrodh

Жыл бұрын

Im going crazy because no modern (AKK, Cirrus Logic Burr Brown etc) DACs sound like Philips DACs

@trevorshubin

Жыл бұрын

@@necrodh They absolutely have a special sound!

Two P.C.L episodes in a week!. Very versatile sound card. I guess the "Live!" has been dethroned then.

Great Sound Card

I still use my Audigy SE, I bought a motherboard for my modern machine with standard PCI specifically to use it

@Argoon1981

3 жыл бұрын

I did the same. :)

This was THE card to get if you wanted serious sound in your Windows 9x powered Pentium 2 or 3!

i had audigy in pc from 2002, it was awesome card :D

I just love these cards. I always buy one when i find them below 10€. I have one in each retro PC i made and a few in storage. Both my audigy 2 cards needed the capacitor fix/upgrade to stop hissing and popping. The audigy just works better, cleaner and faster than the LIVE!, and i used my live 5.1 digital from 1999 to the late 2000's, after the LIVE i went with an Xfi. As for the audigy 2 i never could quite tell the difference between them. I had no experience whatsoever with the audigy series. When i got at building retro PC's i went with the card i knew, that was the live. And i was happy. Then i got a bundle of hardware and an audigy was in it. I tried it and instantly i was blown away! I can't have enough of them since then! There is also a 8mb waveset for MSdos called eapci8m.ecw

I have one of these cards laying around. The last build I did, it was a choice between this or the sound blaster ae5 and I chose the ae5.

Thanks Phil, I had been looking forward to this one. Just a couple questions though, you didn't (much) touch upon the FM sound quality, how would you rank it? Also, regarding DOS compatibility, although obviously below the YMF and Solo1 cards, would you consider it on the same level as the SB Live you reviewed a while ago? I hope someday you might be able to shed some light on the Audigy 2 (ZS) potential under DOS with Audigy 1 drivers, I heard so much conflicting reports on this... Thanks again, I hope you are doing well.

Socket 754 systems are great, I've done a couple multi boot systems with them. Matched with a 6 series GeForce and an Audigy you you get official driver support from DOS/Win9x all the way to Windows 7. A program called EasyBCD will allow DOS and Win9x to be added to the windows 7 boot menu. Even 32-bit version of Windows 10 can be installed, though some of the drivers wont work.

8:10 Got me thinking - Master... Master!.. Master of puppets is pullin your striiiings... Master... Master!

Loved my Audigy, ran it for many years but was left behind when I built my First Hackintosh in 2009

I used to use this card with Windows XP with my DVD drive plugged into the digital connector. I had a speaker set that had coaxial digital plug and I would watch dvd's with 5.1 sound that way, it was pretty awesome. Years later I played with this card in win7 and above, but it falls apart software wise past windows XP, even though it's compatible there's no real use case outside of dos/win98/winxp

Great video. Attention to detail as always! Dieing for some silky smooth merch. When you gonna bring it? Thinking of triple boot 98 (Dos support), XP, and Vista/7 system with (The late and great) "R. Loew" Drivers for 4GB ram support. What sound card would you recommend? Audigy, Audigy 2, 2ZS, or Xfi Pro PCI?

I love sound cards.... x3 edit: thanks for uploading the SB0770 alienware drivers to your website. it plays great in my girlfriend's rig... well sometimes. Windows Media Feature pack keeps breaking it.

@ricardobarros1090

3 жыл бұрын

I have too sb0770 and Phil save me with drivers and cd

I have 4 complete in box Audigy 2s but no Audigy. I should fix that.

@over2seeyer

3 жыл бұрын

Make sure to buy two for double the price

This a really nice soundcard. Under Windows 9x it's just equivalent to a sound blaster live.

@philscomputerlab

3 жыл бұрын

It has batter analogue output quality compared to Live!

Creative also offered standalone SPDIF dongles (CT4800/4801, I think) for the Digital Out jack. I use them to record stuff onto MiniDisc.

Got 1 of these back in 2006, though mine was a different model. Mine has the front panel that fits in a drive slot n has a number if inputs / outputs. Still use it for transferring old recordings to cd or mp3.

Hey Phil, thanks for another great vid!! Just wondering if you would consider doing a pure dos setup and test comparing SB16 emulation to the AWE64/32/16? For the games it does support (like Jazz JR, Epic Pin, Tyrian etc) the sound is excellent. Also testing the midi input feature with the flacosoft software. This is a cheap way of getting all that Midi goodness from ISA soundcards without the need for a $60us roldand usb. Cheers.

@philscomputerlab

3 жыл бұрын

I would not use PCI Creative cards for pure DOS build. ISA is the way, no ifs and buts. If it must be PC, then a Yamaha YMF or ESS Solo-1.

Im still using mine from early 2000s the sound is amazing better than modern so called "Hi Res DACs"

I was running an Audigy SE up to 2015 lol

12:10 Nvidias SoundStorm! I played around with it a bit and found it to be quite a good performer. Would be cool to compare to other sound sollutions on different OS's.

Such great games they were ...

Nice video, please more agp grpahic cards in test..

Great video Phil! One question: at 9:02 you mention that the Audigy uses the default 4 MB soundfont in MS-DOS mode. I thought that was not possible without Windows and the card would use ECW files under pure DOS.

@philscomputerlab

3 жыл бұрын

Ah yes, I think you're right! It cannot load SF2 files in MS-DOS mode.

Eax rocks 😎

Id love a video that goes over your recommendation for the best card per Windows operating system. What do you think was the best and why for 95, 98, Me, 2000, xp, 7, 8, 10 early and 10 now.

I have this and all of the original sample disks