Creative Sound Blaster Live! Player |
Sound card with environmental audio.
|
This sound card from Creative is part of the Sound Blaster Live! family. The package consists of the Sound Blaster Live! card and lots of bundled software. The features offered are the same as in the Sound Blaster Live! Platinum pack, except for the Live! Drive–the front-end console with all those controls. So, if you’re not into music creation or music at the professional level, you can choose the Player instead of the Platinum pack.
The card supports environmental audio with digital surround sound. This is the ability to produce an audio output matching the surroundings, for example in an auditorium, in a cave, etc.
The setup is quite simple and all the connectors and cables are clearly explained in the manual. The package contains a multitude of software like Lava! which creates animations that dance to the beat of music. It also contains speech recognition software like Prody Parrot, and IBM
ViaVoice.
Soft Karaoke software lets you sing along with the music. There’s tons of other software for editing, mixing, and adding effects to music files.
Don’t use the card on anything less than a PII, as it really hogs system resources. Its performance is good, but you need a good speaker system such as the Cambridge SoundWorks Desktop Theatre system to use its full potential. However, such a speaker system would cost a neat bundle.
The Player costs Rs 7,475, which is around Rs 10,000 less than the SB Live! Platinum.
It’s a good buy, and an audio enthusiast should take it for the sheer audio experience. But if you’re interested in creating your own music albums using real instruments, the Platinum version with the Live! drive is a better choice.