Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS 7.1

Is it worth getting Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS 7.1 to compliment my Creative Inspire 7700 7.1 or should I go with Platinum. These ones are around 165$ a.u and the platinum version stands around 330$ a.u. Will it make alot of difference on the speaker set-up.
I have read alot of reviews on these but I only trust you guys on majorgeeks.com

 

My god like noone owns this card

 

They are the same card, the platinum offers the extra pannel, are you actually going to use any of the features of the pannel, if not you are just wasting $$ and get the ZS.

 

Well im still using the onboard crap anyway for time being. I have set up the speakers around the room and it sounds descent but I feel like I need more out of it and the onboard panel just doesn't offer much, and even the mp3 sound cleanse or whatever they call the little program would be nice. I mean waste of money but worth in the long run?

 

What on-board sound are you using? Far as their mp3 player goes, it is ok. The drivers and the card is great, but for MP3 player, use another program, I've tried winamp, itunes, WMP, I've found nero Mix, part of Nero ultra 6 suite gives the best sound quality.

 

Ac97 intergrated onboard sound. It's meant to be 7.1 but infact it it is not. On the subwoofer I have the option of direct(7.1) , 6.1, 5,1. Not quite sure which one but i think I have it on 6.1 with all speakers working. The thing is my bass level is fairly good, treble and adjusting the sound chanells especially for games that support multichanell audio is fairly hard. I have to have it turned up fairly loud to the point where the room is shaking since the walls are sort of wodden so provides a deeper punchier bass. As for mp3's i just use the windows media player 9. The mp3 thing I was refering to is CMSS technology (Creative Multi Sound something rather) basically clears out the noise and makes the song sound alot better. Noq quite sure how it works.

 

The sound cleaning feature only works if you use the creative MP3 player, just about the rest of the features can be used with anything. The card supports rear speaker for MP3 playback, eax 4 which is great for games (EA games does alot with EAX), tons and tons of sound adjustment options, more than enough to optimize quality, you can adjust volme levels relative to front, back, center, sub, so you can actually hear the rear speakers..

 

Ok thanx. I guess that's cleared up then. I should go ahead and purchase the audigy2 zx

 

You can get a good amount of info about the features from
http://www.soundblaster.com/products/Audigy2ZS_platinum_pro/
http://www.soundblaster.com/products/Audigy2ZS_platinum_pro/specs.asp

I had the Nvidia sound storm and upgraded to the AU2ZS a few weeks ago, I love the card, sounds great, no complaints, just make sure get all of the updates after installing the drivers and software.

 

Yes. I'm a drivermaniac
Thanx for the info. I will definitevelly buy it soon.

 

You could always get an Audigy 1 and driver it up as an Audigy 2, works for me

 

Hehe nasty Good idea actually but my mind is made up already

 

Forcing the audigy 1 to "function" as an Audigy 2 is like buying a honda and putting an Acura sticker on it, plus the Audigy 2 zs is only $86.99 including fed-ex at zipzoomfly.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=290223

 

Forcing anything to function 'above spec' at minimal, (if possible, zero), cost is shirley one of the essences of geek, n'est ce pas?

Just sayin'