Breathe some Live! into your media (Creative Sound Blaster Live! 5.1)

Name: maphack

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Product:	Creative Sound Blaster Live! 5.1
Date:	25/04/04 (282 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Value for money, easy to install, great sound quality

Disadvantages: No extra software, but you wouldn't expect that from a value card

I bought this sound card because I needed great sound quality and EAX High Definition Sound (for gaming), but what made my buy it was the price. Looking around at EAX sound cards they were all a lot more than I could afford at the time and this came in at around £25, and for this price you get 5.1 surround sound which makes DVD's and music sound so much clearer and fuller.

Set up:

As with most new components these days it comes with a "Quick Start" guide which is illustrated with somewhat clear diagrams, although it would save you some head scratching if you aren't a computer hardware whizz, to get someone who knows there way around the inside of a computer to install it for you. It also comes with the standard a cable to connect the sound card to your CD-ROM drive to play those CD's ever so sweetly. Installing the software is just a case of popping in a CD and following the on-screen instrcutions, simple!

The extra mile:

This card comes bundled with some Creative software goodies such as AudioHQ where you can change anything you would ever want to change about your sound set up, like speaker arrangement, bass/treble and so on. If you are having any problems there is also a Creative Diagnostics which is designed to diagnose and fix any hardware or software problems it detects. And if you have a microphone there is a socket at the back which will fit this, and a sound recording program where you can sing about how great your new sound card is and play it back or save it and burn it and send it to a record label....anyway back to the review..!

Surround me with sound:

The card offers support for between 2 to 6 speakers for that 3D sound which can really take you to the cinema in your own home. I am using just 2 speakers at the moment, but I'm thinking about upgrading to a surround sound evironment with 6 speakers or so, a friend has that set-up and it sounds really nice. I'll let you kn
ow how it works out with the card when I get my speakers.

Conclusion:

This is an excellent value card with new digital technologies, I would recommend this to anyone who is stuck with a boring onboard sound card, or an old card, wanting to feel crystal clear digital sound for a low price.

Summary: