audigy 2zs for notebook

chaikovski2002

chaikovski2002

2[H]4U
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Nov 19, 2003
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anyone have one? is it worth it? i just wanna get better sound quality thru regular laptop speakers, i need a confirmation on this, can it replace stock audio, and be used with stock speakers? or is it only with headphones, since im not gonna carry 5.1 to lan parties.
 
I doubt that the audio can be routed through the speakers mounted in your laptop. The Audigy 2 ZS Notebook is mostly for gamers and for movie watching at home.
 
im with xonik, i highly doubt the audigy will play through the integrated speakers, i have no idea how they would even accomplish that
 
CardBus > PCI bus > Onboard audio codec > Amplifier stage ?

Would require some tricky coordination with the onboard codec.
 
yeah, but i highly doubt that creative would be able to work with every onboard sound provider in notebooks to get it to rebuffer sound to the onboard speakers.. not only that, but the onboard codec would lower the quality of the sound... which goes against the entire point of getting the ZS, no?
 
Right, I was just running the scenario to show what it would take to accomplish that.
 
I personally have one, and although it does make the audio a tad bit better, it runs very hot and cost a pretty penny.

It will connect to any 1/8" devices which means headphones, or a speaker provided the speakers have an external power source.

With it you get all the basic Creative software, incase that tickles your fancy.

The audio can be quite staticy if you even slightly move the cable (example: Twist it while its in the card).

It also adds things like bass/treble controls, etc.

I have not done any benchmarks on whether or not it increases performance in games vs the onboard, but I would "assume" it should while at the same time adding some EAX features.
I have also not done any power comparisons (electricity).

No, I do not know of a way to get the audio to be routed to the laptop speakers. Infact, it mutes the speakers when the card is in the cardbus slot.

Sadly, looking back at it, I would not have purchased it because I don't use my laptop very often for music, and the onboard works good enough especially when using cheap Sennheiser HD497 headphones.

~Hope this helps
 
I picked up the sound blaster card and the Altec Lansing XT1 USB speakers for my Thinkpad - the speakers are very compact and require no external power supply. Great combo and sounds terrific but if you don't use the laptop for DVDs or music much, it's probably not worth the cost. If you do, I highly recommend them.
 
I use it with my Dell XPS Gen 2 it CAN work with your internal speakers with just a driver update off the creative website. The disc drivers will not allow it but just grab the latest off creative.com web site.

There is an issue with EAX in games where you will get 1 second sound lag. The dirty fix for this at this time is to disable EAX in the game.

Also tha fact that soundbasters process their own sound and not the CPU this save CPU cycles and can be ncie for gamers.

I personally love it and as long as you dont mind disabling EAX and updatign the driver I do suggest it.
 
Jovian said:
I use it with my Dell XPS Gen 2 it CAN work with your internal speakers with just a driver update off the creative website. The disc drivers will not allow it but just grab the latest off creative.com web site.

There is an issue with EAX in games where you will get 1 second sound lag. The dirty fix for this at this time is to disable EAX in the game.

Also tha fact that soundbasters process their own sound and not the CPU this save CPU cycles and can be ncie for gamers.

I personally love it and as long as you dont mind disabling EAX and updatign the driver I do suggest it.
Click to expand...
I didn't know about that sound lag issue. IMO, as an outside observer, disabling EAX takes away one of the Audigy's main selling points vs integrated. I would do more research if I were looking to buy one.
 
Yeah it is a huge downside though what onboard soundcards handle EAX?

I am hoping they release a driver update to resolve this.
 
The onboard sound is the Realtek AC'97, which sounds like a walkie talkie when playing battlefield 2, there was also some static and such. I replaced it with this PCMCIA sound card and have been very happy with the decision. The sound compared to stock is exceptional and I have not had the "Heat" issue that was mentioned above, just nice sound. I really do like the fact that I have optical in and out with this card as well. I plug it up to my stereo systems optical in and jam away using my MP3 library.

Very cool upgrade and for me, it does the job. I don't run windows with any sound enabled and if I want to listen to anything, I use head phones. Hell, I don't even have speakers on my desktop rig! :eek:
 
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