SB Live! Value vs. SB Audigy2+

[Unit-0]

Can anyone fill me in on what's better with the Audigy 2 series over the ancient yet reliable SB Live! series?

I have my SB Live! Value sound card for over 5 years and it's proven to be an excellent product from my perspective. What is there in the new generation of audio cards that can prompt me to replace for a new one?

 

[E4g1e]

Your SB Live! Value was a decent card when it was first introduced. But compared to today's sound cards, it delivers just about the poorest sound quality compared to the others. Its DACs suck; it lacks any support whatsoever for audio higher than 48kHz/16-bit; it resamples everything (even 22.05kHz/8-bit audio) to 48kHz/16-bit using an extremely horrible alogarithm. In other words, the SB Live! Value can potentially make even well-recorded CDs sound like a cheap AM radio.

As for the Audigy2, its gaming support and performance is great. But though the A2's sound quality has improved, it's still mediocre for music compared to most of the non-Creative sound cards at its price point. Even so, you won't notice much if any improvements if you're sticking with your current Creative SBS270 speakers: I've heard the similar but lower-powered and smaller SBS250 speakers before, and they suffer from all of the same sonic flaws that plagued cheap, low-end PC speakers (they pretty much sound like a cheap clock radio with its tinny sound). The SBS270, judging from their power rating and size, should be closer to a decent boombox portable system in terms of sound quality.

 

[ScourggeFX]

I switched from a SB Live Value! to an Audigy 2 ZS, and I can say that the difference is amazing, most notably in music playback and recording (web streams). Games sound better too, and overall sound quality is much cleaner (especially, the low range) compared to the Live Value! Great set of software tools too.