Product Type: Sound Card | Manufacturer: Creative | Price £99.99 inc VAT

Hardware Fusion gets to grips with the new Audigy 2 ZS audio card from Creative, their first 7.1 surround sound card to be released and with THX certification. Surround sound products are big business for companies like Creative, companies are always aspiring to bring the effect of cinema entertainment into the home and with Creative’s entry of their 7.1 surround sound card the reality is becoming even more apparent. With every audio card release that rises above a new format, for example 6.1 to 7.1, comes an easily profitable opportunity in the form of new surround sound speaker systems that are able to support the new format. Creative’s Inspire T7700, TD7700 and S750’s are all products which are instant bread winners as they are marketed so closely to the Audigy 2 ZS sound card. Having said that Creative has been clear to note that their TD7700 and S750 products are able to support both 6.1 and 5.1 sound cards via their CMSS upmix option. However, CMSS upmix does not mean true 7.1 surround sound! The leap from the Audigy 2 to Audigy 2 ZS saw some noticeable but minimal improvements. Creative’s idea to withdraw the Audigy 2 and replace it with the ZS was probably due to the small gap in advancement between the two products.

Features and Specifications

Creative’s Audigy 2 ZS incorporates the addition of two significant new features over the Audigy 2, which are support for 7.1 surround and EAX 4.0. In terms of additional features the Audigy 2 ZS has improved very little. The Audigy 2 ZS is simply a revamp, or tweaked version of the Audigy 2 that adds a certain degree of necessary updates to cope with today’s modern 7.1 speaker systems and lets not forget EAX 4.0, which Creative say is the next revolutionary technology to hit PC gaming.

High Definition Audio Quality for Playback and Recording

• 24-bit Digital-to-Analog conversion during playback with sampling rates of 8, 11.025, 16, 22.05, 24, 32, 44.1, 48 and 96kHz in 7.1 mode and up to 192kHz in stereo mode
  
• 24-bit Analog-to-Digital conversion during recording in 8, 16 or 24-bit at sampling rates of 8, 11.025, 16, 22.05, 24, 32, 44.1, 48 and 96kHz
  
• SPDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) input at up to 24-bit/ 96kHz quality
  
• SPDIF output up to 24-bit at 48 or 96kHz
  
• ASIO drivers for low latency (²2ms) multi-track playback and recording at 16-bit/48kHz*

Advanced Audio and 3D Audio Technology

• Hardware acceleration of EAX® and EAX® ADVANCED HD™ for games
  
• 32-bit Professional Quality Effects Engine with support for real-time digital effects like reverb and chorus across any audio source

• Creative Hardware synthesizer (2x16 Channels) with 64-voice polyphony featuring E-MU®’s patented 8-point interpolation technology for accurate sample reproduction
  
• Creative Software synthesizer - multi timbral wave-table (16 Channels)

• FireWire® (IEEE® 1394) / i-Link® compatible interface with up to 400Mbps transfer rate

• Line level out (Front / Side / Rear / Center / Subwoofer)
  
• Digital Out for 5.1 support (6-channel SPDIF output to Creative digital speakers
  
• Line in
  
• Microphone in
  
• FireWire® (IEEE® 1394)
  
• Telephone Answering Device in
  
• Analog / Digital CD Audio in
  
• 15-pin MIDI / Joystick port extension header
  
• AD_EXT extension header to the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Internal I/O Drive (Upgrade Option)
  
• Internal IEEE® 1394 header to Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Internal I/O Drive (Upgrade Option)