Creative SOUNDBLASTER EXTIGY SB0130EX USB 24BIT 5.1 CHANNEL EAX (Creative Labs-70SB013000000)

• Reviewed by: Saudi_Gamer

  Strengths: crisp 5.1 sound from a laptop .. who would have thought that was possible ? Great remote function, makes the laptop the Ideal Music Box in the hous from a far

  Weaknesses: too vragile, the remote center can be much better, should offer infrared port,

  Overall: This is the best 5.1 sound card anyone can buy at this price , the ideal option for a laptop, I connected it to the MegaWorks 5.1 THX 550 , it gave me the sounds that I needed to hear !, if you have a laptop .. this is the way to go !

• Reviewed by: dwhs

  Strengths: Looks nice

  Weaknesses: Shady company and under developed product.

  Overall: It's unfortunate that some companies feel it's o.k. to lie about the product they offer. This product has such poor sound quality you hard to even use. The fact that the makers boast about it's great performance makes me assume the company is nothing more then crooks. I also believe that they have posted here about their product which I think is a shady thing to do. I think they need to go back to the drawing board and take their product a little more seriously. The worst part is there is no alternative. Can't someone make a better product for laptops to handle high quality audio?

• Reviewed by: mpalczew

  Strengths: clean

  Weaknesses: not 24 bit as marketing claims. Creative is a very shady company for marketing this as such.

  Overall: For the guy who said to not worry about 24 bit sound. Just because 24 bit sound doesn't matter to you doesn't mean others will be happy with 16bits. 24bit sound is needed for recording, plain and simple. If you record in 16 bits and then adjust your instruments for volume you will loose even more bits. Not only does 24 bit sound give you wiggle room but it sounds much better. There is no way to work around the shortcommings of this card. The shortcommings are in the hardware. If you want a good sound card get an internal terratec.

• Reviewed by: jday17

  Strengths: it does what it claims has decent quality light weight

  Weaknesses: Cmss doesn't work right cmss even makes klipsch speakers sound bad pops and clicks in certain games

  Overall: I bought the extigy to get 5 channel support and dolby digital for my laptop. Then I decided to buy a 4.1 system instead of a 5.1. The extigy has decent sound quality but on processor intensive programs. Even on a PIV system with 512 ram it pops and clicks. I guess this must be a draw back of using usb 1.1. Also the cmss is horrible at reproducing sound. It spreads the signal to four speakers but at a great loss of both quality and power. Didn't think it was possible to make klipsch speakers sound bad but the extigy can do it using cmss.

• Reviewed by: mingkee

  Strengths: bunch of ins/outs, digital inputs accept protected signal

  Weaknesses: NO 5.1 OPTICAL OUT, DON'T SUPPORT DTS!!! If you're really concerned to connect this to home-theater system digitally, DON'T BUY THIS!

  Overall: I received this product that I was misled this box has Dolby Digital decoding, but the word is so unclear, and never stated that the digital outs do not support 5.1 output, and then I was in overseas (I didn't have home-theater system there), and I trust the "light"...but once I returned to states, and hook it up to home-theater receiver with this unit, then the result is extremely disappointing...the optical out DO NOT SUPPORT 5.1!!!, the reason I get this is I just make my laptops have 5.1 digital out, I took about a week with Creative support, then I gone pretty mad for the answer...but the unit is not compelety useless, that I connect to my home minidisc deck digitally, and play a protected digital audio (normally I can't "export" to another minidisc digitally because it's protected), and then I just take time to record to computer digitally, and then I can make minidisc audio to mp3, even wav to CD