Creative Keeps Discrete Soundcard Market Alive with Sound Blaster Recon3D
Creative Keeps Discrete Soundcard Market Alive with Sound Blaster Recon3D
Posted 09/02/2011 at 10:35am
| by Paul Lilly
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Don't try telling Creative Technology that discrete audio is for dinosaurs. Onboard audio has improved leaps and bounds in recent years, but there's still room in the market for add-in soundcards, and Creative will continue to cater to the discrete audio market with its newly announced Sound Blaster Recon3D audio platform.
The Recon3D is powered by Creative's new Sound Core3D quad-core sound and voice processor. It supports hardware-accelerated THX TruStudio Pro and CrystalVoice audio technologies and is currently being previewed at the IFA consumer electronics convention in Germany.
"We are leveraging our expertise of designing and selling more than 400 million Sound Blaster audio solutions to break new ground with the power and performance of Sound Core3D, establishing the next standard of sound and voice quality for the PC, Mac, console gaming systems and consumer electronics devices," said Sim Wong Hoo, Chairman and CEO of Creative Technology Ltd. "We designed Sound Core3D with its revolutionary quad-core design to even further expand our leadership in audio innovation beyond the PC to transform all digital entertainment. This enables us to develop our most exciting and versatile line of Sound Blaster products yet, while we pursue new market opportunities by providing our OEM partners with the flexibility to power PC products and consumer electronics devices with Sound Core3D."
According to Creative, the Sound Core3D is the world's first quad-core sound and voice processor. It uses Creative's Quartet digital signal processor (DSP) with four independent processor cores, and is the first processor to integrate an array of DSP cores with HD audio codecs over 100dB on a single chip.
Like the X-Fi line, Creative will sell different versions of the Recon3D, including a standard version, Fatal1ty Professional model, and a Fatal1ty Champion version with a "cool-looking I/O drive with headset mini-jacks, volume control, and audio input connectivity options." All three feature 6-channel 24-bit 102dB DACs, 4-channel 24-bit 101dB analog-to-digital (ADC) converters, integrated headphone amplifier-out, digital microphone interface, S/PDIF inputs an outputs, and general purpose inputs and outputs (GPIO).
No word yet on price or availability.
Image Credit: Creative
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JohnP
March 21, 2012 at 9:50pm
Shoot, I am gaming and watching movies using just the audio built into my Cooler Master Storm 5.1 headset and and the input comes from a USB cable. Surprising good audio with no hassles. Just bought my 3rd set of 'phones. No more speakers for me, thanks.
og_greek
September 06, 2011 at 9:09pm
I upgraded to Win7 and tried to load what I thought were the Win7 drivers for my X-fi Xtreme Gamer that I obtained from their website, but then I was told my OS was not supported. Wtf? Navigating their site to try to find the driver I need is next to impossible. Can someone who has got their old card working in Win7 point me to where the drivers are?
Needless to say, I'm not buying a Creative card again!
JohnP
March 21, 2012 at 9:44pm
I too had issues with trying to get a Creative discrete card to work on my mobo. All that trouble and frankly I could not tell the difference. Sorry Creative, you had a good run there but you are just not worth the socket you plug into.
JohnP
March 21, 2012 at 9:53pm
Creative also likes to make sure you have PAID for the privilege of using their software so the drivers alone don't make the damn card work. I also had to get the right software with a serial number KEYED to the damn card. No thanks. Threw that card right out in my next build.
noobstix
September 03, 2011 at 9:56pm
I'm still rocking my 7-year-old Best Data sound card (XtremeSound 7.1). Bought it from OfficeMax (well my dad actually bought it) for like $15. Best $15 ever spent and won't ever think about getting another sound card (if this blows out, I still have my decent Realtek on-board audio).
rsaotome
September 03, 2011 at 4:21pm
Still using my Auzen X-Fi Prelude 7.1 with it's barebones software & lovin' it. Probably will upgrade to a newer one when I do a full system overhaul.
Baer
September 02, 2011 at 2:38pm
I went to the Asus Xonar with my last build and never looked back. The Creative driver garbage and having to pay extra for a Fatil1ty (or however he spells it) name is a real turn off. After all, just because a gamer endorses it does not make it better. What makes him an audio engineer?That is soooo 80's. Just make the best unit you can, give it a premium part number or name and save the endorsement fee which you can pass on part of by reducing the price. I say all this as a past dedicated Creative user in all my previous builds.
somethingelse
September 02, 2011 at 8:13pm
Aye lad, I agree with Baer. I had an X-Fi and got sick of waiting for Linux drivers for it. Eventually Alsa did manage to reverse engineer and add X-Fi support, but I already picked up an Asus Xonar D2 PCI by then. Man am I ever glad I did. Way better sound quality in both Linux and Windows; gaming, music, movies and all. I highly recommend Asus Xonar line (or any card that uses C-Media 8788 chipset, doesn't have to be Asus) over the Creative crap, especially if you use nix.
SAND_CREATURE
September 02, 2011 at 12:55pm
I've always liked creative products, I still use their MP3 players and earbuds, but for the soundcard for my new computer, I went with an Asus one because of the great reviews it had and the even better price it had (30 - 10MIR) so a pretty good deal all around
Neel Chauhan
September 02, 2011 at 12:01pm
Why don't they just try to put their audio chips inside the iPad. Everyone just uses the onboard chips, and none of them are creative chips, and intergration in Apple products would make you rich very fast because "Apple" is the big thing and even a small chip inside their products would make you millions.
They would make more money just intergrating a chip in the iPad or any Apple product insted of selling the "Sound Blaster Recon3D" which would only sell 1000 boards (guess).
Trooper_One
September 02, 2011 at 11:48am
Haha, are they going to do a Fatal1ty 'Special' Edition for an addition 50% more?
Bilbert
September 02, 2011 at 11:43am
How would audio be 3D? Unless the "3D" in Recon3D means the hardware itself isn't two-dimensional.
themohawkadmin
September 02, 2011 at 11:57am
"3D" audio means the sound seems to come from all around you, sort of how a surround sound system does, but with only two speakers. I personally don't like the way it sounds, but some people are all over it.
chart2006
September 02, 2011 at 11:31am
This would be an interesting drop in data acquisition system with support with MATLAB's DAQ Toolbox.
stradric
September 02, 2011 at 11:28am
It's nice that they continue to make these cards for enthusiasts and professionals. The reasonably-priced SB cards on NewEgg are pretty harshly reviewed though. You have to spend nearly $90 to get a decent Sound Blaster, which is absurd in my opinion. My RealTek onboard audio is perfectly adequate for my gaming and music needs.
I'd guess these new SB cards would be priced around $150, which is about the cost of an entire motherboard. Something is not right. I say, save your money towards a nice SSD. It's a much better upgrade.
Nimrod
September 02, 2011 at 2:27pm
Ive gota call BS on both your points. I got my old school X-fi Gammer for less than 80 and its the same as the currents ones except for the PCI interface.
Second, if your RealTek is good enough then you obviously dont really give a shit about your sound quality.
Sound card are for people who DO care about the sound in their games.
stradric
September 06, 2011 at 11:40am
"nearly $90" and "less than $80" are pretty much the same.
> Second, if your RealTek is good enough then you obviously dont really give a shit about your sound quality.
Oh? Is it so obvious that I "don't give a shit"? I appreciate good sound quality but I'm not going to drop hundreds or thousands of dollars for marginally better sound. Also, I believe I mentioned in my first sentence that this is nice for professionals and enthusiasts. So I call bullshit on your ability to read.
Neufeldt2002
September 02, 2011 at 11:04am
Don't forget to include that SB will continue with their appalling driver support.
SilverSurferNHS
September 02, 2011 at 1:02pm
every time i load windows 7 or even vista onto a system with a creative board the latest creative drivers load with windows update... xfi, audigy and live boards included... they're not THAT bad anymore...
Neufeldt2002
September 02, 2011 at 1:18pm
Windows Update does not load drivers for either the X-Fi Xtreme Music or X-Fi Xtreme Gamer here at my house. I have to load the drivers manually. The only X-Fi that I could possible see Windows Update loading the driver for is the X-fi Xtreme Audio which is not a true X-Fi chip (it is a rebranded Audigy SE chip). As for Audigy and Live, I am not surprised as they are extremely old products.
blkpanthr
September 02, 2011 at 11:36am
apalling is an understatement.
i cant remeber the last time i rebooted and didnt get that damn blank ctxhelper box....
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