Creative USB Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX

Strengths: 24-bit sound quality, external, all kinds of input/output.

Weakness: None

I am very happy with this unit. Since it's external, I can easily carry along. The sound quality is very good. I hook up this unit between my PC and a receiver through optical output. Occasionally I use it with my laptop too, which only have USB1.1, and the sound quality is as good as USB2.0. Overall, an excellent product from Creative.

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Creative USB Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX

Strengths: Very impressive sound and features for the price. I would definitely recommend this product.

Weakness: None noted thus far.

Easily installs on any pc. Sounds fantastic- crisp, clear. great features and exceptional software. small surface area and non-intrusive profile makes for inconspicuous presence. I would highly recommend this product to anyone who appreciates a the dynamic ranges of their particular music preference.

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Creative USB Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX

Strengths: I bought this to utilize optical out to my receiver in order to eliminate hiss and noise that comes from using an analog port inside the computer.

Weakness: TECH SUPPORT is useless!

Works with my notebook, but does not work with a brand new Dell Tower; phone support would not help me because I have had this more than 2 months, and email support said that they do not "support 3rd party hardware"; that is pretty lame when the "hardware" is a brand new dell computer.

The product does work for my purpose, and I don't have any problem with Bass output (as long as my computer volume is not on max and I use my receiver to control it); however I suspect that any other (cheaper) USB sound device with an optical out would do the exact same for me.

The product is expensive for what you get. The remote that comes with it is also very lame!

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Creative USB Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX

Strengths: Flexible, for desktop and laptop. High quality sound, capable of producing DVD quality audio. Dolby surround sound, EAX sound enhancements. Up 7.1 speakers.

Weakness: Slight drop in performance in new games. Slightly awkward volume and mic wheels.

Excellent product. I bought it to replace the onboard sound in my laptop (sound quality is horrible in laptops presently). Easy setup and easy to remove. I am a bit confused about the complaint of lack of bass in a previous post. The Audigy 2 NX has solid bass, maybe not enough to blow the windows out but why ruin music with tons of bass?
The 24-bit/96khz sound sampling really does deliver excellent quality. The setup comes with a sample DVD-A (DVD audio) sample disc which isn't of much help as its not the type of music people typically listen to. The remote is the same that is used by the newer Audigy 2 ZS for laptops and takes a little getting used to. But as an added bonus you can program the remote to start of other windows apps as well, such as a DVD application.
My only gripe, which really isn't a gripe at all, is that there is a slight hit to performance while playing games due to the USB interface the card uses CPU resources. I hardly notice it but I have a fairly high-end system. Anything less than a 2ghz cpu may notice a bigger difference.
Overall I'd say this is a great buy for just about anyone looking for a high quality audio solution.

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Creative USB Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX

Strengths: Easy set up. Good useable software. High quality input and output. Digital in and out. A very versitle sound card

Weakness: Digital optical out is not supported while playing a DVD, OUCH. No RCA jacks. No internal power source.

When loading the software I checked both the software button and the driver button. The software loaded, but not the driver. Once I realized the problem I loaded the driver info seperately and the computer immediately recognized the sound card. The only other problem is that according to a dialog box the sound card does not support digital out while playing a DVD. Digital in and out are my primary connections.
I purchased the unit because my Dell Inspiron 8600 does not have line in only mic in. The Audigy 2 provides line in so I can now record my vinyl and tapes into CD's. For this the unit works well. RCA jacks would be nice, but I can work around the shortcoming. Recording and playback quality is high. I did not use the software package since I am comfortable with my prior program.

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Creative USB Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX

Strengths: Great sound, well constructed

Weakness: Setup

I bought this as an upgrade to my small form factor PC. It was a great addition and the sound quality is noticably better than the onboard audio. If you had other soundblaster cards previously installed make sure you COMPLETELY remove all drivers or else setup will be a nightmare for you. I had all sorts of driver compatability issues.

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Creative USB Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX

Strengths: Sound quality, appears best of good-sound solutions for laptop owners at reasonable price.

Weakness: Documentation (included e-manual) very terse and basic, volume knobs turn the wrong way(!), requires external power supply, noise removal feature works only w/ their media player.

Have given it a real workout in the 4 days I've had it, but only for plain vanilla stereo (not using the 7.1 channels). Driver installation was smooth on Win XP Pro. Plug and play automatically switches between this sound unit and internal if you turn it off or unplug.

Nice DSP effects (simulates concert hall, etc., and works quite nicely). Equalizer tool is nice too (the presets aren't set to useful values in my opinion, but you can create your own).

One complaint is that it is very hard to figure out what features are in hardware and what are in software. EAX console seems to be hardware based for DSP effects (except that noise and click removal illogical requires their audio player Media Source to work (a real shame since I am not going to switch audio players from Media Jukebox and it would be a great feature). And I have no idea if the graphic equalizer is h/w or s/w based (I would guess h/w, but why have a separate program to control it rather than integrate it w/ EAX console?).

Finally, the volume knobs (mic and master) on the unit work backwards, i.e., you turn them counter-clockwise to increase the volume. This is apparently a design intent though even tech support thought it was a manufacturing fault. You get used to this if you imagine that all but the lower part of the knob is recessed like a thumbwheel and then you slide your finger left-to-right to increase volume. Go figure.

Other bundled s/w seems pretty useful, like an audio waveform editor among other things, but I haven't hard a chance to use them yet. By the way, no problem at all with throughput on USB 1.1.

Summary: Great product technically despite several non-intuitive s/w and h/w design elements (not helped by sparse documentation). Wish it were powered off USB.

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Creative USB Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX

Strengths: Remote, Notebook and desktop flexibility, Crisp Sound, Supports Optical I/O, 7.1 speakers compatibility

Weakness: LARGE lost of bass, cords may be annoying, remote functionality is limited

I recommend this product for notebook users(but not very portable, it requires a power outlet) whom wish to enjoy instant greater sound and users seeking optical digital outputs. Also for those who wish to control their media from a distance with the remote.

I do NOT recommend this product for gamers and bass lovers. Crisp sound, but lacks a LOT of bass. Look towards the Audigy 2 ZS series.

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Creative USB Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX

Strengths: USB 1.1 or 2 makes it easy to connect to any computer. The 7.1 is alittle much for most, but it is always nice to have more than you need. The 24 bit sound is very clear. A true Sound Blaster.

Weakness: This sound card does not work well with Klipsch GMX speaker systems. Being an external sound card the sampling rate is alittle less than the internal sound blasters.

This sound card plays very well with Creative speaker systems. The card, however does not work well with speaker systems that have digital decoders which the sound outputs have to go through. Overall, it is a fine product that I would recommend to anyone who needs a sound card upgrade.

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Creative USB Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX

Strengths: Good Sound Quality, Cool looking, small, convenient, useful software

Weakness: It doesn't have 1/4 inch jacks

This thing is really easy to install. Plug it in the USB and install Creative MediaSource, voila. It basically comes with the same settings and effects as the Audigy 2 ZS series. Incudes a Audio converter for different music file converting (e.g. mp3, wav, wma to different formats) If you want to turn wma into mp3 you have to convert it into wav first, then compress into mp3.

Looks good if you turn it on. The mute light is red(usually off), the power button is green, and theres a blue light for another feature.

This soundcard is useful not only to notebooks, but computers too. Don't buy this, however, if you just want an convenient external interface. Its portability its what its best for.

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Creative USB Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX

I have an external usb2 tv tuner but it requires a "line in" port for audio which my laptop does not have. So I bought this external sound card because it has the "line in" port and also because it is usb2 which eliminates bandwidth problems. It works well. However, I found out that I can't use my built in laptop speakers and therefore need a pair of external speakers. Before I knew this, I thought there was something wrong. I've only used plain 2 speakers on these and haven't used any 5.1 setups yet so I can't comment on that aspect of the sound.

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Creative USB Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX

Strengths: easy setup, great playback

i love this little sound giant. Its easy as 123 to setup and sounds like a dream. I hear sound from places i didn't kwow I had :).And it ome wit a remote.. very handy. 24bit digitl ish were its at.

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