Just when we thought Creative Labs could not possibly cram any more features into its soundboards, the company surprised us once again with the Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1. In addition to the company's typically over-the-top software and accessories bundles, Creative's new flagship offering boasts the most comprehensive I/O capabilities we've seen in a mid-priced sound board, as well as an onboard multi-channel decoder that supports two-, four-, five- and six-cabinet speaker systems, 5.1 Dolby Digital DVD soundtracks and virtually all popular four-channel games.
The downside of all this flexibility is a plethora of input and output connectors that could not possibly be crammed into a single back plane panel. Like last year's Sound Blaster Live! Platinum, the Platinum 5.1 solves this problem with an outboard Live! Drive I/O box that mounts into an open 13.34cm drive bay. This clever approach provides convenient front-panel access to the board's bi-directional S/PDIF coaxial and optical connectors, headphone and mic jacks, volume controls, multiple analog input connectors for external audio devices, and discrete MIDI IN and OUT jacks. This latest version of the Live! Drive also contains an infrared receiver that lets you use the Platinum 5.1's handy wireless remote to launch applications, play CDs, and adjust settings.
Installing the Platinum 5.1 can take nearly an hour, but most setup tasks are well documented and straightforward. Physically installing the board and Live! Drive requires just a few cable connections, and the Platinum's robust Plug-and-Play setup routines involve almost no user intervention. Although consuming about 200MB of disk space, the board's basic driver and utility setup procedure is totally automated and executes from a single self-executing CD. Loading optional Creative applications requires a second disc and a few additional keystrokes, but even these tasks are fairly simple. During our hands-on evaluation, the Platinum 5.1's delivered outstanding output quality, regardless of whether our sound source was MIDI, DVD, audio CD, WAV file or an external analog or digital player. Analog noise levels were quite low, and digital noise was virtually undetectable. Four-channel games like Sierra Studios' Half-Life performed flawlessly on our 450MHz Pentium II test bed, and playing flashy DVDs like The Matrix and Men in Black produced jaw-dropping surround sound through our Cambridge SoundWorks Desktop Theater 5.1 DTT3500 Digital loudspeakers.
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Great under Windows, hopeless under Linux. You can't capture ANY of the front panel inputs, only rear panel, and neither panel will record. Yeah, I know, I should have investigated it before I bought it, but at least I can warn others.