Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 PCI Sound Card
Sound Blaster 16 provides CD-quality stereo sound with low CPU utilization and great wave-table music that is ideal for home, business, and Internet applications. Sound Blaster 16 allows you to hear the difference, with better sounding music and multimedia in your Windows applications.Full Plug-and-Play support is built in, so setup is "hassle free" for any PC setup. Every signal is processed and mixed with a 16-bit digital audio engine for high quality. Sound Blaster 16 provides support for positional 3D sound technology to provide spacious sound on headphones or 2 speaker configurations. The Sound Blaster 16 is the most affordable Sound Blaster product to date. Get one and hear the difference for yourself.
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Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 PCI Sound Card Reviews
My mistake i overlooked the model number. This pci card works but unfortunatly i needed it to work for DOS games and it does not.
The system has a Pentium III processor and 128 MB of RAM. My home system is a Dell Dimension 8200, with a Turtle Beach Soundcard and the Altec Lansing surround system. The DVD player is a Sony DDU1621 and the Monitor is a KDS 17 inch flat screen CRT. I keep a lot of computer equipment at home, due to the fact that I am an A+ technician working to complete my MCSE (microsoft certified systems engineer) credentials. The sound quality is good enough to enjoy listening to stereo sounds from music CDs and DVDs.
This is definitely the wrong price range if you need that kind of quality. This particular computer is a business-class desktop, designed more for the office environment rather than the typical entertainment PC that we would normally have at home. This is a very good Soundcard for its intended purpose. Within thirty minutes, I was watching The Lord of Rings.Now, about the Soundblaster. It will require the use of one of your PCI slots.
I decided to add DVD capability to this system, in order to enjoy a movie at my work desk whenever the mood strikes me to take a break from work (which happens quite frequently). For your information, I installed this card on an IBM 300PL desktop PC. I added a Sony DVD player, this particular Soundblaster soundcard, and a pair of Cambridge Soundworks speakers. Which is to provide basic sound functionality to a desktop computer. I bought a pre-owned computer from ebay last month in order to practice setting up computer networks at home.
Subjectively, you can definitely tell the difference between the two.I can recommend this Soundblaster to anyone who is simply looking to add stereo sound to his or her desktop computer. It is running an evaluation copy of Windows 2000 Advanced Server. If you are interested, I wrote reviews on the KDS monitor and the Sony DVD player, here at Amazon. I compared the sound quality of this office system to my primary home system. But please, do not expect this card to provide you with theatre-like surround sound quality.
It is inexpensive and easy to install. I switched the mode of operation of the Altec Lansings from surround to stereo for comparison purposes between the two systems.
After installing the Creative drivers I discovered the sound on some of my games was distorted. When I got Windows XP installed the sound came on and sounded fine with the generic drivers provided by Windows XP. If I reinstall the Creative drivers those functions return but then so does the distortion. I installed this card in a new home built computer. I then proceeded to install the drivers that came with the sound card. The only problem is I have no access to the advanced features in the audio control panel. I rolled back the drivers to the generic XP drivers and the sounds returned to normal. I can adjust volume control but I have no way to adjust the treble or bass or other effects.
It does say on the box this card is Windows XP compatible. My very latest version of Windows XP/SP1 loaded this latest driver and then the sound system promptly shutdown. I purchased the Creative Sound Blaster 16 PCI card to replace my built in sound engine. They sell these items at Walmart so I took a look at the box before coming back to Amazon and buying at a better price. That I did, found one from Creative's website; downloaded and installed it. Again, not a big thing, Windows XP took the drivers and the card worked fine.
It will work but the drivers on the installation disk are not Microsoft "signed" which means you must force the driver installation. The inclosed directions to install the card were ample to do the job. No sound at all came from the speakers. So if you have Windows XP and this card, be sure not to destroy the installation cd because Creative's new driver does not work on XP, at least not on mine.The sound from the card is just fine. Maybe a new set of speaks will help. The installation was simple, typical of a pci card. Fortunately XP allowed me to go back to the earlier driver and the sound was back on.
It didn't nor did XP indicate a problem with the hardware or driver in the system/hardware file. I rebooted a couple of times thinking the reset would correct the problem. I don't really see much of a difference between this card and my original onboard AC97 engine but I spent the money so I'll keep it. Here is where you must be very careful. Typical of using any software or hardware in Windows XP, it is a good idea to go online immediately for an XP compatable/updated driver.
I wasn't upset, however, until I tried to uninstall the drivers (for the purpose of installing my higher end sound card), when I discovered that all uninstall efforts crashed my computer. I have tried to uninstall several different ways (with the help of 2 different Creative technical support folks and the Creative knowledge base), and the drivers are STILL installed. Even though this is a very low end card, I expected performance at least on par with the integrated sound. Needless to say, if I ever get these drivers off, I will be purchasing a sound card from a different manufacturer. Unfortunately, I was disappointed to find that the sound stuttered badly, especially in games and during playback with Windows Media Player.
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