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Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live ! Digital Entertainment 5.1

Technical Overview

As noted above, just like the previous line of Sound Blaster Live! line of cards, the new Sound Blaster Live! DE 5.1 uses the powerful EMU 10K1 sound processor. What’s changed is the card now has a subwoofer/center output, features Dolby Digital Decoding and a new software bundle. The Live!DE 5.1 is identical to the Live!Platinum 5.1 except for the much less impressive bundle. The parts of the Live!Platinum 5.1 bundle that the Live!Player lacks are the Live!Drive IR (will be available separately together with the remote control), a wireless remote control, an optical SPDIF cable, a DIN bracket board, a microphone set, most of the software bundle including most of the music oriented software and one game (MDK2). The following is a list of the key features of all the new Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 cards:

*Reported by Minerva, a 3D audio test program developed by Aureal that is no longer available for download.

The feature list is good with plenty of 3D streams, up to 5.1-speaker support, Dolby Digital Decoding and support for DS3D, EAX 1.0, EAX 2.0, A3D 1.0 and legacy SoundBlaster 16. The MIDI part is also very strong for a consumer board. 

The feature in the list above that is really unique for the Live cards is the Dolby Digital decoding. This can be used to play .ac3 music files using the bundled PlayCenter 2.0 and, more interesting, when playing DVD movies that features a Dolby Digital track/AC3 track, which most DVD movies do. The Live!DE 5.1 doesn’t bundle a software DVD player so you still need to get that separately and it has to be one that supports AC3 pass-thru using the Live. We will cover this new feature in more detail in the DVD performance section below but will note right now that the Dolby Decoding is done in software.

In/Out

One the bracket you will find the same connections as the Live released last fall, that is front analog output, rear analog output, microphone input, line-input, midi/game port and a coaxial digital output jack of mini-jack. The only change, other than the colors of the connections, is the digital output jack now does doubly duty as analog subwoofer/center output and digital output. When it’s configured to be used as Digital output it can now support up to 5.1 output when connected to a speaker system using Creative’s proprietary digital DIN input. Currently only the DTT3500 has a Digital DIN input that supports 5.1 input, if you use the DTT2500 you will have to do with 4-speaker output. Just like the digital output on the Live cards from fall 99 you can also use the digital output as a standard coaxial SPDIF output for playback of stereo, Dolby Prologic and Dolby Digital content. 

It’s worth noting that the 1/8" mini-jack on the Live 5.1 cards (Platinum 5.1, X-Gamer 5.1, DE 5.1, Player 5.1 and MP3+ 5.1) outputs more than the 0.5V the COAX SPDIF out spec calls for. However Creative Labs has confirmed that there is no risk of damage with this connection their decoders and some other sources have given similar responses for use with the decoder they market (e.g. VideoLogic Digitheatre decider and MidiLand ADS-2000).  Having said that, if you are at all concerned with the higher power output you should consider other options.  We should also note that while the mini-jack output is above 0.5V it doesn’t appear to be as high as the 5.0V the previous Live retail boards used which means it won’t work with the now discontinued Digital Output Module.

The front and rear out works like most other 4-speaker cards and in case of stereo that means simply duplicating the front channels to the rear channels when set in 4-speaker mode. The center channel is only used by default for games that support 3D sound and DVD movies if the DVD player supports Live’s 5.1 mode or AC3 pass-thru. For all other content (Directsound, wave output, CD audio etc) the center channel will only be used if you select Movie Mode which is similar (but not identical) to forcing Dolby Prologic decoding of a stereo stream. The subwoofer output if available can either be used only as the LFE output for DVD movies or as a mix of all the other channels. To let the subwoofer output be a mix of all other channels is very useful if you have a separate subwoofer or system such as the Videologic DigiTheatre that requires the subwoofer to be connected separately to the sound source to perform well. 

The subwoofer output as a mix of all other channels can be enabled in all speaker modes and will work with all sources (waveout, midi, analog CD audio, digital CD audio, Directsound, games, DVDs etc). To work as LFE output it needs to be in 5.1 mode. We will offer a lot more on the advantages and disadvantages of the center and subwoofer implementation the Live 5.1 card offers in the performance section. 

On the base board you will just like the previous Live cards find Digital CD-input, analog CD-input, Aux-in, TAD in and the expansion connection. You could use the expansion connection to connect to one of the Live!Drives, Creative’s Optical Digital i/o 2, the daughtercard that shipped with the original Live and some of daughtercards that Hoontech sells.