Creative Labs' SoundBlaster line of cards are the defacto standard in consumer PC audio today, to the point where other audio card companies label their products ' 100% SoundBlaster Compatible'. Creative Labs still maintains this monopoly over the sound card market today - any decent computer will have a SoundBlaster in it. Games are designed around Sound Blaster cards.
The SoundBlaster line of products began with the 8-bit Sound Blaster ISA line of cards. MIDI support was rather pathetic on these cards, offering only FM synthesis. There were only two ports - LINE IN and MIDI OUT. The three original 8-bit models were:
- CT1320 Sound Blaster 1.0/1.5
- CT1350 Sound Blaster 2
- CT5320 Sound Blaster MCV
In 1992, Creative introduced the Sound Blaster Pro. It was a step up from the original cards by offering 22050 KHz 8-bit stereo recording and playback, as well as improved FM synthesis playback. It also offered a CD-ROM interface.
The SB16 line of cards soon followed. The SB16 was a major upgrade from what was previously offered; today it is the minimum standard by which most games are programmed. The Sound Blaster 16 ISA featured 16-bit audio and 44100KHz playback, as well as the standard LINE IN, LINE OUT, MIC IN, MIDI ports that we take for granted today. An optional WaveBlaster daughterboard enabled wavetable synthesis.
Creative's Sound Blaster AWE series of cards were a complete departure from anything Creative had offered before. AWE stood for Advanced Wave Effects; this referred to the EMU8000 wavetable synthesizer. The card offered superb MIDI playback, and MIDIs were enhanced even further with the introduction of SoundFonts. To accomodate SoundFonts, Creative added 30-pin SIMM slots on the card itself; the AWE32 initially came with 512K of memory but could be expanded up to 28MB. It also had DirectSound acceleration as well as 3D audio (to get a 3D effect out of two speakers) and full-duplex operation which allowed recording and playback at the same time.
The SoundBlaster AWE came in a variety of models:
- The Sound Blaster 32 was a SB AWE32 without any onboard memory. It is also missing a Wave Blaster header.
- The SoundBlaster AWE32 was the first in the AWE series to be introduced.
- The SoundBlaster AWE32 Value! was the same as the regular AWE32 but it did not have a Wave Blaster header.
- The SoundBlaster AWE64 added an additional 32 polyphony voices. This card is also much smaller than the AWE32 (what a relief). The AWE64 Gold! was a SB AWE64 with 4MB of memory.
The AWE series were the last 'true' Sound Blasters; the SB Live! must accomplish its Sound Blaster 16 compatibility by emulation. To date these cards remain the best choice for DOS compatibility.
Creative finally abandoned the aging ISA bus with its introduction of the SoundBlaster Live! family. EAX also made its debut, which was Creative's answer to Aureal's A3D. It's all covered at the Sound Blaster Live! node.
When Creative bought out Ensoniq, they also acquired Ensoniq's technology and hardware. Creative released this hardware as the SB PCI 128, SB PCI 256, SB PCI 512. These are largely the same as the Sound Blaster Live.
Finally, the latest offering from Creative is the SoundBlaster Audigy. The SB Audigy banishes the MIDI-IN port to a seperate adapter; in its place is a IEEE1394 (Firewire) port. Gold-plated connectors distinguish this card from the rest of the Sound Blasters. Creative claims this card can do 24-bit 96KHz sound, but according to Tom's review of the Extigy (which is an external Audigy), Creative's own engineers have confirmed that the card cannot do 24-bit 96Khz sound, opting instead to downsample it into 16-bit 48Khz sound. Why Creative would do that is truly bizarre.
All in all, the Sound Blaster series are a good choice for games and music. These days, they might as well be the only choice..