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Sound Blaster is a family of
sound card A sound card (also known as an audio card) is an internal expansion card that provides input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under the control of computer programs. The term ''sound card'' is also applied to external audio i ...
s designed by
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
an technology company
Creative Technology Creative Technology Ltd. is a Singaporean multinational technology company headquartered with overseas offices in Shanghai, Tokyo, Dublin, and Silicon Valley (where in the US it is known as Creative Labs). The principal activities of the compa ...
(known in the US as Creative Labs). Sound Blaster sound cards were the
de facto standard A ''de facto'' standard is a custom or convention that has achieved a dominant position by public acceptance or market forces (for example, by early entrance to the market). is a Latin phrase (literally " in fact"), here meaning "in practice b ...
for consumer audio on the
IBM PC compatible IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such computers were referred to as PC clones, IBM clones or IBM PC clones. ...
system platform A computing platform or digital platform is an environment in which a piece of software is executed. It may be the hardware or the operating system (OS), even a web browser and associated application programming interfaces, or other underlying so ...
, until the widespread transition to ''
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
''
Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...
, which standardized the programming interface at application level (eliminating the importance of
backward compatibility Backward compatibility (sometimes known as backwards compatibility) is a property of an operating system, product, or technology that allows for interoperability with an older legacy system, or with input designed for such a system, especially i ...
with Sound Blaster), and the evolution in PC design led to onboard audio electronics, which commoditized PC audio functionality. By 1995, Sound Blaster cards had sold over 15 million units worldwide and accounted for seven out of ten sound card sales.


Creative Music System and Game Blaster


Creative Music System

The history of Creative
sound card A sound card (also known as an audio card) is an internal expansion card that provides input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under the control of computer programs. The term ''sound card'' is also applied to external audio i ...
s started with the release of the Creative Music System ("C/MS") CT-1300 board in August 1987. It contained two
Philips SAA1099 {, align=right width=270px style="border:2px solid #8888aa; text-align: left;margin:8px" , - !colspan=4 style="background-color:#0066FF; text-align: center;", Philips SAA1099 , - , colspan=4, , - !style="border:2px solid #8888aa; text-align: center ...
integrated circuits, which, together, provided 12 channels of square-wave "bee-in-a-box" stereo sound, 4 channels of which can be used for noise. These ICs were featured earlier in various popular electronics magazines around the world. For many years Creative tended to use off-the-shelf components and manufacturers' reference designs for their early products. The various integrated circuits had white or black paper stickers fully covering their top thus hiding their identity. On the C/MS board in particular, the Philips chips had white pieces of paper with a fantasy CMS-301 inscription on them: real Creative parts usually had consistent CT ''number'' references. Surprisingly, the board also contained a large 40-pin DIP integrated circuit, bearing a CT 1302A CTPL 8708 (Creative Technology Programmable Logic) serigraphed inscription and looking exactly like the DSP of the later Sound Blaster. This chip allows software to automatically detect the card by certain register reads and writes.


Game Blaster

A year later, in 1988, Creative marketed the C/MS via
Radio Shack RadioShack, formerly RadioShack Corporation, is an American retailer founded in 1921. At its peak in 1999, RadioShack operated over 8,000 worldwide stores named RadioShack or Tandy Electronics in the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Austra ...
under the name Game Blaster. This card was identical in every way to the precursor C/MS hardware. Whereas the C/MS package came with five floppy disks full of utilities and song files, Creative supplied only a single floppy with the basic utilities and game patches to allow
Sierra Online Sierra Entertainment, Inc. (formerly On-Line Systems and Sierra On-Line, Inc.) was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game genre ...
's games using the
Sierra Creative Interpreter Sierra Entertainment, Inc. (formerly On-Line Systems and Sierra On-Line, Inc.) was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game genre, ...
engine to play music with the card and it also included a later revision of the game
Silpheed is a video game developed by Game Arts and designed by Takeshi Miyaji. It made its debut on the Japanese PC-8801 in 1986, and was ported to the Fujitsu FM-7 and DOS formats soon after. It was later remade for the Sega CD and has a sequel call ...
that added C/MS support. In 2017 hobbyists developed a clone CT1300 PCB.


First generation Sound Blasters, 8-bit ISA & MCA cards


Sound Blaster 1.0, CT1310, CT1320A, CT1320B

The Sound Blaster 1.0 (code named "Killer Kard"), CT1320A, was released in 1989. In addition to Game Blaster features, it had a 9-voice (11 voices in drum mode)
FM synthesizer Frequency modulation synthesis (or FM synthesis) is a form of sound synthesis whereby the frequency of a waveform is changed by modulating its frequency with a modulator. The frequency of an oscillator is altered "in accordance with the amplitude ...
using the
Yamaha YM3812 The OPL (FM Operator Type-L) series are a family of Sound chip, sound chips developed by Yamaha Corporation, Yamaha. The OPL series are low-cost sound chips providing frequency modulation synthesis, FM synthesis for use in computing, music and vid ...
chip, also known as
OPL2 The OPL (FM Operator Type-L) series are a family of sound chips developed by Yamaha. The OPL series are low-cost sound chips providing FM synthesis for use in computing, music and video game applications. Internal operation The internal operation ...
. It provided perfect compatibility with the market leader
AdLib Ad Lib, Inc. was a Canadian manufacturer of sound cards and other computer equipment founded by Martin Prevel, a former professor of music and vice-dean of the music department at the Université Laval. The company's best known product, the ''Ad ...
sound card, which had gained support in PC games in the preceding year. Creative used the "DSP" acronym to designate the digital audio part of the Sound Blaster. This actually stood for Digital Sound Processor, rather than the more common
digital signal processor A digital signal processor (DSP) is a specialized microprocessor chip, with its architecture optimized for the operational needs of digital signal processing. DSPs are fabricated on MOS integrated circuit chips. They are widely used in audio si ...
, and was really a simple micro-controller from the
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
MCS-51 The Intel MCS-51 (commonly termed 8051) is a single chip microcontroller (MCU) series developed by Intel in 1980 for use in embedded systems. The architect of the Intel MCS-51 instruction set was John H. Wharton. Intel's original versions were p ...
family (supplied by Intel and Matra MHS, among others). It could play back 8-bit
monaural Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction (often shortened to mono) is sound intended to be heard as if it were emanating from one position. This contrasts with stereophonic sound or ''stereo'', which uses two separate audio channels to reproduc ...
sampled sound at up to 23
kHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that on ...
sampling frequency In signal processing, sampling is the reduction of a continuous-time signal to a discrete-time signal. A common example is the conversion of a sound wave to a sequence of "samples". A sample is a value of the signal at a point in time and/or sp ...
and record 8-bit at up to 12kHz. The sole DSP-like features of the circuit were
ADPCM Adaptive differential pulse-code modulation (ADPCM) is a variant of differential pulse-code modulation (DPCM) that varies the size of the quantization step, to allow further reduction of the required data bandwidth for a given signal-to-noise ratio ...
decompression and a primitive non-MPU-401 compatible MIDI interface. The ADPCM decompression schemes supported were 2 to 1, 3 to 1 and 4 to 1. The CT1320B variety of the Sound Blaster 1.0 typically has C/MS chips installed in sockets rather than soldered on the PCB, though units do exist with the C/MS chips soldered on. Some sources note that the original Sound Blaster 1.0 was produced under the CT1310 number. This however is a topic of ongoing debate. Creative refers to CT1310 for the Sound Blaster 1.0 on its website. In spite of these limitations, in less than a year, the Sound Blaster became the top-selling expansion card for the PC. It achieved this by providing a fully AdLib-compatible product, with additional features, for the same, and often a lower price. The inclusion of the
game port The game port is a device port that was found on IBM PC compatible and other computer systems throughout the 1980s and 1990s. It was the traditional connector for joystick input, and occasionally MIDI devices, until made obsolete by USB in the ...
, and its importance to its early success, is often forgotten or overlooked. PCs of this era did not include a game port. Game port cards were costly (around $50) and used one of the few expansion slots PCs had at the time. Given the choice between an AdLib card or a fully compatible Sound Blaster card that came with a game port, saved a slot, and included the "DSP" for not much more in price, many consumers opted for the Sound Blaster. In-game support for the digital portion of the card did not happen until after the Sound Blaster had gained dominance. When Microsoft announced
Multimedia PC The Multimedia PC (MPC) was a recommended configuration for a personal computer (PC) with a CD-ROM drive. The standard was set and named by the "Multimedia PC Marketing Council", which was a working group of the Software Publishers Association (SP ...
(MPC) in November 1990, it suggested to developers that they use the Sound Blaster as it was the only sound card that came close to complying with the MPC standard. The press speculated that Microsoft based the MPC standard on the Sound Blaster's specifications. By 1993 ''Computer Gaming World'' wondered "why would a gamer" buy a competing AdLib card that was not Sound Blaster-compatible. Creative advertised the Sound Blaster 16 ("the 16-bit sound standard") with the slogan "Get Real", emphasizing its "real 100% Sound Blaster compatibility" and rhetorically asking "why those other manufacturers spend so much time comparing themselves to Sound Blaster".


Reception

''
Compute! ''Compute!'' (), often stylized as ''COMPUTE!'', was an American home computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994. Its origins can be traced to 1978 in Len Lindsay's ''PET Gazette'', one of the first magazines for the Commodore PET c ...
'' in 1989 stated that with Sound Blaster, "IBM-compatible computers have taken the lead in sound and music for personal computers". Naming it a Compute! Choice, the magazine described the quality of the opening music of ''
Space Quest III ''Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon'' is a 1989 graphic adventure game by Sierra On-Line, and the third game in the ''Space Quest'' series. Plot Roger Wilco's escape pod from the end of ''Space Quest II'' is floating in space until it ...
'' with the card as "extraordinary", praising the quality compared to the
Roland MT-32 The Roland MT-32 Multi-Timbre Sound Module is a MIDI synthesizer module first released in 1987 by Roland Corporation. It was originally marketed to amateur musicians as a budget external synthesizer with an original list price of $695. However, ...
and Ad Lib versions. ''Compute!'' approved of the card's DMA and Creative's dissemination of technical information, and concluded that while the more-expensive MT-32 was superior, Sound Blaster's audio quality was better than that of Ad Lib or Game Blaster.


Sound Blaster 1.5, CT1320C, CT1320U

Released in 1990, the Sound Blaster 1.5, CT1320C, dropped the C/MS chips, which were no longer popular with game developers. Instead, the board had two empty sockets, which could be user upgraded by purchasing the C/MS chips directly from Creative or Phillips SAA-1099s from another source. Otherwise the card functions identically to the Sound Blaster 1.0. The CT1320U variety has the same layout as the CT1320C.


Sound Blaster 2.0, CT1350

The final revision of the original Sound Blaster, the Sound Blaster 2.0 was released in October 1991, CT1350, added support for " auto-init" DMA, which assisted in producing a continuous loop of double-buffered sound output. Similar to version 1.0 and 1.5, it used a 1-channel 8-bit DAC. However, the maximum sampling rate was increased to 44kHz for playback, and 15kHz for record. The DSP's MIDI UART was upgraded to
full-duplex A duplex communication system is a point-to-point system composed of two or more connected parties or devices that can communicate with one another in both directions. Duplex systems are employed in many communications networks, either to allow ...
and offered
time stamp A timestamp is a sequence of characters or encoded information identifying when a certain event occurred, usually giving date and time of day, sometimes accurate to a small fraction of a second. Timestamps do not have to be based on some absolut ...
ing features, but was not yet compatible with the
MPU-401 The MPU-401, where ''MPU'' stands for MIDI Processing Unit, is an important but now obsolete interface for connecting MIDI-equipped electronic music hardware to personal computers. It was designed by Roland Corporation, which also co-authored the ...
interface used by professional MIDI equipment. The Sound Blaster 2.0's
PCB PCB may refer to: Science and technology * Polychlorinated biphenyl, an organic chlorine compound, now recognized as an environmental toxin and classified as a persistent organic pollutant * Printed circuit board, a board used in electronics * ...
-layout used more highly integrated components, both shrinking the board's size and reducing manufacturing cost. Owners of previous revision Sound Blaster boards could upgrade their board by purchasing the V2.00 DSP chip from Creative Labs, and swapping the older DSP V1.0x with the newer replacement. The upgraded board gained the auto-init DMA and new MIDI capabilities of the Sound Blaster 2.0 but not the expanded sampling rates. The upgrade was necessary for full compatibility with the
Windows 3.0 Windows 3.0 is the third major release of Microsoft Windows, launched in 1990. It features a new graphical user interface (GUI) where applications are represented as clickable icons, as opposed to the list of file names seen in its predecesso ...
Multimedia Extensions upgrade.


Sound Blaster MCV, CT5320

Sound Blaster MCV, CT5320, was a version created for IBM
PS/2 The Personal System/2 or PS/2 is IBM's second generation of personal computers. Released in 1987, it officially replaced the IBM PC, XT, AT, and PC Convertible in IBM's lineup. Many of the PS/2's innovations, such as the 16550 UART (serial po ...
model 50 and higher and their ISA-incompatible
Micro Channel architecture Micro Channel architecture, or the Micro Channel bus, is a proprietary 16- or 32-bit parallel computer bus introduced by IBM in 1987 which was used on PS/2 and other computers until the mid-1990s. Its name is commonly abbreviated as "MCA", alth ...
. The MCV Sound Blaster has some issues outputting audio while running on PS/2s with CPUs running faster than 16MHz. However, the joystick interface is still inoperable on PS/2s it was designed for due to the slow-speed Schottky chips that have been installed. None of these timing issues affect the Yamaha YM3812. Some of the MCV Sound Blasters were released with faster Schottkys which eradicated some of the problems.


Second-generation Sound Blasters, 16-bit ISA & MCA cards


Sound Blaster Pro, CT1330

Model CT1330, announced in May 1991, was the first significant redesign of the card's core features, and complied with the Microsoft MPC standard.. The Sound Blaster Pro supported faster digital input and output sampling rates (up to 22.05kHz stereo or 44.1kHz mono), added a " mixer" to provide a crude master volume control (independent of the volume of sound sources feeding the mixer), and a crude high pass or low pass filter. The Sound Blaster Pro used a pair of
YM3812 The OPL (FM Operator Type-L) series are a family of sound chips developed by Yamaha. The OPL series are low-cost sound chips providing FM synthesis for use in computing, music and video game applications. Internal operation The internal operation ...
chips to provide stereo music-synthesis (one for each channel). The Sound Blaster Pro was fully backward compatible with the original Sound Blaster line, and by extension, the
AdLib Ad Lib, Inc. was a Canadian manufacturer of sound cards and other computer equipment founded by Martin Prevel, a former professor of music and vice-dean of the music department at the Université Laval. The company's best known product, the ''Ad ...
sound card. The Sound Blaster Pro was the first Creative sound card to have a built-in
CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...
interface. Most Sound Blaster Pro cards featured a proprietary interface for a
Panasonic formerly between 1935 and 2008 and the first incarnation of between 2008 and 2022, is a major Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka, Kadoma, Osaka P ...
( Matsushita MKE) drive. The Sound Blaster Pro cards are basically 8-bit ISA cards, they use only the lower 8 data bits of the ISA bus. While at first glance it appears to be a 16-bit ISA card, it does not have 'fingers' for data transfer on the higher "AT" portion of the bus connector. It uses the 16-bit extension to the ISA bus to provide the user with an additional choice for an IRQ (10) and DMA (0)m channel only found on the 16-bit portion of the edge connector. A short lived joint developed project between Creative and Tandy resulted in the Creative/Tandy Multimedia Sound Adapter, 849–3030. This Sound Blaster Pro derived card was factory installed in Tandy Multimedia PCs. It combined the CT1330 with Tandy joystick and MIDI ports (not MPU-401 compatible).


Sound Blaster Pro 2, CT1600

The revised version, the Sound Blaster Pro 2, CT1600, replaced the YM3812s with a more advanced Yamaha
YMF262 The OPL (FM Operator Type-L) series are a family of sound chips developed by Yamaha. The OPL series are low-cost sound chips providing FM synthesis for use in computing, music and video game applications. Internal operation The internal operation ...
(''OPL3''). Otherwise it is functionally identical to the original Sound Blaster Pro. Shortly after the release of the Sound Blaster Pro 2 version, Creative discontinued the original Sound Blaster Pro. The Sound Blaster Pro 2 was also sold with the following on-board
CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...
controllers: *Sound Blaster Pro 2,
SCSI Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, ) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, electrical, optical and logical interface ...
, CT1610 *Sound Blaster Pro 2, LMSI, CT1620 *Sound Blaster Pro 2,
Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
, CT1690 *Sound Blaster Pro 2,
Mitsumi was a Japanese manufacturer of consumer electronic components, founded in 1954. The company was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, was constituent of the Nikkei 225 stock index and provided its products through its subsidiaries in Asia, Euro ...
, CT2600 Packaged Sound Blaster cards were initially marketed and sold into the retail-channel. Creative's domination of the PC audio card business soon had them selling the Sound Blaster Pro 2
OEM An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...
, CT1680, to customers for integration into pre-assembled PCs. Creative also sold Multimedia Upgrade Kits containing the Sound Blaster Pro. The kit bundled the sound card, a Matsushita CD-ROM drive (model 531 for single-speed, or 562/3 for the later double-speed (2x) drives), and several CD-ROMs of multimedia software titles. As CD-ROM technology was new, the kit included CD-ROM software, representing a very good value to customers. One such kit, named "OmniCD", included the 2x Matsushita drive along with an ISA controller card and software, including
Software Toolworks The Software Toolworks (commonly abbreviated as Toolworks) was an American software and video game developer based in Novato, California. The company was founded by Walt Bilofsky in 1980 out of his Sherman Oaks garage, which he converted into a ...
Encyclopedia and
Aldus PhotoStyler Aldus PhotoStyler was a graphics software program developed by the Taiwanese company Ulead. Released in June 1991 as the first 24 bit image editor for Windows, it was bought the same year by the Aldus Prepress group. Its main competition was Adobe P ...
SE. It was compliant with the MPC Level 2 standard.


Sound Blaster Pro 2 MCV, CT5330

The Sound Blaster Pro 2 MCV, CT5330, was a version created for IBM
PS/2 The Personal System/2 or PS/2 is IBM's second generation of personal computers. Released in 1987, it officially replaced the IBM PC, XT, AT, and PC Convertible in IBM's lineup. Many of the PS/2's innovations, such as the 16550 UART (serial po ...
model 50 and higher and their
MicroChannel Micro Channel architecture, or the Micro Channel bus, is a proprietary 16- or 32-bit parallel computer bus introduced by IBM in 1987 which was used on PS/2 and other computers until the mid-1990s. Its name is commonly abbreviated as "MCA", alth ...
bus.


Third generation Sound Blasters, 16-bit ISA cards


Sound Blaster 16

The next model, the Sound Blaster 16, announced in June 1992, introduced: *16-bit
CD-quality The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in October ...
digital audio Digital audio is a representation of sound recorded in, or converted into, digital form. In digital audio, the sound wave of the audio signal is typically encoded as numerical samples in a continuous sequence. For example, in CD audio, sa ...
; *An
MPU-401 The MPU-401, where ''MPU'' stands for MIDI Processing Unit, is an important but now obsolete interface for connecting MIDI-equipped electronic music hardware to personal computers. It was designed by Roland Corporation, which also co-authored the ...
compatible
UART A universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter (UART ) is a computer hardware device for asynchronous serial communication in which the data format and transmission speeds are configurable. It sends data bits one by one, from the least significan ...
via
game port The game port is a device port that was found on IBM PC compatible and other computer systems throughout the 1980s and 1990s. It was the traditional connector for joystick input, and occasionally MIDI devices, until made obsolete by USB in the ...
; *A connector for the Wave Blaster, a ' Wavetable' daughterboard (
Wavetable synthesis Wavetable synthesis is a sound synthesis technique used to create Periodic function, quasi-periodic waveforms often used in the production of musical tones or Musical note, notes. Development Wavetable synthesis was invented by Max Mathews i ...
). Eventually this design proved so popular that Creative made a PCI version of this card. Creative's audio revenue grew from US$40 million per year to nearly US$1 billion following the launch of the Sound Blaster 16 and related products. Rich Sorkin was General Manager of the global business during this time, responsible for product planning, product management, marketing and OEM sales. Moving the card off the ISA bus, which was already approaching obsolescence, this meant that no line for host-controlled ISA DMA was available, as the PCI slot offers no such line. Instead, the card used PCI
bus mastering In computing, bus mastering is a feature supported by many bus architectures that enables a device connected to the bus to initiate direct memory access (DMA) transactions. It is also referred to as first-party DMA, in contrast with third-party ...
to transfer data from the main memory to the D/A converters. Since existing DOS programs expected to be able to initiate host-controlled ISA DMA for producing sound, backward compatibility with the older Sound Blaster cards for DOS programs required a software driver work-around; since this work-around necessarily depended on the
virtual 8086 mode In the 80386 microprocessor and later, virtual 8086 mode (also called virtual real mode, V86-mode, or VM86) allows the execution of real mode applications that are incapable of running directly in protected mode while the processor is runnin ...
of the PC's CPU in order to catch and reroute accesses from the ISA
DMA controller Direct memory access (DMA) is a feature of computer systems and allows certain hardware subsystems to access main system computer memory, memory independently of the central processing unit (CPU). Without DMA, when the CPU is using programmed inpu ...
to the card itself, it failed for a number of DOS games that either were not fully compatible with this CPU mode or needed so much free
conventional memory In DOS memory management, conventional memory, also called base memory, is the first 640 kilobytes of the memory on IBM PC or compatible systems. It is the read-write memory directly addressable by the processor for use by the operating system ...
that they could not be loaded with the driver occupying part of this memory. In
Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
, there was no problem, as Creative's Windows driver software could handle both ISA and PCI cards correctly.


Sound Blaster ViBRA16

The Sound Blaster ViBRA16 was an inexpensive single-chip implementation of the
Sound Blaster 16 The Sound Blaster 16 is a series of sound cards by Creative Technology. They are add-on boards for IBM PC compatible, PCs with an industry standard architecture, ISA or conventional PCI, PCI slot. Sound Blaster 16 Sound Blaster 16 (June 1992 ...
for the
OEM An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...
market. Creative Labs also used this chip for the Sound Blaster 32, Phone Blaster and Phone Blaster 28.8 (VIBRA + modem, CT3120 and CT3220.) and many other value-edition cards. External Yamaha OPL3 FM music synthesis was retained in earlier boards built around the ViBRA16 or ViBRA16s controllers, whilst the later (and more common) ViBRA16 boards used CQM (Creative Quadratic Modulation) developed by
E-mu Systems E-mu Systems was a software synthesizer, audio interface, MIDI interface, and MIDI keyboard manufacturer. Founded in 1971 as a synthesizer maker, E-mu was a pioneer in samplers, sample-based drum machines and low-cost digital sampling musi ...
. This series included the ViBRA16 (CT2501), ViBRA16s (CT2502, CT2504), ViBRA16c (CT2505) PnP and ViBRA16XV (CT2511) chips. The primary advantage of the ViBRA16 was the inclusion of a 14.4 Kbit/s telephony Modem; it also functioned as a telephone.


Fourth generation Sound Blasters, 16-bit ISA cards, dynamic sample-based synthesis


Sound Blaster AWE32

Released in March 1994, the ''Sound Blaster AWE32 (Advanced WavEffects)'' introduced an all new MIDI synthesizer section based on the EMU8000. The ''AWE32'' consisted of two distinct audio sections; the Creative digital audio section (audio
codec A codec is a device or computer program that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder on a signal or da ...
, optional CSP/ASP chip socket, Yamaha OPL3), and the
E-mu E-mu Systems was a software synthesizer, audio interface, MIDI interface, and MIDI keyboard manufacturer. Founded in 1971 as a synthesizer maker, E-mu was a pioneer in samplers, sample-based drum machines and low-cost digital sampling music ...
MIDI synthesizer section. The synthesizer section consisted of the EMU8000 sampler and effects processor, an EMU8011 1 MB sample ROM, and 512 KB of sample RAM (expandable to 28MB). To fit the new hardware, the AWE32 was a full-length
ISA Isa or ISA may refer to: Places * Isa, Amur Oblast, Russia * Isa, Kagoshima, Japan * Isa, Nigeria * Isa District, Kagoshima, former district in Japan * Isa Town, middle class town located in Bahrain * Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia * Mount Is ...
card, measuring .


Sound Blaster 32

A derivative of the AWE32 design, the ''Sound Blaster 32'' (SB32) was a value-oriented offering from Creative. Announced on June 6, 1995, the SB32 became the new entry-level card in the AWE32 product-line (previously held by the ''AWE32 Value''.) The SB32 retained the AWE32's EMU8000/EMU8011 MIDI-synthesis engine and built-in instrument ROM, but dropped the onboard
RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * Ra ...
, the Wave Blaster header, and the CSP port. The SB32 used the ''Vibra'' chip to reduce component count, which meant bass/treble/gain control was limited compared to the AWE32. The loss of onboard RAM is offset by the inclusion of 30-pin SIMM RAM sockets, which allow up to 28MB RAM to be installed and used by the EMU engine.


Sound Blaster AWE64

The AWE32's successor, the ''Sound Blaster AWE64'' (November 1996), was significantly smaller, being a "half-length
ISA Isa or ISA may refer to: Places * Isa, Amur Oblast, Russia * Isa, Kagoshima, Japan * Isa, Nigeria * Isa District, Kagoshima, former district in Japan * Isa Town, middle class town located in Bahrain * Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia * Mount Is ...
card" (that term is misleading — see the pictures for size comparison). It offered similar features to the AWE32, but also had a few notable improvements, including support for greater
polyphony Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, h ...
, although this was a product of 32 extra software-emulated channels. The 30-pin
SIMM A SIMM (single in-line memory module) is a type of memory module containing random-access memory used in computers from the early 1980s to the early 2000s. It differs from a dual in-line memory module (DIMM), the most predominant form of memory ...
slots from AWE32/SB32 were replaced with a proprietary memory format which could be (expensively) purchased from Creative. The main improvements were better compatibility with older SB models, and an improved
signal-to-noise ratio Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR or S/N) is a measure used in science and engineering that compares the level of a desired signal to the level of background noise. SNR is defined as the ratio of signal power to the noise power, often expressed in deci ...
. The AWE64 came in two versions: A standard version (later rebranded as ''Value'') with 512KB of RAM and a Gold version with 4MB of RAM and a separate
S/PDIF S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) is a type of digital audio interface used in consumer audio equipment to output audio over relatively short distances. The signal is transmitted over either a coaxial cable (using RCA or BNC connectors) ...
output.


Fifth generation Sound Blasters, PCI cards, multi-channel and F/X


Ensoniq AudioPCI-based cards

In 1998, Creative acquired
Ensoniq Corporation Ensoniq Corp. was an American electronics manufacturer, best known throughout the mid-1980s and 1990s for its musical instruments, principally samplers and synthesizers. Company history In spring 1983, former MOS Technology engineers Rob ...
, manufacturer of the AudioPCI, a card popular with
OEM An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...
s at the time. It was a full-featured solution with wavetable MIDI ( sample-based synthesizer), 4-speaker
DirectSound3D DirectSound is a deprecated software component of the Microsoft DirectX library for the Microsoft Windows, Windows operating system, superseded by XAudio2. It provides a low-latency interface to sound card drivers written for Windows 95 through Wi ...
surround sound,
A3D Aureal Semiconductor Inc. was an American electronics manufacturer, best known throughout the mid-late 1990s for their PC sound card technologies including A3D and the Vortex (a line of audio ASICs.) The company was the reincarnation of the, at t ...
emulation, and
DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicatio ...
legacy support via a
terminate-and-stay-resident program A terminate-and-stay-resident program (commonly TSR) is a computer program running under DOS that uses a system call to return control to DOS as though it has finished, but remains in computer memory so it can be reactivated later. This technique ...
. It was cheap due to lack of hardware acceleration. It is full-duplex but at least in MS Windows cannot play back several sources at once. Creative released many cards using the original AudioPCI chip, Ensoniq ES1370, and several boards using revised versions of this chip (
ES1371 The Ensoniq AudioPCI is a PCI-based sound card released in 1997. It was Ensoniq's last sound card product before they were acquired by Creative Technology. The card represented a shift in Ensoniq's market positioning. Whereas the Soundscape line h ...
and
ES1373 The Ensoniq AudioPCI is a PCI-based sound card released in 1997. It was Ensoniq's last sound card product before they were acquired by Creative Technology. The card represented a shift in Ensoniq's market positioning. Whereas the Soundscape line ha ...
), and some with Creative-labeled AudioPCI chips. Boards using AudioPCI tech are usually easily identifiable by the board design and the chip size because they all look quite similar. Such boards include Sound Blaster PCI64 (April 1998), PCI128 (July 1998), Creative Ensoniq AudioPCI, Vibra PCI and Sound Blaster 16 PCI. An ES137x chip contains 3 stereo sample rate converters, some buffers and a PCI busmaster interface. Analogue interfacing is done by a codec chip, which runs at a fixed sampling frequency of 44 (Ensoniq Audio PCI) or 48kHz (Creative's versions). (ISA soundcards had not resampled but switched between different time bases.) ES137x do not support
SoundFont SoundFont is a brand name that collectively refers to a file format and associated technology that uses sample-based synthesis to play MIDI files. It was first used on the Sound Blaster AWE32 sound card for its General MIDI support. SoundFon ...
s but a filter-less MIDI engine with wavetable (
sample Sample or samples may refer to: Base meaning * Sample (statistics), a subset of a population – complete data set * Sample (signal), a digital discrete sample of a continuous analog signal * Sample (material), a specimen or small quantity of s ...
table) sets of 2, 4, and 8MB size.


Sound Blaster Live!

When the ''Sound Blaster Live!'' was introduced in August 1998, the use of a programmable
digital signal processor A digital signal processor (DSP) is a specialized microprocessor chip, with its architecture optimized for the operational needs of digital signal processing. DSPs are fabricated on MOS integrated circuit chips. They are widely used in audio si ...
in PC-audio was not unprecedented, as IBM had already done that with cheap
Mwave Mwave was a technology developed by IBM allowing for the combination of telephony and sound card features on a single adapter card. The technology centers around the Mwave digital signal processor (DSP). The technology was used for a time to pr ...
sound- & modem-cards and Turtle Beach with their professional Hurricane soundcards. The Live! was built around Creative's new EMU10K1 chip, which contained 2.44million transistors and was advertised of processing a flashy 1,000 MIPS. The EMU10K1 (and its successors) did not use on-card RAM/ROM storage for instrument samples, instead it used a PCI busmaster interface to access sample-data stored in the host-PC's system memory. A/D- and D/A- converters as well as analogue mixing is done by an AC'97 chip running at 48kHz sampling rate. All members of the SB Live! family have at least four-channel analog audio outputs and a 15-pin MIDI/Joystick multiport. For game titles, ''EAX'' 1.0 (and later 2.0) ( environmental audio extensions, which briefly competed with the now defunct A3D 2.0) added hardware-accelerated acoustic effects. The EMU10K1 provided high-quality 64-voice sample-based synthesizer (a.k.a. wavetable), with self-produced or third-party customized patches or "Soundfonts", and the ability to resample the audio output as input and apply a range of real-time DSP effects to any set of audio
subchannel In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or digital terrestrial television, television Television station, station on the same radio freq ...
s present in the device. The first model and flagship of the SB/Live family was the ''SB Live! Gold''. Featuring gold tracings on all major analog traces and external sockets, an
EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...
-suppressing printed circuit board substrate and
lacquer Lacquer is a type of hard and usually shiny coating or finish applied to materials such as wood or metal. It is most often made from resin extracted from trees and waxes and has been in use since antiquity. Asian lacquerware, which may be ca ...
, the Gold came standard with a daughterboard that implemented a separate 4-channel alternative
mini-DIN The mini-DIN connectors are a family of multi-pin electrical connectors used in a variety of applications. Mini-DIN is similar to the larger, older DIN connector. Design Mini-DIN connectors are in diameter and come in seven patterns, wit ...
digital output to Creative-branded internal- DAC speaker sets, a S/P-DIF digital audio Input and Output with separate software mappings, and a fully decoded MIDI interface with separate Input and Output (along with on mini-DIN converter.) The Gold highlighted many features aimed at music composition; ease-of-use (
plug-and-play In computing, a plug and play (PnP) device or computer bus is one with a specification that facilitates the recognition of a hardware component in a system without the need for physical device configuration or user intervention in resolving resou ...
for musicians), real-time loopback-recording of the MIDI-synthesizer (with full freedom of Soundfonts, and environmental effects such as reverb, etc.), and bundled MIDI-software. The mainstream model was the ''Sound Blaster Live!'' Like the Gold, the Live featured multi-speaker analog output (up to four channels), and identical music/sound generation capabilities (without the bundled MIDI software and interfacing-equipment.) Later versions of the Live!, usually called ''Live! 5.1'', offered 5.1-channel support which adds a
center channel Center channel refers to an audio channel common to many surround sound formats. It is the channel that is mostly, or fully, dedicated to the reproduction of the dialogue of an audiovisual program. The speaker(s) connected to the center channel ar ...
speaker and LFE subwoofer output, most useful for movie watching. The Live! 5.1 could also use one of the 3.5mm jack ports as an SPDIF out, which allowed the connection of an external decoder. Creative also released a ''Sound Blaster Live! Player 1024'' edition, which is identical to the regular ''Sound Blaster Live!'', but with the addition of some extra software.


Sound Blaster PCI 512

The ''Sound Blaster PCI 512'' (CT4790) is an EMU10K1-based sound card designed to fill a lower cost segment than the Live! Value. It is capable of most of the Live! Value's features aside from being limited to 512 MIDI voice polyphony (a software-based limitation), lacking digital I/O, removal of expansion headers, and only stereo or
quadraphonic Quadraphonic (or quadrophonic and sometimes quadrasonic) sound – equivalent to what is now called 4.0 surround sound – uses four audio channels in which speakers are positioned at the four corners of a listening space. The system allows for th ...
output support. The card's circuit layout is somewhat simpler than that of the Live! series.


Sound Blaster Audigy

The ''Sound Blaster Audigy'' (August 2001) featured the Audigy processor (EMU10K2), an improved version of the EMU10K1 processor that shipped with the ''Sound Blaster Live!''. The Audigy could process up to four EAX environments simultaneously with its upgraded on-chip DSP and native EAX 3.0 ADVANCED HD support, and supported up to 5.1-channel output. The Audigy was controversially advertised as a 24-bit sound card. The EMU10K2's audio transport (DMA engine) was fixed at 16-bit sample precision at 48kHz (like the EMU10K1 in the original Live!), and all audio had to be resampled to 48kHz in order to be accepted by the DSP (for recording or rendering to output.) ''Sound Blaster Audigy 2'' (September 2002) featured an updated EMU10K2 processor, sometimes referred to as EMU10K2.5, with an improved DMA engine capable of 24-bit precision. Up to 192kHz was supported for stereo playback/record, while 6.1 was capped at 96kHz. In addition, Audigy 2 supported up to 6.1 (later
7.1 7.1 surround sound is the common name for an eight-channel surround audio system commonly used in home theatre configurations. It adds two additional speakers to the more conventional six-channel (5.1) audio configuration. As with 5.1 surround sou ...
) speakers and had improved
signal-to-noise ratio Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR or S/N) is a measure used in science and engineering that compares the level of a desired signal to the level of background noise. SNR is defined as the ratio of signal power to the noise power, often expressed in deci ...
(SNR) over the Audigy (106 vs. 100
decibels The decibel (symbol: dB) is a relative unit of measurement equal to one tenth of a bel (B). It expresses the ratio of two values of a Power, root-power, and field quantities, power or root-power quantity on a logarithmic scale. Two signals whose ...
( A)). It also featured built-in
Dolby Digital EX Dolby Digital, originally synonymous with Dolby AC-3, is the name for what has now become a family of audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. Formerly named Dolby Stereo Digital until 1995, the audio compression is lossy ( ...
6.1 and 7.1 decoding for improved DVD play-back. The Audigy 2 line were the first sound cards to receive
THX THX Ltd. is an American company that develops the eponymous high fidelity audio/visual reproduction standards for movie theaters, screening rooms, home theaters, computer speakers, gaming consoles, car audio systems, and video games. Founded ...
certification. ''Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS'' (September 2003) is essentially an Audigy 2 with updated DAC and op-amps. Audigy 2 ZS uses the
Cirrus Logic Cirrus Logic Inc. is an American fabless semiconductor supplier that specializes in analog, mixed-signal, and audio DSP integrated circuits (ICs). Since 1998, the company's headquarters have been in Austin, Texas. The company's audio processo ...
CS4382 DAC together with the op-amps and can produce an output SNR of 108dB. There were a few slight
printed circuit board A printed circuit board (PCB; also printed wiring board or PWB) is a medium used in Electrical engineering, electrical and electronic engineering to connect electronic components to one another in a controlled manner. It takes the form of a L ...
modifications and
7.1 7.1 surround sound is the common name for an eight-channel surround audio system commonly used in home theatre configurations. It adds two additional speakers to the more conventional six-channel (5.1) audio configuration. As with 5.1 surround sou ...
audio support was added. ''Sound Blaster Audigy 4 Pro'' (November 2004) was an Audigy 2 ZS with updated DACs and ADCs, the new DAC being the Cirrus Logic CS4398, boosting the output SNR to 113dB. Other than a
breakout box A breakout box is a piece of electrical test equipment used to support integration testing, expedite maintenance, and streamline the troubleshooting process at the system, subsystem, and component-level by simplifying the access to test signals. B ...
, it has no distinguishable difference from the Audigy 2 ZS. The DSP is identical to the Audigy 2 ZS's but Creative put an "Audigy 4" sticker to cover the chip, making it appear as if it is a new chip. The Audigy 4 Pro is not to be confused with the Audigy 4 (Value) which contains lower quality DACs and does not have golden plated jacks. The Audigy 4 (Value) is more in line with the Audigy 2 Value series. The Audigy 4 had a shorter life span than its predecessors, due to the short window between it and the next-generation Sound Blaster X-Fi. ''Sound Blaster Audigy Rx'' (September 2013) is similar to the ''Audigy 4'' but with a dedicated 600-ohm headphone amplifier and a
PCIe PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), officially abbreviated as PCIe or PCI-e, is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard, designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X and AGP bus standards. It is the common mo ...
1x interface. ''Sound Blaster Audigy Fx'' (September 2013) also features a 600-ohm amplifier and a PCIe interface, but lacks the EMU10K DSP.


Sound Blaster X-Fi

The ''X-Fi'' (for "Extreme Fidelity") was released in August 2005 and came in ''XtremeGamer'', ''Titanium'', ''Titanium Fatal1ty Professional'', ''Titanium Fatal1ty Champion'' and ''Elite Pro'' configurations. The 130 nm
EMU20K E-MU 20K is the commercial name for a line of audio chips by Creative Technology, commercially known as the Sound Blaster X-Fi chipset. The series comprises the E-MU 20K1 (CA20K1) and E-MU 20K2 (CA20K2) audio chips. The 20K1 chip was launched in A ...
1 (or EMU20K2 for Titanium series models) audio chip operates at 400
MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...
and has 51million
transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch e ...
s. The computational power of this processor, i.e. its performance, is estimated as 10,000MIPS, which is about 24 times higher than the estimated performance of its predecessor, the Audigy processor. Beginning with the 2008 Titanium models, newer X-Fi cards switched from PCI to
PCI Express PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), officially abbreviated as PCIe or PCI-e, is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard, designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X and AGP bus standards. It is the common ...
x1 connectors. With the X-Fi's "Active Modal Architecture" (AMA), the user can choose one of three optimization modes: Gaming, Entertainment, and Creation; each enabling a combination of the features of the chipset. The X-Fi uses EAX 5.0 which supports up to 128 3D-positioned voices with up to four effects applied to each. This release also included the 24-bit crystallizer, which is intended to pronounce percussion elements by placing some emphasis on low and high pitched parts of the sound. The X-Fi, at its release, offered some of the most powerful mixing capabilities available, making it a powerful entry-level card for home musicians. The other big improvement in the X-Fi over the previous Audigy designs was the complete overhaul of the resampling engine on the card. The previous Audigy cards had their DSPs locked at 48/16, meaning any content that did not match was resampled on the card in hardware; which was done poorly and resulted in a lot of intermodulation distortion. Many hardcore users worked around this by means of resampling their content using high quality software decoders, usually in the form of a plugin in their media player. Creative completely re-wrote the resampling method used on the X-Fi and dedicated more than half of the power of the DSP to the process; resulting in a very clean resample.


Sixth generation Sound Blaster ''Sound Core3D'' cards


Sound Blaster Recon3D

The Recon3D series was announced in September 2011 and includes the ''Recon3D PCIe'', ''Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional'' and ''Recon3D Fatal1ty Champion''. The cards use the new integrated ''Sound Core3D'' chip, which features the ''Quartet DSP'' from the X-Fi series as well as integrated DAC, ADC and I/O interface in a 56-pin package. The Asia-only ''Recon3D Professional Audio'' is basically a ''Recon3D PCIe'' with some extra accessories such as cables. The Recon3D series of sound cards do not support
ASIO ''Asio'' is a genus of typical owls, or true owls, in the family Strigidae. This group has representatives over most of the planet, and the short-eared owl is one of the most widespread of all bird species, breeding in Europe, Asia, North and S ...
. The Recon3D comes with a bundled software called the SBX Pro Studio. SBX Pro Studio allows users to adjust the amount of virtual Surround, Crystallizer, Bass, Smart Volume and Dialog Plus for their Recon3D sound cards. The Recon3D also has got the Crystal Voice feature that reduces the pickup of background noises like the hairdryer or vacuum cleaner when a beamforming microphone is used. Reviews have been generally positive, but pricing and small model differences have raised questions. Especially the low and mid priced models ''Recon3D PCIe'' and ''Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional'' have only cosmetic differences, but considerable price difference: the ''Fatal1ty Professional'', adds a beamforming microphone, some red LED lights and a metal shroud over the board, but has no real hardware improvements.


Sound Blaster Z-Series

The Sound Blaster Z-Series was announced in August 2012 and includes the
PCI Express PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), officially abbreviated as PCIe or PCI-e, is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard, designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X and AGP bus standards. It is the common ...
x1 cards, ''Z'', ''Zx'' and ''ZxR'' which use the same ''Sound Core3D'' chip as the previous Sound Blaster Recon3D series. The Z-Series improved sound quality over the Recon3D series by including more dedicated audio hardware such as Op-Amps, DACs, and ADCs. * The ''Sound Blaster Z'' is the baseline card of the series. Some of its main features are Cirrus Logic 116dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) digital-to-analog converters (DACs), a dedicated headphone jack with 600 ohm amplifier, and is bundled with a ''Beamforming Microphone'' that captures sound in a specific direction. One can switch between listening with headphones and desktop speakers in the Sound Blaster Z Control Panel. This card has a red color theme with a red LED light on the board. In addition to the red model, there is an OEM version that lacks the LED light, metal shielding and bundled microphone. * The ''Sound Blaster Z SE'' released in 2021 is identical to the Z, but with 7.1 channel virtual surround for compatible headphones, no bundled microphone and no driver CD as the card is only compatible with the Sound Blaster Command software. * The Sound Blaster Zx card is identical to the Z (exact same card, exact same card SKU/Model (SB1500) on card itself, compared side by side in store), with the only notable change compared to the baseline "Z" being the addition of the desktop ACM (Audio Control Module). The Zx & ZxR were both bundled with the Audio Control Module (ACM) which is basically an extension cord for headphones. The ACM contains both 1/4" and 3.5mm headphone and microphone jacks, a potentiometer headphone volume knob, and a built-in dual-microphone Beamforming array. The ACM uses a red color theme that matches the card. The entire package (Card and ACM) carries a separate model number of SB1506, which is different than the base SB1500 printed on the included card (as the card is just a SB-Z now bundled with accessories). * The ''Sound Blaster ZxR'' is the top of line sound card of the series and uses an entirely different card from the Z and Zx. Some of its features include TI
Burr-Brown The Burr-Brown Corporation was an American technology company in Tucson, Arizona, which designed, manufactured, and marketed a broad line of proprietary, standard, high-performance, analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits (ICs) used in elec ...
124dB SNR DACs, two swappable op-amps, a 600ohm 80mW TI TPA6120 headphone amplifier, and 192kHz stereo pass through. The ''Sound Blaster ZxR'' comes with a daughter board which provides optical
S/PDIF S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) is a type of digital audio interface used in consumer audio equipment to output audio over relatively short distances. The signal is transmitted over either a coaxial cable (using RCA or BNC connectors) ...
input and output, and two
RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...
inputs that feature a TI Burr-Brown 123dB SNR analog-to-digital converter (ADC); it has its own ''Sound Core3D'' processor and takes up a second expansion slot in the computer if installed. The ''ZxR'' can record up to 24-bit/96kHz. The ACM and two boards (main and daughter) have a black color scheme with no LED lighting.


Sound BlasterX AE-5/Plus

The Sound BlasterX AE-5 was announced in June 2017, the first discrete sound card made by Creative in five years since the introduction of the Z-series. The card is the first in the Sound Blaster series to use a 32-bit/384kHz SABRE 32 Ultra DAC (ES9016K2M), along with a custom-designed discrete headphone amplifier (1W output power and low output impedance of 1 Ohm so it can provide high damping factor for virtually any dynamic headphone). The card has an additional RGB lighting courtesy of a MOLEX power connection and accompanying RGB LED strip. In late 2017, a white colored model of the sound card called the Sound BlasterX AE-5 Pure Edition was released with 4 RGB LED strips instead of one with the standard black model. In 2020, the AE-5 Plus was released which is similar to the previous model, but the sound card comes with hardware Dolby Digital Live and DTS encoding. There is a white colored Pure Edition released alongside the standard black model.


Sound Blaster AE-7

The Sound Blaster AE-7 was released in July 2019 alongside the Sound Blaster AE-9. It is equipped with an ESS SABRE 9018 DAC, and it features an ACM (Audio Control Module), which connects to the sound card via two of the audio ports available on the card itself. It doesn't feature RGB lighting, contrary to the AE-5, and it doesn't require external power either.


Sound Blaster AE-9

The Sound Blaster AE-9 was announced in December 2018, targeting the audiophile audience. This soundcard is equipped with an ESS SABRE 9038 DAC, and it features an external Audio Control Module which connects to the sound card with a mini-HDMI cable, containing an XLR port for a microphone and a toggleable 48+volt phantom power rail; the sound card itself features replaceable operational amplifiers. The sound card with the external DAC consumes 75W, and thus is the first sound card from Creative that requires auxiliary power, using a 6-pin
PCI-E PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), officially abbreviated as PCIe or PCI-e, is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard, designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X and AGP bus standards. It is the common mot ...
connector to supply power to the external DAC. The card was officially released on July 10, 2019 to celebrate 30 years since the introduction of the original Sound Blaster.


USB audio devices

* Sound Blaster Extigy * Sound Blaster MP3+ * Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX * Sound Blaster X-Fi USB * Sound Blaster X-Fi HD USB * Sound Blaster X-Fi GO! Pro * Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro * Sound Blaster Digital Music Premium HD * Sound BlasterAxx SBX 8 / SBX 10 / SBX 20 * Sound Blaster Play! * Sound Blaster Play! 2 * Sound Blaster Play! 3 * Sound Blaster Omni Surround 5.1 * Sound Blaster R3 * Sound BlasterAxx AXX 200 * Sound Blaster Roar * Sound Blaster Roar 2 * Sound Blaster E1 / E3 / E5 * Sound Blaster JAM *
Sound Blaster X7 The Sound Blaster X7 is a USB audio device that can work without a computer. It was announced on 3 September 2014. It supports Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X computers but requires a power supply to work. The Sound Blaster X7 has the SB-Axx1 soun ...
* Sound Blaster X7 Limited Edition * Sound Blaster FRee * Sound Blaster X3


Connectors


External connector

Sound Blaster cards since 1999 conform to Microsoft's
PC 99 The PC System Design Guide (also known as the PC-97, PC-98, PC-99, or PC 2001 specification) is a series of hardware design requirements and recommendations for IBM PC compatible personal computers, compiled by Microsoft and Intel Corporation duri ...
standard for color-coding the external connectors as follows: Up until the AWE line in 1994, Creative cards have short text inscriptions on the backplane of the card, indicating which port does what (i.e. Mic, Spk, Aux In, Aux Out). On later cards, the text inscriptions were changed to icons. With the latest cards from Creative, the cards were changed to use numbers as the ports are flexi-jacks and can have different functions assigned to them at run-time (i.e. changed from speaker output to mic in), but a color overlay sticker is included with retail units to help consumers identify the commonly used functions of the ports in their default modes.


Internal pin connector and jumper

A lot of audio/data
pin A pin is a device used for fastening objects or material together. Pin or PIN may also refer to: Computers and technology * Personal identification number (PIN), to access a secured system ** PIN pad, a PIN entry device * PIN, a former Dutch de ...
connectors and jumpers-setting is present in the internal body of the sound blaster, different from card to card, and along the years of productions. Most common pin connector: * Audio CD-IN, CD SPDIF and AUX-In * CD-ROM drive connection * PC speaker * TAD (Telephone Answering Device) connector * MB_PRO (Modem Blaster connector) * Wave Blaster Header most common pin jumper setting (especially before
plug-and-play In computing, a plug and play (PnP) device or computer bus is one with a specification that facilitates the recognition of a hardware component in a system without the need for physical device configuration or user intervention in resolving resou ...
features): * Sound Card Base Address/IRQ/DMA * Line or Speaker output * MIDI * Joystick


Driver software modification (soft mod)

Some drivers from the Audigy 2 ZS have been soft-modded by enthusiasts. These can be installed on Creative's older cards, including Sound Blaster Live!, Audigy, and Audigy 2. It has been claimed to offer improved sound quality, hardware acceleration of higher EAX versions in games, 64-channel mixing for Audigy 1, and an overall improvement in the card's performance. Several forum posts across the web have reported favorable results with this technique, excepting Live! users where the drivers only add the ability to use the newer software applications (i.e. the newer mixer applet). Comments on forums from developers of the software mod have said that Live's hardware is not capable of EAX3 nor 64-channels of hardware sound mixing. Later, in 2004, Creative released updated drivers top-to-bottom for the Audigy through Audigy 4 line that put these cards basically at feature parity on a software level. As of 2006, the entire Audigy lineup uses the same driver package. DSP decoding at the driver level on other cards than Audigy 2 ZS and 4 is still not supported by official drivers, but it works with soft-modded drivers on the other cards with hardware DSP (like Audigy 2 6.1). When
Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...
was released, there was only a single beta driver for the Creative Audigy series that was usable on the operating system with minimal functionality and frequent instability reported by users. A Creative Forum activist named Daniel K. modified drivers from the X-Fi and applied it to the Audigy and Live! series, restoring most if not all of the features that came with the original XP setup CD in Vista. X-Fi drivers have noticeably better sound quality under Vista, and more bug fixes because of the newer build (last modified version is 2.15.0004EQ April). He managed to enable the X-Fi Crystallizer to work on Audigy series cards in software, however because of the
patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
s involved, he was forced to remove all the modified drivers and DLL patch. Creative then released a newer official Audigy Vista driver (2.18.0000 as of 28 July 2008) due to public and consumer pressure. However, some form of agreement between Creative and Daniel K has been achieved, as he returned to the Creative forums, posting updated versions of his modified drivers. He released the final version of his modded driver package as of January 12, 2012.


Audio effects processor


Compatibility with Linux

All recent Linux distributions support Sound Blaster Cards via kernel drivers. In case of non-Plug-and-Play ISA cards, a configuration file in must be reconfigured, writing for example with Sound Blaster 16 card installed: . X-Fi series cards have basic support in Linux, but the advanced features like signal routing, relay control or external I/O consoles are not supported. Support for the newer Sound Blaster cards (Z and AE series) was added to the kernel during 4.19–4.20 release timeframe.


See also

*
Ad Lib, Inc. Ad Lib, Inc. was a Canadian manufacturer of sound cards and other computer equipment founded by Martin Prevel, a former professor of music and vice-dean of the music department at the Université Laval. The company's best known product, the ''Ad ...
*
Auzentech Auzentech was a Korean computer hardware manufacturer that specialized in high-definition audio equipment and in particular PC sound cards. Auzentech has its origins in March 2005, when under the company name HDA (HiTeC Digital Audio), the compa ...
*
C-Media C-Media Electronics, Inc. () is a Taiwan computer hardware company that manufactures processors for PC audio and USB storage, and wireless audio devices. Products ISA audio * CMI8328 * CMI8330 PCI audio * CMI8338 * CMI8738-SX * CMI873 ...
*
Ensoniq Ensoniq Corp. was an American electronics manufacturer, best known throughout the mid-1980s and 1990s for its musical instruments, principally Sampler (musical instrument), samplers and synthesizers. Company history In spring 1983, former MO ...
* Gravis Ultrasound *
Loudspeaker A loudspeaker (commonly referred to as a speaker or speaker driver) is an electroacoustic transducer that converts an electrical audio signal into a corresponding sound. A ''speaker system'', also often simply referred to as a "speaker" or " ...
*
Loudspeaker enclosure A loudspeaker enclosure or loudspeaker cabinet is an enclosure (often rectangular box-shaped) in which speaker drivers (e.g., loudspeakers and tweeters) and associated electronic hardware, such as crossover circuits and, in some cases, power ...
*
M-Audio M-Audio (formerly Midiman) is a business unit of inMusic Brands that designs and markets audio and MIDI interfaces, keyboards and MIDI controllers, synthesizers, loudspeakers, studio monitors, digital DJ systems, microphones, and music software. ...
*
Media Vision Media Vision Technology, Inc., was an American electronics manufacturer of primarily computer sound cards and CD-ROM kits, operating from 1990 to approximately 1995 in Fremont, California. Media Vision was widely known for its Pro AudioSpectrum ...
*
Realtek Realtek Semiconductor Corp () is a fabless semiconductor company situated in the Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan. Realtek was founded in October 1987 and subsequently listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 1998. Realtek currently manufactu ...
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Roland Corporation is a Japanese manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, electronic equipment, and software. It was founded by Ikutaro Kakehashi in Osaka on 18 April 1972. In 2005, its headquarters relocated to Hamamatsu in Shizuoka Prefecture. It has fact ...
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TerraTec TerraTec Electronic GmbH is a German manufacturer of sound cards, computer speakers, webcams, computer mice, video grabbers and TV tuner cards. TerraTec is mainly known for its sound cards, and is the largest German producer of them. The compan ...
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Turtle Beach Corporation The Turtle Beach Corporation (commonly referred to as Turtle Beach) is a gaming accessory manufacturer based in San Diego, California. The company has roots dating back to the 1970s where it developed sound cards, MIDI synthesizers, and various ...
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VDMSound VDMSound was an open-source (licensed under GPLv2) emulator of legacy sound card devices, designed to allow video games and other applications written for MS-DOS to run on the Microsoft Windows NT/2000/XP/95/98/Me operating systems. Its author is ...
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VIA Envy Via or VIA may refer to the following: Science and technology * MOS Technology 6522, Versatile Interface Adapter * ''Via'' (moth), a genus of moths in the family Noctuidae * Via (electronics), a through-connection * VIA Technologies, a Tai ...
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Yamaha sound chips Yamaha may refer to: * Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services, established in 1887. The company is the largest shareholder of Yamaha Motor Company (below). ** Yamaha Music Foundation, an organization estab ...


References

;Notes
"Creative Announces Sound Blaster 32"
by Creative Technology on Usenet, June 23, 1995, retrieved January 5, 2006


External links

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Sound Blaster FM emulator and online player for AdLib/Sound Blaster FM musicSetting the BLASTER environment variableCreative Labs – History and MilestoneskX Project (independent WDM driver for EMU10K1 and EMU10K2-based soundcards)Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi 24-bit CrystalizerALive! – The Sound Blaster Live! Resource List of Sound Blaster ProductsSound Blaster Legacy PCI Product Information and Troubshooting (including various model numbers used for each product)Information about SBX Pro StudioCreative Labs – Vogons Wiki
{{PC sound standards Products introduced in 1987 IBM PC compatibles Creative Technology products Sound cards Singaporean brands