Unreal Tournament 2004 in particular sounded really great with full 3D sound and EAX support and it was definitely satisfying having so much noise emerge from a portable machine. The Advent machine however, gave the expected results with all the high performance features available. There was clearly a problem with the speed of communication over the interface, Creative isn’t responsible for the particular PC Card chipset in the computer, but the performance utility should have detected this. On the Microstar machine, high performance mode was automatically selected, but testing using the DirectSound, WDM and ASIO 2.0 drivers gave nothing but crackling, as did DVD Audio. One of the tools is a diagnostic program that suggests the most suitable mode, depending on the bus speed of the PC Card slot. Results were very mixed, due in the main to what appear to be software issues. Testing involved two notebook machines, a Microstar machine from 2003 with Windows XP Service Pack 2 and a new Advent machine running Service Pack 1, both with broadly similar specs, substantially above the Creative recommended specifications. However, unless you have a recent laptop, you can’t be sure as to which features will be available until the card is installed. In standard mode the notebooks CPU will be used instead. Many of the headline features, such as EAX 4.0, hardware voice mixing and high resolution DVD Audio (not to be confused with DVD movie soundtracks) are only possible in the high performance mode and this is something that I would have preferred to see more clearly highlighted on the packaging. The two modes are high performance mode and standard mode. Whilst the card has the capabilities of a desktop Audigy 2 ZS, the range of accessible features does depend on the speed of the laptop’s PC Card bus. For example, the equalizer application installs separately from the mixer application, which is different from the speaker app. Many are confusingly titled and could very easily be merged together. A full install of the ZS notebook involves no less than seventeen separate applications – overkill in anybody’s book. I have never had much affection for the Creative software suite, which seems to become more bloated with every new piece of hardware released. Creative suggests that the breakout cable is left connected to the speakers and detached from the machine rather than fiddling with all the audio connections every time the laptop is moved.

Physically, the card is well designed and looks very smart, sitting flush inside your laptop’s PC card slot. No games are included however, although you do get a very serviceable pair of earphones as part of the package and a cheap looking plastic wallet in which to store the card. Three discs are included, a driver disc, a DVD Audio demonstration CD and a rather self-serving promo CD advertising EAX capable games. These are multi-purpose and double up as optical digital connectors. On the card itself are two further mini-jack connections for headphones, and microphone or line inputs. The card is supplied with a connecting cable featuring three female mini-jack connections the same kind of connection to be found on the back of a conventional 5.1 capable consumer sound cards. For gamers in particular, no other card offers this range of features, and it’s potentially a perfect companion for laptops that like to take their owners to LAN parties. You get Dolby Digital EX and DTS ES decoding, of up to 7.1 surround channels, a healthy signal to noise ratio that will have no trouble walking over an onboard sound chip, EAX support, hardware mixing to reduce the load on the CPU and high resolution DVD Audio. With the sound card market so competitive, it’s in Creative’s interest to attract as many market segments as possible.Īs such, the Audigy 2 ZS Notebook is designed to be a one-stop solution. Enter the Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Notebook.įeaturing the same EMU10K2 audio processor as its PCI counterpart, the Audigy 2 ZS Notebook represents the portable sound card to be released with full hardware mixing, surround capabilities and EAX 4.0 Advanced HD – a great range of features for the price. While there are plenty of USB sound cards for laptops these don’t offer the convenience of the PC Card form factor and are held back by the limited bandwidth of USB. As the foremost name in PC audio, it’s no surprise therefore that Creative has stepped up to plug the gap in the market. While laptop owners are starting to enjoy graphical power to match their desktop cousins, portable machines still tend to lag behind when it comes to audio.

Audify reviews