Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Brand: Creative Labs
• Model: SB4740
• Platforms: Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 95
• Original language: English

Features

• CD-quality audio with a fast PCI connection
• Based on the award-winning SoundBlaster 16
• 128-voice MIDI music synthesizer
• Plug and play
• Backed by a three year warranty

From the Manufacturer
For value-oriented and upgrade customers and businesses who are looking for a dependable, reliable, and branded solution. The Sound Blaster 16 PCI is an easy to use, entry level sound card for general-purpose audio applications. Sound Blaster 16 PCI will compete and excel in the price/performance category.

From the Manufacturer
Based on the award-winning Sound Blaster 16 technology, the Sound Blaster 16 PCI delivers the same high-quality audio with the performance increase of the PCI bus. Sound Blaster 16 PCI 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 PCI 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 PCI provides support for positional 3-D sound technology to provide spacious sound on headphones or 2 speaker configurations. The included bundled software allows you to play and record your own sounds and music and experience streaming Internet audio in real-time. All of this is backed by the industry standard Sound Blaster compatibility, quality and support. The Sound Blaster 16 PCI is the most affordable Sound Blaster PCI product to date. Get a Sound Blaster 16 PCI and hear the difference for yourself. Technical Features

Wave-Table Synthesis

• Creative music synthesis engine
• Digital effects engine for reverb and chorus
• Scalable voice polyphony with multi-timbral capability
• 16 MIDI channels with 128 GM & GS compatible instruments and 10 drum kits
• 2 MB, 4 MB and 8 MB wave-table sample sets included

3-D Audio Technology

• User-selectable settings that are optimized for headphones or 2 speakers
• Support for Microsoft DirectSound and DirectSound 3-D and derivative audio technology
• Support for Environmental Audio (EAX)property set extensions. They recreate real-world audio environments in supported titles
• Localized 3-D sound technology expands the spaciousness of sounds in a traditional two speaker system

CD-Quality, 16-bit Digital Audio Engine

• User-selectable bit resolutions from 4 to 16 bit
• User-selectable sample rates from 5kHz to 48kHz
• All sound sources are handled with 16-bit precision for optimal quality
• Mono and stereo playback modes supported
• Hardware full-duplex support enables simultaneous record and playback at arbitrary bit/sample rates
• Utilizes AC'97 audio codec

MIDI Interface/Joystick Port

• Supports Sound Blaster MIDI and MPU-401 modes
• IBM compatible 15-pin joystick port with analog support
• Support for digital and DirectInput game devices

On-Board Connectors

• Line In
• Microphone In
• Line Level Out
• MIDI/Joystick port
• Telephone Answering Device In
• MPC-3 Analog CD Audio In
• Auxiliary In

Works with the Following Standards

• Windows 95, 98, NT4.0, 2000 and Millennium Edition
• General MIDI
• MPC-3
• Plug and Play
• Sound Blaster PCI
• EAX
• Microsoft DirectSound, DirectSound 3-D and derivatives
• PCI 2.1 compliant

Customer Reviews

Easy to Use, Almost everything you could want
This sound card doesn't reproduce MP3 or WAV files any differently than a more expensive card would. Creative Labs has always made great cards and drivers. The only thing this card doesn't give you that the more expensive card do is the 3d sound effects when playing video games, and true Dolby 5.1 for DVD playback. However, I doubt many people are setup for this situation, and many people do not watch DVD's or play games. If this is you, this card is perfect for you. If you are a gamer then this card will work perfectly fine. I personally find the 3d effects annoying, and prefer to play on a card like this. I highly recomend this card.

Be careful what is written on the box
I purchased the Creative Sound Blaster 16 PCI card to replace my built in sound engine. The installation was simple, typical of a pci card. The inclosed directions to install the card were ample to do the job. 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. It does say on the box this card is Windows XP compatible. It will work but the drivers on the installation disk are not Microsoft "signed" which means you must force the driver installation. Again, not a big thing, Windows XP took the drivers and the card worked fine. 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. That I did, found one from Creative's website; downloaded and installed it. Here is where you must be very careful. My very latest version of Windows XP/SP1 loaded this latest driver and then the sound system promptly shutdown. No sound at all came from the speakers. I rebooted a couple of times thinking the reset would correct the problem. It didn't nor did XP indicate a problem with the hardware or driver in the system/hardware file. Fortunately XP allowed me to go back to the earlier driver and the sound was back on. 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. 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. Maybe a new set of speaks will help.

An effective basic soundcard
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. I bought a pre-owned computer from ebay last month in order to practice setting up computer networks at home. 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. 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). I added a Sony DVD player, this particular Soundblaster soundcard, and a pair of Cambridge Soundworks speakers. Within thirty minutes, I was watching The Lord of Rings.

Now, about the Soundblaster. This is a very good Soundcard for its intended purpose. Which is to provide basic sound functionality to a desktop computer. The sound quality is good enough to enjoy listening to stereo sounds from music CDs and DVDs. But please, do not expect this card to provide you with theatre-like surround sound quality. This is definitely the wrong price range if you need that kind of quality.

I compared the sound quality of this office system to my primary home system. My home system is a Dell Dimension 8200, with a Turtle Beach Soundcard and the Altec Lansing surround system. I switched the mode of operation of the Altec Lansings from surround to stereo for comparison purposes between the two systems. 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 inexpensive and easy to install. It will require the use of one of your PCI slots. For your information, I installed this card on an IBM 300PL desktop PC. The system has a Pentium III processor and 128 MB of RAM. It is running an evaluation copy of Windows 2000 Advanced Server. The DVD player is a Sony DDU1621 and the Monitor is a KDS 17 inch flat screen CRT. If you are interested, I wrote reviews on the KDS monitor and the Sony DVD player, here at Amazon.