2002 Milestones

2002 (Autumn)

Creative Labs, always ready to seize the initiative, sees an opportunity to bring the latest new technologies to an eager PC population. At the same time improving further its flagship audio range. And so "Sound Blaster Audigy® 2" is born and is the first sound card to be certified by THX® Labs for its superior quality as well as unleashing a host of cutting-edge technologies that yet again push Sound Blaster far ahead of any rivals. The new features include full support for Advanced Resolution DVD-Audio playback allowing multi-channel 24-bit/96kHz playback or even stereo at 24-bit/192kHz quality. Bit-True 24-bit/96kHz recording is also supported plus 6.1 Speaker support for games or Dolby Digital® EX movies and finally vastly improved audio quality with up to 106dB SNR. In addition to these astonishing new technologies, many features previously included with the Sound Blaster Audigy card are revamped and improved on. "Creative PlayCenter" becomes "Creative MediaSource" and brings a cleaner, simpler interface with more powerful features. EAX® ADVANCED HD™ is made even more powerful. Its gaming engine upgrade gives better gaming performance and quality and includes support for up to 64 3D hardware voices, while its music engine is also turbo-charged. CMSS becomes CMSS 3D and gives a far superior experience when upmixing MP3 stereo content to multi-channel. Furthermore Audio Clean-Up not only now supports the cleaning of low-bitrate MP3 files, but also a "Live" mode that allows real-time cleaning of source material coming in through the line/mic in while simultaneously storing to MP3 format. With all these new and improved features Sound Blaster Audigy 2 is set to storm the market place.

2002 (Spring)

"Sound Blaster Extigy™" launches and Creative Labs makes super high quality audio available to any user whether they are a technophobic PC user or a Notebook user. Sound Blaster Extigy™ is based on the same principles of quality audio embedded in the Audigy, but all running via the USB architecture. Simple to install and simple to use, Extigy's high-quality, multi-faceted nature will prove irresistible to many users who wouldn't or couldn't buy an internal sound card.