Creative Audigy 2 ZS Notebook PCMCIA

Creative Audigy 2 ZS Notebook PCMCIA

Published August 25, 2008 at 01:15:45 PM, by Tim Supples

If this year's CES Expo is any indication of new trends in computing, the new buzzword is 'mobile.' Now that we see laptop sales overtaking desktops, manufacturers are gearing up to address the growing demand for laptop upgrades and accessories. Creative has answered the call of consumers that have been asking for true 5.1 sound reproduction on today's laptops. Those who were once envious of the desktop audiophiles that mix, edit and reproduce audio with the power of a standard desktop PC have reason to rejoice: Creative has now come up with a way to be able to listen, rip, mix, and edit audio in full THX certified audio. Notebook users can now enjoy the audio processing power of desktop sound cards on their laptops.

Creative's Audigy 2 ZS not only answers the call, but screams back with the Audigy chipset's legendary features and audio processing capability. This PCMCIA card, the same type of card as most add-in wireless adapters, has the power to process and reproduce audio in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound in addition to the more spectacular 7.1 Dolby Digital EX.. The ZS PCMCIA also supports movies that utilize DTS-ES. Gamers do not find themselves left out either, as Creative included full support for EAX 4.0 ADVANCED HD. Games played with EAX enabled produce true surround sound, support much higher quality sounds, and bring a level of realism to gaming laptops have not yet known.

Design
From the outside, the appearance of the Audigy 2 ZS hides its awesome capabilities. The card looks just like any standard PCMCIA card. Audio connections are made via the two built-in 1/8 inch jacks and 3 colored 1/8 inch jacks on a fan-out cable included with the card. The fan-out cable is made to connect with one of the three connection points on the outside of the card. The 1/8 inch jacks are color-coded black, green, and orange to stay consistent with the industry standard color coding of most speaker configurations. The card also includes a mic/line input, which can be adapted to an optical input, headphone/line output, and an optical output. One drawback is that no SPDIF (optical) to 1/8 inch adaptor cable is included. These cables can be costly since they are not commonly sold at a local retail store. Unfortunately, only an optical connection or analog mic/line connection can be used at one time because they both use the same port.

Line or headphone analog output connections can be plugged into the permanent 1/8 inch jacks or you can go digital by using the same SPDIF adaptor cable mentioned previously, which means the Audigy 2 ZS can connect to computer speaker sets, many home theater receivers, and a host of other audio equipment.

Despite all of the great features Creative's new toy offers, there are other design flaws which became evident when installing it in the PC card slot. The 1/8 inch adaptor and speaker fan-out connection points hang off the side of the laptop, which could tend to lead to several cables getting in the way. Most of today's laptop's include a 802.11b or 802.11g wireless capability preinstalled in the unit, but for the older units having to choose between a wireless card or sound card could prove to be a nuisance.

Installation
Initial setup of the sound card is quick and painless. Simply slide the sound card into your PC card slot, insert the included install disk to install the Creative software & drivers, and with a few clicks of the mouse you will be ready to listen to your favorite music, movies, or games in all of their glory. A word to the wise: after rebooting to finalize the installation, it is HIGHLY recommended that you go to Creative's site and download the plethora of driver and software updates. These updates will hopefully resolve any existing or potential issues.

Creative knows its customers want to be able to use the full capability of its sound card right out of the box, so the sound card has been bundled with many software programs that will help the user to get the most out of the card.

The included speaker connection cable makes it very easy to hook up your 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound speakers. Just plug it in and away you go. Changing between speaker setups is very easy and user friendly. With Creative's easy to use software, you can easily change optimal speaker settings from simple headphones to a 7.1 speaker setup.

The box includes the following:

• PCMCIA Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Notebook Audio Card
• Speaker Docking Cable
• Clear Carrying Case
• Creative Earphones
• Quick Start leaflet
• Creative DVD-Audio Sampler Disc
• Sounds Best on Sound Blaster CD
• Installation and Applications CD containing:
• Drivers for Windows XP & 2000
• Creative Software Suite
• User's Guide

The card includes a number of control panels to master every aspect of the sound card, enabling users tweak it to their heart's delight. In addition to the drivers and control panels, Creative includes software that lets you edit, cut, and splice sound files or create your favorite mix CD.

The various setup consoles can help users test and diagnose their speaker setup functionality. For example, the THX Console enables the user to go through certain setup test that will help get speaker distance and delays as close to LucasArt's strict THX specifications as possible.

Other programs included in the package are a media playback center, audio converter, and organizer. Creative does an excellent job of supplying the average user with a nice library of software, but most of these programs do not offer the more advanced tools or functionality that other stand alone programs offer.

• Drivers for Windows 2000 & XP
• Creative MediaSource Go!
• Creative MediaSource Go! Launcher
• Creative MediaSource Player
• Creative MediaSource Organizer
• Creative MediaSource Audio/Media Converter
• Creative MediaSource DVD-Audio Player
• Creative Audio Console
• Creative EAX Console
• Creative THX Setup Console
• Creative Surround Mixer
• Creative SoundFont Bank Manager
• Creative Smart Recorder
• Creative WaveStudio
• Creative Graphic Equalizer
• Creative Diagnostics
• Creative Performance Utility

After first installing the card and its software/drivers, the Audigy 2 ZS becomes the primary audio output device for the laptop. Once the card is removed (it must be ejected using the 'Safely Remove Hardware' feature), the laptop's original soundcard and settings are supposed to take effect. Unfortunately, this was not always the case on our IBM Thinkpad T42. IBM does integrate a hardware-based volume control, which might conflict with the Audigy 2 ZS, but I could not consistently get the ZS to install and remove without crashes and lockups. Sometimes you could remove the card and continue using the integrated sound, but sometimes Windows would lock-up. Most of the time inserting the card while booted into Windows worked fine, but again there were sporadic crashes involved. The safest way to use this card interchangeably with the integrated sound is to completely shut Windows down and remove or insert the card. The fresh Windows boot will detect and implement the Audigy 2 ZS perfectly.

These configuration issues may have just been related to our Thinkpad test model, but regardless we cannot recommend this card for a truly mobile user. Somebody on the go will probably want to remove and install the card based on their specific usage, which the Audigy 2 ZS is not too friendly about. For DTR laptops that stay in one place most of the time with a consistent headphone or speaker hookup, Creative's new card should work well.

Features

High-Quality Audio Reproduction
Most audio related companies like to throw around a lot of technical terms regarding playback quality. Before we discuss the Audigy 2 ZS's audio features, let's go over some terminology. All of Creative's Audigy 2 ZS lineup use 24-bit Digital-to-Analog and Analog-to-Digital converters with a 'resolution' (or sampling rate) up to 192 kHz. For the audio un-initiated, 24-bit audio conversion refers to how many bits of data are used to 'sample' the audio. Think of it as how much data is used to describe a single second of the music you listen to. Obviously the more information you have on how it sounds, like the high's or low's in a song, the better the computer can reproduce your audio.
96 kHz or 192 kHz refers to the sampling rate; how many times per second the 24-bits of data are collected on the audio. The unit Hertz means cycles per second. Thus if you sample audio at 192,000 (k = kilo = thousand) samples per second with 24-bits of data per sample, that is a LOT of data used to reproduce the audio you're listening to. In addition, the Audigy 2 ZS boasts a signal-to-noise ration of 104dB. This ratio basically gives you a way to measure the clarity of the audio, as signal-to-noise ratio basically means how many times more powerful the intended audio signal is compared to the noise on the same line. 104dB is a very high ratio, as 90dB is considered "CD Quality."

To put all of this in perspective, let's discuss the features of the standard integrated sound card. A very common integrated sound is made by SoundMAX and is featured in many Intel-based notebooks. The SoundMAX integrated sound card uses 20-bit Digital-to-Analog converters, which claim a signal to noise ratio of 100dB, with up to a 48kHz sampling rate. SoundMAX also supports DirectSound, 5.1 surround sound, EAX 2.0, and Aureal3D. If you compare the specifications to the ones we discussed above, you will see how even on paper integrated sound is significantly inferior to the Audigy 2 ZS. Add the inferior features to the fact that integrated sound offloads a lot of the work the CPU, and you have discovered for yourself the reasons why most PC audiophiles avoid integrated sound at all costs.

Lastly, there is one other major difference between integrated sound and the Audigy 2 ZS. With the less powerful hardware features present in integrated solutions comes less power draw. In our tests using MobileMeter and a Thinkpad T42, it became apparent that using the Audigy 2 drew about 2W more power compared to integrated sound. Unfortunately we don't have a more empirical method to use at this time, given the lack of software to monitor & record power draw.
Regardless, we conducted the test with the CPU speed, screen brightness, and audio volume at maximum with MobileMark running in the background. So how much of a difference does an extra 2W actually make when running on battery? It is about the same amount of power drawn with your screen at full brightness versus minimum brightness. Overall, the Audigy 2 ZS was engineered to be very power efficient given its goal is to amplify and modulate audio signals.

Even if you use your laptop sound card for nothing but music listening, you will be able to greatly appreciate the Audigy 2 ZS. When switching from integrated sound to the Creative card, the music really comes alive. Highs and lows truly have more depth to them, with a clarity you didn't realize you were missing from integrated sound. For those who like their audio to be almost perfect reproduced on DVD Audio discs, the ZS supports hardware decoding of DVD Audio with its built-in program. With 24-bit decoding at 96kHz (Surround)/192kHz (Stereo), DVD audio discs will really shine.

Extensive Setup Consoles
Creative really went all out with giving the user as many customizeable options as possible. With Speaker Settings, Surround Mixer, THX Setup, EAX Setup, and Graphic Equalizer consoles, the user's listening experience can go from Plug-N-Play Automatic to more customized than a Whopper from Burger King.

The THX Setup Console gives you an almost ridiculous number of options for optimizing your THX-Certified listening experience. Simply specify the type of speaker setup you have and the brave can then venture on to entering their speaker layout, giving a truly personalized setup.

If you do install the Creative MediaSource Player, you have the ability to Clean-up existing audio files through the EAX Console. This clean-up process consists of hiss and clicking noise removal, as well as an option for volume leveling. As much as I have complained about Creative's lack of advanced software, you don't need anything advanced here. This program is simple and effective, as it should be. It is great for those who rip of a lot of music to play on their computer, as each CD is recorded at its own volume level and comes with its own imperfections.

If you enjoy customizing your audio in the least, you will become very intimate with this little beauty. The Graphic Equalizer console allows for excellent tweaking of the sound bouncin' around your ear drums. There are a number of preset equalizer profiles, but the best truly comes from setting up your own Custom equalizer. You can save any number of custom settings, allowing you to have different profiles for music, gaming, movies, or in my case - turning the bass down at night!

Gaming
In addition to all of the audio quality enhancing features discussed above, the PCMCIA ZS supports just about every 3D Audio format used in gaming. For those who are less familiar with EAX, it is basically an extension of the existing DirectSound and OpenAL sound engines. EAX adds the appropriate reverberation to game noises based on the environment the game is taking place in. It of course supports the most common EAX 3.0 and the newest EAX 4.0, but for the less advanced games also covers the industry-wide standard Direct Sound 3D and the older Aureal 3D. We will cover the gaming aspect more in our Performance section.

Movies
As most of you who have shopped for speakers or surround receivers know, there is a plethora of surround audio formats out there. Luckily the Audigy 2 ZS supports the major formats and can also play unsupported surround formats or regular two-channel source in a simulated surround sound. Dolby Digital EX and DTS ES are the two movie audio surround formats supported by the ZS. As most of you probably know, Dolby Digital EX is the latest evolution of the famous Dolby surround encoding, supporting up to a 7.1 speaker configuration. For more information on Dolby Digital EX, take a look at Dolby's website. DTS ES is basically the other major competing surround sound audio format, offering up to 6.1 speaker support. For general audio surround reproduction, Creative does have their CMSS 3D system and DTS Neo:6. As far as I can tell, the two are very similar and basically take a two channel source (like a stereo audio CD) and 'convert' the audio to play on a surround speaker set. While it doesn't provide a true surround experience like you get from a movie, but it does increase the user's immersion in whatever kind of media they are watching/listening to.

Recording

While it would be fairly safe to assume that most mobile users won't worry much about recording audio, some DTR owners are bound to want to record some of their artistic flirtations and the Audigy gives you the means. You can record at almost the same quality level as the Audigy can play back, up to 24-bit sound with 96kHz sampling rate. The Creative software is very user friendly, and accordingly very basic. It allows you a full range of options, including the modifying the recording level, output format & quality, scheduled recordings, and more. However, beyond this recording doesn't get much more advanced. Regardless, you are given the means to record high quality audio and any third-party recording package should really make use of this advanced hardware.

Performance

Setup
The following notebook and configuration was used for testing:

• Sony VAIO A250 Centrino Notebook
• Supplied Headphones
• Cambridge Sound Works 5.1 Audio Speakers
• Half Life 2
• Star Wars DVD Movie

Games
To effectively test the sound card for gaming, Valve's Half life 2 seemed to be the proper choice. HL2 is designed to take advantage of today's newest hardware and provides one of the most immersive gaming experiences available. The audio reproduction testing consists of using the supplied headphones, the standard onboard laptop stereo speakers, and a Cambridge Sound Works 5.1 speaker set. Half Life 2 is the perfect tool to test the audio gaming muscle that the Audigy line is known for. The ear bud headphones supplied with the card perform quite well compared to most manufacturer included headphones and it's a nice addition to have it packaged in the card.

The Audigy 2 ZS was quite impressive in Half Life 2 thanks to the superb EAX sound processing. When there was dialog between characters, as you looked away from the person speaking the directional audio dialog panned from left to right and was absolutely seamless. In addition, moving away from the character decreased the volume as if one were really walking away. Reverb and echo effect were right on queue within different environments, like shooting down a hallway or shooting outside both produce slight variances in the environmental sounds. The overall gaming experience really highlights the Audigy 2 ZS's superb sound quality over the standard integrated sound.

DVD Playback
The Star Wars Episode II DVD was used to take advantage of advanced THX encoding for our test here. For the best playback possible, digital output was setup through a surround sound receiver on a home theater setup. The audio playback was crisp and sound field processing was right on target with the center, side, and rear channels all outputting their proper audio tracks. The laptop's integrated sound chipset and speakers are sufficient for casual watching, but are less than mediocre in comparison to a 5.1 surround setup. Playback quality of course varies depending with what type of speaker setup you have, but to get the best listening experience out of the ZS a 5.1 surround sound setup is the way to go. When buying a sound card of this quality, a surround speaker set or higher end headphones are a must. Headphone playback was better than expected with the included ear bud set, but listening to a 5.1 simulated environment proved headphones a moot point. A powerful surround speaker setup is what the Creative design team had in mind.

Music Playback
As one would probably gather from the DVD movie results, music playback is top notch. Whether playing from an audio CD, MP3, streaming music, or any other source, the Audigy 2 ZS will really bring your music to life. The standard 7-band graphic equalizer should provide most users enough customization to tune their style of music, but if that's not enough you can also activate the EAX Advanced EQ. The Advanced EQ has different listening profiles setup to really let your genre of music shine. For some of my more bass-heavy songs, I would pull up the 'Drum and Bass' EAX Advanced EQ setting and really pound my skull with some low-frequency sound waves. Now EAX usually involves more data processing, theoretically on the sound card's part, so to make sure it wasn't negatively effecting the computer I used the Windows Performance Monitor to get the average CPU usage. Measuring playback during the same song with the EAX Advanced EQ on and off, CPU usage was actually 1% lower with EAX enabled. This tells us that the Audigy 2 ZS is doing its job and that no matter how you want to listen to your music, you won't have to compromise your computer's performance to do so.

Unfortunately Creative's bundled music playback and organization software really drops the ball. The MediaSource package has a neat interface to it, but regardless does not cut the cake for anyone beyond the novice user. The player offers very little display customization and the playlist/music management feature is painful to use. There is no graphical display output like in Windows Media Player or Winamp. Creative did do a nice job of putting the audio recording, ripping, cleanup, and playback features into one neat package. Unfortunately, each of these components offers little customizability and is more painful to use than it would be to drive a Suburban with no power steering.

Headphones
With most portable pieces of audio equipment, the manufacturer includes the cheapest piece of crap horrible headphones possible. Creative has decided to distinguish themselves here and actually include some noteworthy ear-buds. Surprisingly the ear-buds also fit rather comfortably, being snug enough to stay in without causing discomfort. Sound reproduction is about average, not the best but it could certainly be worse. There is a surprising amount of bass, with mid and high range sounds distinguishable. However, as a whole it seemed as though the mids & highs could have used a little more clarity.

In experimenting with third-party headphones, I picked up my trust old Aiwa HP-X223 headphones. These headphones are a large, over-the-ear style that blocks out a lot of ambient and background noise. These have a much better frequency response, providing deep, bellowing bass with precise mids and highs. They are also a steal at an MSRP of $29.99. For the user that wants maximum sound reproduction on the go, these headphones are great to pull out when you've settled in somewhere. The Audigy 2 really puts some power to these puppies and with the multitude of equalizer and EAX settings, you'll be sure to find a setting that maximizes your headphones.

Conclusion

Pros:

• Best-in-class audio reproduction
• 5.1, 6.1, or 7.1 surround sound
• Extensive configuration consoles/settings
• Analog and Digital input/outputs

Cons:

• Expensive
• Very basic bundled audio software
• Not 100% hot swappable

Recommendation
Keeping with the Audigy tradition, this PCMCIA version has done its desktop brethren proud. Everything is up to par with the desktop Audigy 2 ZS, minus some of the extra ports. Gaming performance is the most realistic and immersing one has ever experienced on a laptop, especially when paired with a decent set of surround speakers. The difference in audio reproduction is night and day when compared with integrated sound. From vocals to bass, every distinct audio frequency is immeasurably clearer and stronger than ever possible before. Unfortunately, this high end audio reproduction comes at a price. Added bulk, imperfect hot swapping, and a price tag of $129.99 detract from the excellent performance of the Audigy 2 ZS.

Sound reproduction was clean and crisp across DVD, audio, and gaming formats. Unfortunately, the card falls short in a few instances. The utilization of the PCMCIA slot for a sound card can be a drawback when it's competing with a wireless network card. In addition, the card really is meant for individuals that use their laptop as desktop replacements. Since the Audigy sticks out about an inch from the laptop and has issues with hot swappability, it truly belongs in a DTR notebook. Creative did put some thought into the physical design of the ZS, as the plastic piece that sticks out doesn't feel flimsy in the least. Despite the solid design, the risk breaking the end off and the hot swap difficulties make this card difficult to recommend for someone who is truly mobile. It deserves to be mentioned that Creative does include a plastic protective sleeve for the PCMCIA card when it isn't in use. When Creative gets the Hot Swappability issue sorted out, or when used on a laptop without this conflict, the Audigy will be ready to go for mobile usage.
Another lacking feature is a Firewire port. In many digital audiophile circles, Firewire has become the standard connection. Not all laptops come with Firewire and it would be a welcome addition, assuming there is enough physical room for the plug and associated wiring. Perhaps an addition to the breakout-cable?

In all practicality, this card is really only designed for users that want to have the same sound-related performance and features as a more powerful desktop system. The necessary adaptors that hang from the card and increased bulkiness make this less than the perfect mobile audio solution. From this reviewer's perspective, most mobile audiophiles are not going to have headphones that use an optical connection. Integrated analog connectors with an optical-port dongle would have made more sense and allowed for a product that is easier to use on a daily, mobile basis. For people who use their laptop as a desktop replacement, this mobile sound card is an excellent choice. Creative's Audigy 2 ZS brings top-notch audio reproduction on the road with almost no compromise in quality, just in your wallet.

Despite the drawbacks for mobile users, this card is an excellent choice for high-quality audio on a DTR system. Accordingly, the Creative Audigy 2 ZS has earned LaptopLogic's Highly Recommended Award.

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Technical Specifications

No specifications are available.