Boy, this was close.  I would have loved to say that the DMX 6-fire pummeled the eX, but it was not to be.  Despite many little flaws here and there, I can honestly say this is the finest Creative product I've ever tested.  The eXs' sound, features, and functionality combine to kick major ass.  It's not for everyone, however.  It's expensive and will eat up some desk space.  And that driver install is deadly to the enthusiasm.  Other than that, the eX is truly unbelievably good. 

For games, you can't really do better than Creative's Audigy2 line.  The eX has all the EAX 3.0 (Advanced HD) features that will be appearing in many upcoming games, including Elite Forces II, Deus Ex 2, and Half-Life2, just to name-drop a few.  It should enhance the Immersion Factor (TM).  As an added bonus, the eX will only take up about 3-5% of your CPU cycles to get its work done.

If you thought previous Creative products sound good, then the eX will make you positively giddy.  It might even pop an eardrum.  While Creative has yet to produce a sound card that hits 106dB SNR, RMAA 5.0 tells us that the eX is the best measuring sound card we've yet tested.  It set new records in lowest noise, highest dynamic range, and best stereo imaging.  It did spectaculary well digitizing vinyl LP records.  It sounded even better than Terratec's DMX 6-fire, with a rather pleasing sound.  It was, however, a little difficult to use, or at least not as easy to use as the DMX 6-fire.  It's really a gaming card that can do 24 bit/96kHz digitizing, as opposed to a 24 bit/96kHz home studio sound card that can game.

The Creative Sound Blaster Audigy2 Platinum eX is an outstanding product.  The eX is a Swiss-Army-Knife of a sound card that can do triple duty in games, music creation, and digitizing.  If you require such a thing, it will knock your socks off.  With a, "Swish!" sound.

Highly Recommended !

Find the best price for the eX in our comparison database.

Stuff That is Always at The End

Special thanks to Creative for supplying the eX. It only took, what, two months to finish the review ?

http://www.soundblaster.com/products/audigy2_platinum_ex/

http://eax.creative.com/advanceeax.asp

http://www.americas.creative.com/support/

http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/apr02/articles/terratecdmx6.asp

http://audio.rightmark.org

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/terratecdmx6fire/

http://www.digitalfishphones.com/main.php?item=2&subItem=6

http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-999612.html?tag=fd_top

http://www.dvdaudiopreview.com/about/index.html

http://www.winamp.com/

http://www.gradolabs.com/

http://www.rega.co.uk/indes2.htm

Test System:

Asus A7N8X Dee-luxe

AMD Athlon XP 1700+

512MB Crucial DDR 2100

Gainward GF4 4200

IBM GXP60, 75

Terratec DMX 6-fire

Audio System:

Rotel RX845 receiver

Rega Planar2 w/Sumiko BluePoint MM cartridge

Sony XA1-ES CD player

KEF Q-30 loudspeakers

Grado SR-125 reference series headphones

KiKi T. Cat

BAM

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