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November 28, 2004
preview: creative cardbus soundblaster card...
The PCMCIA Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Notebook is without doubt one of the most absurd product names cottoned, so I'm probably going to refer to it as the ZS Notebook from here on in. Laptops are becoming increasingly popular, and from my own recent investigations prices seem to be dropping right across the board. Even a moderately specced laptop equipped with a fast external HDD would make a pretty decent mobile audio workstation.
There aren't so many options for improving the sound capabilties of the laptop though - a few years ago slow processor speeds, slow hard disks made it just about pointless to bother with a laptop for music purposes. Moving along though - a couple of years ago Creative released the Audigy EX which was a USB external soundcard - and there has been a few other companies who have come to the table with an internal PCMCIA card soundcard. It's logical that creative have released the ZS Notebook about now - lest their competition get in there with a killer product first.
They claim once again 24 bit audio for the ZS Notebook - which as always I'm a bit dubious about. But enough of that kind of talk. I'm sure the well meaning people in marketing land have checked with legal and it's okay for them to use 24bit in very much the same way cheap stereo makers use the term P.M.P.O instead of watts RMS. It comes with a breakout cable so that you can plug into a 5.1 or 7.1 audio system - obviously for when you're not on the move. It also features support for DTS-EX and Dolby Digital EX decoding. I get the feeling that apart from offering improved sound handling capabilties for the music user, they're pitching this to the laptop user who wants to watch movies with pristine sound at home. Although I imagine if you were that picky about your sound quality, wouldnt you be watching on a bigger screen than that of your standard notebook?
They claim a improvement in the SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio)saying that the noisefloor is much higher with inferior integrated audio - hard to substantiate one way or another, but I'd be inclined to believe them in this particular case - for the ZS Notebook they're speccing a SNR of 104dB. It also features CMSS 3D technology for "a full cinematic experience over headphones or over a multi channel speaker system..." Presumably this means theres a little cannon that comes with this that pelts jaffas and popcorn at the back of your head. Capital!
It'll retail $369 and will be shipping December - that's very soon kids! If you're in need of improved sound on your lappy or just the occasional jaffa pelted at your head drop into your local retailer to check it out.
Posted by funnelbc at November 28, 2004 10:40 AM
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