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I love getting video feedback as a response to something I’ve done. It’s very cool when I’m able to show you guys a video that one of you have done and incorporate it into a video that I am doing. This video is one done by a person wondering why I don’t really talk about Creative’s products.

I’ve owned Creative products in the past, but I haven’t purchased any in quite a few years. I just haven’t found anything worth buying. Many years ago, I installed a Creative sound card though. Do you remember how cool it was to hear things come out of your computer? I even remember a piece of software called Dr. Sbaitso that allowed me to type in words and have the program repeat them to me. I used to giggle over typing in curse words, and hearing the computer cuss at me!

The Creative Zen Jukebox was a 60GB mp3 player. I bought it because at that point it was the only MP3 player on the market that had such a high capacity. It would also play .wma files, as well. Since then, I haven’t really purchased any Creative products since then. In my mind, none of them have been that interesting to me. I still have the hard drive out of that little piece of hardware.

The one thing that has always plagued Creative is their software. If I had to give them a grade on it, it would be a D. I always found it lacking. It wasn’t designed well, wasn’t clean, and wasn’t as integrated as it could have been.

Now that I’m a cross-platform kind of guy, and own an iPhone, I just don’t have a need to buy any Creative products. They haven’t really created anything that I would want to take a look at. Looking at their site, they have sound cards, speakers, and headsets… all of which I really don’t need. Even when I did, my old software experience with them just made me turn away from trying them out.

So now you know why I don’t own or use Creative products. Maybe many of you out there will follow up and let me know why you do or don’t use Creative products. Don’t just say they’re “awesome!” or “horrible!”. Tell me why you feel the way you do. I really want to know.

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Does Anybody Buy Creative’s Hardware Anymore?

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One of the callers from the 888-PIRILLO line is having trouble connecting his home theater system to his PC. He can hear sounds coming from it, but when he plays games and such, he’s not getting surround sound.

If all the cables are connected properly, and your sound card can handle it… you may need a different type of cable. Make sure that the speakers, sound card and cables you have are all capable of supporting Surround Sound. I asked what kind of cable he’s using. He’s using a standard mini-jack… which will not give him 5.1 Surround Sound. I let him know he’s going to have to have at least five cables. 5.1is the most common surround setup: pairs of front and rear speakers, plus a front center “dialog” speaker. Look for Dolby Digital or DTS in games and DVDs.

Perfecting your sound is a three-step process. To start you need to correctly configure your soundcard. All the big players provide some sort of Control Panel or configuration software that lets you adjust the card’s settings to suit your speaker system. At the very least it should let you pick the number of speakers you’re using or choose headphones. In many cases there are wizards to make the process easier.

Next you’ll need to set your application software, be it a DVD player or the latest game. For games the usual options are for A3D, EAX, DirectSound or alternative. Some DVD players now offer virtual Dolby or a full Dolby software decoder built-in – this provides you with a Dolby certified decoding system that will then work with any speaker system.

The final step is to check your speakers. The optimal positioning is to have the satellites at ear height and equally spread out. Any central speaker should be placed either above or below the monitor, while the subwoofer can technically be placed anywhere, though towards the front of the room is best.

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Home Theater Speakers and your PC

As a follow-up to the Windows Vista Story, Lockergnomie Jerry Whelan just sent me an update about Windows Vista’s audio bugaboos…

It’s unbelievable that Microsoft would dump the HAL Layer for sound cards because doing so kills all the advanced features of all the cards. The real problem comes with home recording – ALL the controls, such as volume mixer, reverb, panning, graphic equalizer, noise removal, EAX effects, stereo tweaks, multiple inputs, and anything else you can think of that makes home recording possible and effective – well, they’re gone and you can no longer use them. In other words, you might as well make your recordings on an old tape cassette recorder.

I have a home recording studio that’s usually pretty busy, but now it’s dead, dead and gone, and all my expensive hardware is now mostly useless. I upgraded to Vista, got the driver for my Audigy 4 Pro sound card, was even getting ready to upgrade to an X-Fi card, when I discovered that the whole range of audio controls was no longer there, and will also no longer be there in the X-Fi card. When I called Creative tech support they informed me, with bitterness, irony, and some weeping, that Microsoft has removed the Hardware Abstraction Layer for advanced sound and has left us all in the dark – darkness and silence. All advanced sound cards have suffered a similar fate, and many video cards too, so everyone who shelled out the money for advanced hardware has been effectively told by Microsoft, “Too bad.”

As I said, it’s unbelievable. I have had to reinstall Windows XP in a dual-boot configuration with Vista so I can use my sound studio again, and am still trying to get everything to work right. Reinstalling Windows XP after installing Windows Vista caused horrible and terrifying disk error problems with conflicting partitions, which took me an entire day to fix, made ten times more difficult because Microsoft has tightened up the controls so severely on how you can install and upgrade the Vista OS. All of this is cold-blooded murder, and all of it relates to the well known tendency of Microsoft to go for the buck whenever possible (and they probably have enough bucks already).

I haven’t wanted to buy a Creative product in years – especially after one of their reps was a complete asshole to me. I have a high definition audio system built into the motherboard on this rig, and Vista’s software has been beyond impressive. I have more jacks than I know what to do with, although I can see how I’d want even more if I were doing anything advanced.

Creative Sound Windows Vista Audio Warning