I have been looking to purchase a Soundblaster Live! 24-bit External Soundcard. What do other people think of it? is it good? is it worth the money? if you dont think its good, any recommedations?

It all depends what you want to use it for..My friend has one and its ok quality just to listen to music or play games..but if you want to do more serious audio work then its really not able to compete with for instance M-Audio usb or firewire soundcards..

yeah im not looking for something to do really serious work but just games and music! also, it says that it is able to record from old tapes and records through a connection and has some kind of filter that can fix the quality! is this good is is it just another fancy feature?

Thanks!!

Any soundcard with a line in connection can do this (with the right cables!!)..and yes I doubt very much Creative will bundle a decent app to do this with..look at something like Wavelab from Steinberg to be able to filter and de noise old recordings..

cool, thanks for your advice mark!!

Does it have 5.1 support? Even if you don't have a surround system its always good to plan ahead. Also, why did you decide to go with the external? I've got an Audigy 2 ZS that I absolutely LOVE! It has the front I/O drive so I don't have to pull out my computer every time I want to hook up any MIDI, optical, coaxial, earphone, or mic devices. I forget how much I paid...I don't think it was very cheap though. Might be something to look into.

Also, thanks for the idea mark. I've been meaning to clean up some recordings for a while...I'll check wavelab out.

yeah it does have 5.1 support. one of the reasons i opted for the external soundcard over the internal version was that I needed something that i could move from computer to computer easily and i would also be able to use on my laptop. also, it will make it easier connecting devices, like as you said, i wont have to pull the computer out.

A good gaming sound card is the creative X-FI series, they are a good performer and can actually boost your frame rates a bit because it uses it's own in built x-ram. The x-fi series also supports upto version 5 of advanced EAX high definition and a range of different modes for listening to music or playing games. I've found that here they are pretty cheap for an awesome product.

You can check them out more over here: http://creative.com/products/welcome.asp?category=209
(I'd recommend you take a look at the xtremegamer or the xtrememusic, both have gaming support)

-HellFire

well... i can say it's a very good soundcard... for both gaming and music... the sound is really nice, and really clear, but you must double this with some good quality speakers... because the card may be good, but if the speakers are unable to play all the sounds your souncard can make ... you investment is useless

the feature you where talking about... is worth the money if you wish to do some kind of recording, because the filters make the sound to have less noise when you record it...

creative is generally the best brand for PC soundcards... that means if you just want to play games and listen to music, you will have a good fidelity soundcard... if you want to turn your PC into a recording studio, you will have to go pro and buy some expensive sound cards...

yeah, the speakers that I have at the moment are the best that I can afford! which i must say is pretty good, the sound card works great and it sounds excellent!

i would suggest this sound card to anyone!