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Live! Experiences Review
A Slew Of Live! Cards
As previously mentioned, Creative has a slew of Live! cards on the market belonging to various geographical markets. As of this writing, I'm aware of nine SoundBlaster Live! cards:
- Live!
- Live! Value
- Live! Platinum
- Live! X-Gamer
- Live! MP3+
- Live! Player
- Live! CT4830 (OEM)
- Live! Pro
- Live! Digital Entertainment
In addition to this, Creative has three known hardware expansion or upgrade products for some of these boards. They include:
- Optical Digital I/O Card
- Live!Drive
- Live!Drive II
Live Drive II
Third-party companies, such as Hoontech, offer products that work for both the Live! and Live! Value cards, including a Digital I/O card with some notable differences from Creative's own I/O card for the full Live! card. Hoontech also sells an external Digital Amp for the Live!; a cross between Creative's DTT2500 Digital Surround speakers and it's own LiveDrive bay - except this unit has been on the market for quite some time.
Also to note, several companies overseas are offering '3rd-party' expansions for the Live! and Live! Value cards. It is important to note that of all nine Live! cards, there are in fact three distinct Feature Connectors for expansion cards.
The Live! Value has a small connector (12 pins) for expanding upon its internal S/PDIF connectivity.
The Live! has the S/PDIF feature connector as well as a longer set of pins for it's ribbon cable (for a total of 36 pins) that connects to the Digital I/O card.
Sound Blaster Live!
Lastly the Platinum, MP3+, Player, CT4830 OEM, and X-Gamer all have a connector visibly similar but electrically different to the Live! card.
Hopefully, we will see additional devices for the newer revision Live! cards such as the Platinum and X-Gamer. It is rumored that the LiveDrive and LiveDrive II both work with the X-Gamer, MP3+, and Player/CT4830 cards.
Next: The Live! And Live! Value
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