Creative Labs EMU 0404 Digital Audio System - 70EM880306000

Nice sound card - not for average users though

Strengths: -Clear Sound -Multiple IOs -Native 44.1k and 48k digital out

Weaknesses: -No Mic In -Need Extra Cable to connect to multimedia speakers -Only 2 channels

Summary: As I listed in the strengths and weakness fields. The card has excellent sound signiture comparing to similar priced products. It also has optical in/out, coaxial in/out, midi in/out. The analog out/ins are using 1/4" mono interface. You need to buy cables for them if you don't have one. It's not for gaming too. Other than these, it's a solid card for $100.

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Top quality at a bargain price.

Strengths: Clear audio playback.

Weaknesses: Not a consumer soundcard. A bit tricky to set up.

Summary: I bought this soundcard based on the praise of its audio playback. In this regard it is perfect. Turn the volume to the max, and you will not hear any clicks, pops or other white noise with lower quality soundcards/onboard sound. It is generally agreed upon that the sound quality produced with this card is still better than the Creative X-Fi. The emu0404, however, is a professional soundcard and the outputs are not generally what you will find in a consumer soundcard. For example, the line out on the emu0404 consists of two separate 1/4" jacks for L and R. For this reason, you will need to get adapters or better yet a higher quality custom breakout cable if you want just audio playback.

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Decent audio card with some glitches

Strengths: High quality sound Works with Sonar 7 Easy to install and hook up

Weaknesses: Buggy DSP software required for sound output Power FX real-time effects in Sonar has stuttered output in Audition Doesn't install properly under Vista 64bit

Summary: 2008-07-21 15:50:08 Card was easy to install and configure, however I couldn't figure out why it produced no sound. Then I installed the Power tools disk with the DSP app on it and then you get sound. The DSP app has to start up first before you can get sound from the card. On several occasions, it GPFs during startup forcing you to restart it later. Then it works. Very buggy. I tested it with Sonar 7.02 and found that it works with that app very well. I tried several soft synths on several track and got excellent low latency performance. The Power FX feature that allows you to use the card's hardware EFX in Sonar works, but produces stuttered output if you click the Audition button before rendering the sound. Overall, a good card and I would recommend it to others, but hopefully EMU will fix the bugs in the DSP software, or improve the drivers so it isn't needed at all.

After all was working well under Win XP 32 bit, I tried to install the latest driver 2.1 and tools under Vista Ultimate 64bit, which EMU advertises as supported. Well, the drivers installed but left me with no sound support because Vista reports a CODE 39 error with the driver. I contacted EMU, but so far no solution or info. I suspect this is not the card to use for Vista 64bit owners, despite the advertised 64 bit drivers. They simply don't install or work.

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