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Creative Labs' popular Sound Blaster Live! series of PCI audio cards has sold extremely well since their debut in late 1998.

By combining a powerful music synthesis engine with highly customizable drivers and an aggressive software bundle, many PC owners rightly turned to the Sound Blaster Live! to satisfy their audio needs.

A year has come and gone now since the introduction of that original Sound Blaster Live! product and Creative Labs has wisely updated and improved what is now a series of Sound Blaster Live! cards while they continue to work on a next-generation audio solution for the year 2000.

Today we're looking at the new high-end Sound Blaster Live! package, which is officially called the Sound Blaster Live! Platinum. With new hardware and new software, the SB Live Platinum is a hard combination to resist, even by PC owners that already own a good audio card.

Lets examine Creative's newest Top Gun now, and determine if it's as good as its specification sheet seems to indicate.

All of the Sound Blaster Live! products Creative currently manufactures come equipped with the same core audio chip propelling them.

Named the EMU10K1, the E-mu systems chip has proven itself to be a powerful ally in the quest to provide accurate and full audio immersion. As you'd expect, the SB Live! Platinum uses the EMU10K1 DSP to good effect, supporting up to a 64-voice polyphony with multi-timbre capability thanks to E-mu's patented 8-point interpolation technology.

The EMU10K1 also offers support for real-time digital effects like reverb, chorus, flange, pitch shifter and distortion.