Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Notebook sound card review

The Audigy 2 ZS Notebook supports the same sound-processing technologies that vaulted the company's flagship Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro desktop PC sound card into prominence. In addition to decoding Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1-channel DVD signals, the Audigy 2 ZS Notebook also supports the 6.1-channel Dolby Digital EX and DTS-ES standards for an enveloping experience with multichannel multimedia speaker sets. Like other members of the Audigy 2 family, the Audigy 2 ZS Notebook supports Creative's EAX Advanced HD and Microsoft's DirectSound 3D standards, which the vast majority of games use to deliver 3D audio. Creative's CMSS 3D Audio Technology does a decent job simulating surround sound through headphones, should you forgo the multichannel multimedia speaker set in favor of a totally mobile setup. In addition to configuration utilities, the software suite includes a Creative audio player and a basic Creative recording miniapp.

To test the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Notebook, we connected Logitech's X-530 multimedia speaker set and used the included THX setup console software to calibrate the speaker levels. When we fired up Unreal Tournament 2004, the sound was crisp and clear. Although the experience was also good when we played the game while wearing Altec Lansing's AHS-602 two-way headset, the surround-sound speaker set made it easier to track the locations of enemies, which is not a huge surprise. The massive dinosaur's destructive rampage in the Jurassic Park DVD's "Tyrannosaurus rex" scene came across as suitably scary. When we used the included software to play Fleetwood Mac's Rumors DVD-Audio disc, the sound was exceptionally detailed.

According to Creative, the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Notebook requires a PC with a 1.2GHz or faster processor. If your system doesn't have adequate PCMCIA bandwidth, you can switch the sound card into a lower performance mode, but that wasn't necessary with our 1.5GHz Dell Inspiron 600m. Power consumption is always an issue when testing notebook accessories. Using our test laptop's stock battery, we played a DVD for approximately 1 hour, 45 minutes before the juice drained, demonstrating no appreciable difference in battery life between using the card and not.