Audigy2 ZS Soft Mod??

[m_memmory]

I've seen a couple of people on here whose sigs say that they have a Audigy 2ZS with a soft mod. My questions is what is it? what does it do to your sound card? and does it sound better?

I have a Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro and if there's someway of making it sound a bit better then it does at the moment then I'm interested (even though I think it sounds quite good - guess my ears aren't good enough to be able to hear/detect the problems in it... lucky me perhaps!)

 

[legcramp]

well it's just a mod to let u install the programs that the a4 has... sound might be a little bit better, but probbaly not, I remember noticing the high's got a tiny bit better.. but maybe it was me wanting to believe it got better that made it better.. what was the word "placebo? or something like that hehe.

http://www.driverheaven.net/showthread.php?t=78049

 

[firefox360]

I believe what their talking about is the kX Project drivers for Creative multimedia sound cards with the EMU10K1 and EMU10K2 chipsets (which includes the Audigy 2). The kX drivers allow you to swap the front (green) and rear (black) outputs, and the benefits for that is that the rear output uses a Phillips DAC rather than AC97 (which is used for "Front" and "Center/Subwoofer" outputs") and the Phillips has a much better signal-to-noise ratio, Total Harmonic Distortion, and Channel Seperation. According the the kX FAQ this is due to the use of the I2S codec in the Phillips.

For more information on the output swap you can refer to their FAQ on the topic or for just general information about the kX Project, you can go to their main site.

 

[legcramp]

wow... I did not know this at all... time to try it!

 

[strid3r]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aZn_plyR wow... I did not know this at all... time to try it!

I'd stick with the Audigy4 softmod. The kX drivers havn't been updated in a long time and EAX is not supported with the kX drivers.

 

[firefox360]

Quote:

Originally Posted by strid3r I'd stick with the Audigy4 softmod. The kX drivers havn't been updated in a long time and EAX is not supported with the kX drivers.

Well their making these drivers for free, so I'm guessing that they probably also have better and more profitable things to do than just pop out new releases every month. As with EAX, I can't really find any use for it in terms of music. I'm guessing EAX is probably used far more for gaming functionality. The kX drivers are oriented toward musicians and people who just use their soundcards for music purposes and want to make the best from that. They are quite lacking in the gaming department indeed though. But for that I use my cheapo AC97, which I find pretty good for the purpose.

 

[strid3r]

I can understand that they are making the drivers on their own free time and such, but that doesn't change the fact that the last driver update is almost 2 years old. I think the kX drivers are more worthwhile for someone on an old Sb Live! card, but the OP stated he had a A2 ZS Plat Pro, where the front output doesn't use the AC97 codec. Maybe for older SB Live! users, sure, but I just don't think the OP would benefit from using the kX drivers.

 

[legcramp]

well I just did the switch to the KX... all I can say is.. ummm why does these drivers drives my HD485 with A LOT more power???

NO KIDDING... with the audigy 2/4 drivers, with my 485's I have to put the volume all the way up to 90% or so to get my sweet spot volume.

With these... it's barely at half way and if I go higher my ears would blow.. but I dont notice a big difference... but maybe that's b/c I am not A/Bing them.

 

[maarek99]

I don't think there even should be a difference. Except the kx drivers don't do gaming.

 

[]|[ GorE]

The Kx drivers killed the hiss on my old SB Live ! THe cards output became dead silent.