High-End Audio: Creative and Terratec

Comparison At 44.1 KHz

Frequency response : at 44.1 kHz, the Creative cards had a slightly narrower response for treble sounds, which could possibly be due only to problems with the sample card we had. However, the end result was not first rate. The frequency response of the Aureon cards, however, was almost perfect.

Noise level : the noise level was very low on all the cards but the Creative Platinum was clearly the "noisiest". The Platinum EX offered the best result and the two Aureons came somewhere between these extremes.

Dynamic capacity : Unsurprisingly, the noise level results were the same.

Distortion : The Platinum places last while the other three models had similar results. Seeing as they all had two zeros after the decimal point, however, the differences are negligible.

Intermodulation : Here again, re-sampling played a dirty trick on the Creative cards, which performed considerably worse than the Terratec cards.

Crosstalk : The two Creative cards results were excellent, with the Platinum EX slightly ahead. The Aureon produced crosstalk, which reduced as the frequency rose. The overall result was good, but could have been better.