Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum: EAX Advanced HD
To distinguish it from the competition and offer a new range of sound sensations, Creative had to perfect its development onward from the EAX 1.0 and 2.0. The features of what was known as the EAX 3.0 were well-known for some time, though the name, "EAX Advanced High Definition" was found to give them shape in the Audigy. The chip can manage up to four environments simultaneously, all of them on 32 channels. One of the improvements here is the ability to manage sources with different sample rates and top the lot off with a sound tape encoded in Dolby Digital for, for instance, the sound background.
Below are the new features provided by this standard and supported by Audigy cards alone:
- Multi Environment: In EAX 1.0 and 2.0, the environment effect depended on a given geometrical zone. But now each sound can have its own separate and independent effect. The Audigy can manage and mix four different environments, giving a real gain in lifelike results. Suppose you are standing still in a room; the sound of gunfire will be affected by the size of this room and the nature of its walls and floor, whereas the sound of gunfire coming from the next room, say a corridor, will be affected by the nature of that one.
- Environment Morphing: Environment Morphing is one of the most significant developments in the EAX Advanced HD, and was formerly known as Dynamic Morphing. In the EAX 2.0, each environment was assigned a given place in a set and there was no "in between" or mixing when changing from one environment to another, say, from indoors to out. But with Dynamic Morphing, environments can merge in some places or one will dominate in others as the person moves around.
- Environment Panning: This is a complement to Environment Morphing as it is used to add an environment giving the impression of a place about to come, such as a cellar or tunnel.
- Environment Reflection: With this effect, sounds are not only transmitted by the source, but also redirected by the environment. Primary reflections and reverberations are controlled the way the Aureal A3D 2.0 did it some years ago.
- Environment Filtering: Less explicit than the effects described above, Environment Filtering integrates a series of data to hone and control the differences in tone between environments.
