I'm probably the only one here that will admit to this...and i'm gonna have to force myself not to look back at this thread due to the responses i'm sure to get, but i'm curious to see what the reviews on this will be. yah, i've had my issues with the audigy line of cards over the years, but those 1st soundcards (soundblasters ftw!) i got clearly made an impression (10+ years ago) ...
... but then again, i was running my sound thru some pretty beefy sound systems which i'm sure helped me hear the difference between the old school crappy integrated sound cards and creative's stuff.
that said, the old 'crappy integrated' sound cards aren't quite so old and crappy anymore...not to mention, cpus can easily handle the xtra processing these days
that is all.