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Creative Unleashes Sound Blaster Recon3D

BY Andrew Miesner / September 2, 2011

CREATIVE UNLEASHES SOUND BLASTER RECON3D – A NEW AUDIO PLATFORM POWERED BY SOUND CORE3D – THE WORLD’S FIRST QUAD-CORE AUDIO AND VOICE PROCESSOR

Sound Blaster Recon3D Sound Cards to be Unveiled at 2011 IFA Berlin

 

SINGAPORE – 1 September 2011 – Creative Technology Ltd today announced its Sound Blaster® Recon3D audio platform and sound cards, powered by the groundbreaking new Creative Sound Core3D quad-core sound and voice processor. Designed to deliver hardware-accelerated THX TruStudio Pro™ and CrystalVoice™ audio technologies for games, music and movies, the new series of Sound Blaster Recon3D sound cards will be previewed from 2-7 September at the 2011 IFA Berlin, at the Creative stand 111, Hall 17, Messe Berlin.

“We are leveraging our expertise of designing and selling more than 400 million Sound Blaster audio solutions to break new ground with the power and performance of Sound Core3D, establishing the next standard of sound and voice quality for the PC, Mac, console gaming systems and consumer electronics devices,” said Sim Wong Hoo, Chairman and CEO of Creative Technology Ltd.  “We designed Sound Core3D with its revolutionary quad-core design to even further expand our leadership in audio innovation beyond the PC to transform all digital entertainment. This enables us to develop our most exciting and versatile line of Sound Blaster products yet, while we pursue new market opportunities by providing our OEM partners with the flexibility to power PC products and consumer electronics devices with Sound Core3D.” 

Leveraging the Power of Sound Core3D

The stunning audio and voice performance of the Sound Blaster Recon3D sound cards is powered by Creative’s new Sound Core3D, the world’s first quad-core sound and voice processor. Designed by Creative’s in-house team of audio scientists and engineers, Sound Core3D is engineered for low power consumption and high performance. It incorporates Creative’s innovative patented Quartet digital signal processor (DSP) with four independent processor cores, and is the first processor to integrate an array of DSP cores with high-quality HD audio codecs of over 100dB on a single chip, giving it tremendous versatility for PC and embedded configurations. 

Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Champion

Immediately recognizable by its stunning design and glowing red Creative Sound Core3D processor, the Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Champion sound card provides hardware-accelerated THX TruStudio Pro audio technologies for unparalleled audio playback quality. The Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Champion includes a convenient and cool-looking I/O drive with headset mini-jacks, volume control and audio input connectivity options. The card also includes a high-quality beam-forming microphone, which leverages CrystalVoice Echo Cancellation, CrystalVoice Focus and CrystalVoice Active Noise Reduction to enable gamers for the first time ever to use speakers and a desktop microphone while gaming without any sound other than the gamer’s voice being transmitted through the microphone. Designed to deliver crystal clear vocal fidelity in multiplayer games, online chats and video conferencing, CrystalVoice technologies also provide a compelling voice communications option for VOIP solutions such as Skype. The Sound Blaster Recon3D Fata1ity Champion software enables quick and easy switching between multi-channel speaker settings and headsets or headphones. The card is slated for availability in Q1 of 2012.

Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional

Designed with the same powerful THX TruStudio Pro and CrystalVoice audio technologies of the Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Champion, the Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional sound card features I/O connectivity on the sound card itself, for users who don’t wish to use an I/O drive. This card also includes the high-quality beam-forming microphone, allowing advanced voice communication without the need for the headset by leveraging CrystalVoice Echo Cancellation, CrystalVoice Focus and CrystalVoice Active Noise Reduction.

Sound Blaster Recon3D

Providing phenomenally accurate positional 3D audio over headsets or speakers, the Sound Blaster Recon3D sound card is also powered by the new SoundCore3D quad-core audio and video processor. It provides hardware-accelerated THX TruStudio Pro and select Crystal Voice audio technologies. The Sound Blaster Recon3D sound card is slated for availability later this year.

The Sound Blaster Recon3D PCI Express sound cards feature 6-channel 24-bit 102dB DACs, 4-channel 24-bit 101dB analog-to-digital (ADC) converters, integrated headphone amplifier-out, digital microphone interface, S/PDIF inputs and outputs and general purpose inputs and outputs (GPIO).

THX TruStudio Pro – Featured in Every Sound Blaster Recon3D 

  • The THX TruStudio Pro Crystalizer™ enhances in-game sound, music and movies by restoring low and high end frequency curves lost to compression
  • THX TruStudio Pro Surround™ delivers a 360 degree surround sound gaming experience so gamers can hear sounds clearly from the front, back, above and below
  • THX TruStudio Pro Smart Volume™ addresses the problem of abrupt volume level changes in games, music and movies by intelligently applying gain and attenuation to deliver consistent volume levels
  • THX TruStudio Pro Dialog Plus™ enhances voices in games and movies for clearer dialog, allowing listener to hear the dialog over the rest of sound track and over ambient noise in the listening environment
  • THX TruStudio Pro Bass™ fills in the missing low frequency tones and give the extra impact for a better entertainment experience

CrystalVoice is comprised of:

  • Acoustic Echo Cancellation – Eliminates echoes and enables whoever is speaking to listen to the other party clearly. Echoes are a common problem present in voice communication systems that disrupts conversations by making it difficult to hear the other party
  • Noise Reduction – Enables who is speaking to be heard clearly over background noise by constantly monitoring the environment and eliminate the unwanted noise that interferes with the conversation
  • Smart Volume – Automatically adjusts the loudness of a voice to maintain a consistent volume level. This makes it convenient for the speaker to converse normally, regardless of whether the speaker is close to or far away from the microphone
  •  FX™ – Enables alteration of voice with a variety of effects, which can be used to enhance the tone of a voice, create interesting accents, or enable someone to sound like a completely different person

More information about the new Sound Blaster Recon3D audio solutions will be posted in coming weeks to soundblaster.com.

About Creative
Creative is a worldwide leader in digital entertainment products. Famous for its Sound Blaster® sound cards and for launching the multimedia revolution, Creative is now driving digital entertainment on the PC platform with products like its highly acclaimed ZEN® MP3 and portable media players. Creative’s innovative hardware, proprietary technology, applications and services leverage the Internet, enabling consumers to experience high-quality digital entertainment – anytime, anywhere.