Milpitas, California-based Creative Labs Inc has extended its Sound Blaster 6 sound standard to offer compatibility with all major CD-ROM drives, with Sound Blaster 16 MultiCD and Sound Blaster 16 SCSI-2 16-bit sound boards. The MultiCD now also supports single and double speed CD-ROM drives from Sony Corp and Mitsumi Co. Sound Blaster 16 SCSI-2 is aimed at users of SCSI-1 or SCSI-2 data-intensive devices -CD-ROM drives, hard disks, and tape units. The board includes Adaptec Inc controller chip, saving a slot by eliminating the need for a host adaptor board. The Sound Blaster 16 SCSI-2 includes Adaptec’s EZ-SCSI software, which scans the connected SCSI devices and automatically installs the right drivers. Sound Blaster 16 SCSI-2 and 16 MultiCD offer 8-and 16-bit CD-quality stereo sampling and playback at up to 44.1KHz and an enhanced four-operator, 20-voice, OPL-3 stereo FM synthesiser. Each also has an expansion connector for the firm’s Wave Blaster, General MIDI-compatible sampled-wave synthesis daughterboard, and a library of free multimedia software, including VoiceAssist speech recognition program, Software Toolworks’ Multimedia Encyclopedia and HSC Interactive SE. Both boards are also available with Creative’s proprietary Advanced Signal Processor for real-time compression and decompression of audio files featuring QSound Virtual Audio, a 180 soundscape localisation technology claimed to simulate a surround sound experience with a traditional two-speaker system. Out now, Sound Blaster 16 is $250 for the MultiCD version, $300 with Advanced Signal Processing, $280 for the SCSI-2 and $330 for the SCSI-2 with Signal Processing.
