Creative Technology Ltd., the worldwide leader in digital entertainment products for users of the personal computer and the Internet, today unveiled the Sound Blaster® Extigy™, the first external Sound Blaster in Creative's history. The Sound Blaster Extigy delivers stunning 24-bit 96kHz multi-channel audio playback and 100dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). It enhances audio for digital music, DVD movies and games from an easy-to-use, compact external device that connects to the notebook or desktop via the Universal Serial Bus (USB) port. The Sound Blaster Extigy is slated to ship this month at an estimated street price of US$149.99. The Sound Blaster Extigy features EAX® ADVANCED HD™ technologies for music, including audio enhancement technologies such as Audio Clean-Up, Time Scaling, DREAM™ and EAX ADVANCED HD audio effects.

For anyone listening to music, Sound Blaster Extigy ships with Creative PlayCenter™ 3, a personal digital music center that enables creation, organization and playback of digital quality music enhanced with EAX ADVANCED HD effects, along with Dolby Digital® file playback and integrated CD burning capabilities. The Sound Blaster Extigy incorporates CMSS® (Creative Multi-Speaker Surround™) so users can up-mix stereo content for a 5.1 surround sound experience. For stereo headphones or two-speaker systems, CMSS also provides virtual headphone and stereo spatialization. In addition to enhancing the audio experience on the desktop and notebook PC, the Sound Blaster Extigy functions completely independent of the PC. It can be used without the PC as a Dolby Digital decoder for a set-top DVD and is an ideal device for providing 5.1 surround sound from a video gaming console such as the X-BOX™ or PlayStation 2™. It also functions without the PC to enhance audio quality and provides CMSS functionality for a number of additional devices such as a digital audio player, compact or mini-disc player or cassette player.