By skipping 'gold', Creative seems to be limiting its options in giving its new sound cards precious-metal epithets, particularly when the new Soundblaster Live! Platinum isn't a new card at all. Inside the box is a standard Live! card, but what is new is the software bundle and a chunk of extra electronics called the Easy Access Front Drive Bay.

Although launched over a year ago, the Soundblaster Live! is still one of the most highly specified sound cards and its potential is far from fully tapped. This is largely due to the presence of the EMU10K1 audio processor, which has roughly the same processing power as a Pentium 133MHz chip.

With all this available for sound, the Live! can perform all manner of audio feats, such as real-time digital effects for anything from composing music to playing games. In fact, games playing is one of the Live!'s strong points and it was one of the first cards to make real use of surround-sound speaker systems.

With four speakers plugged into the two line-out sockets, not only can you experience true 3D sound but, with games that support it, you'll also get something called Environmental Audio. This makes in-game noises sound as though they're actually being made in the environment depicted on-screen - explosions underwater, gunshots in an auditorium, rocket engines in space, and so on. When properly implemented, it adds a new level to game playing.

Of course, this is all old hat to existing Live! owners, but what they won't have is the Easy Access Front Drive Bay. This solves one of the perennial problems with the PC's design - the fact that sockets are at the inaccessible rear of the system unit. For things you simply plug in and forget (keyboard, mouse, telephone line) this isn't a problem, but when it comes to something like a pair of headphones, having to ferret around underneath your desk is a bind.

No more - the Drive Bay provides all the sound sockets you need regular access to in a pod that fits into a free 5.25in drive bay. There are 10 on offer, including optical in/out for such things as a MiniDisc recorder and two proper Midi ports. Also handy is the headphone socket, which has its own volume control and cuts out the speakers when it's in use.

Fitting the Drive Bay is as easy as fitting a CD-ROM drive and it connects to the Live! card with a lengthy ribbon cable. Also in the box is a separate blanking plate with a digital-out socket for use with Creative's DTT2500 Digital speakers. This takes up (but doesn't actually use) an expansion slot, and with the speakers connected to this rather than the usual analogue audio sockets, you get wonderfully clear digital sound from your PC.

The Drive Bay will soon be available separately from Creative, as will the other new component in the Platinum box, Live!Ware 3.0. This is an update of the software bundled with earlier cards and effectively reprograms the EMU10K1 processor to give, among other things, 32 3D hardware-accelerated audio channels and up to 1,024-voice polyphony.

Also bundled is a custom edition of MusicMatch's Jukebox - a tool for creating, manipulating and playing MP3 files. This is a handy freebie, since the power of the Live! card is ideal for the normally processor-intensive task of ripping audio CDs. You can leave Jukebox running in the background while you get on with something else.

Contact Creative 01245 265265

Minimum requirements Genuine Intel Pentium 166MHz PC, Windows 95, 16Mb RAM, free PCI slot plus free expansion blanking plate for digital-out connector, free 5.25in drive bay for Drive Bay, CD-ROM drive.