Not as far as I knew.

My original Audigy value only died because one of the PCI contacts corroded.

Ive only seen one dead sound card in my life, and that was because it rusted out in humid conditions.

I did have an Audigy card die way back in the day.

That is how the generally fail from what I have seen over the years. They just stop being detected.

It wouldn't surprise me if a few of the ones I have that I haven't tested are dead.

Could be something as simple as bad caps.. but the one I had that died started overheating first and then stopped working all together and it was probably only 2 years old when it died so I kinda doubt it was caps.

I've also seen a few bad SB Live! cards as well.

I have only had one sound card fail as well - and only partially at that. It's a PAS16 that was also obviously from a humid environment because all the rear ports were old and rusty looking. I replaced the DB15 and audio jacks, plus the large caps that are presumably in the audio path. Still barely any audio coming out of it. I'm not sure if the switched jacks I got are correct (NO vs NC) though, since I couldn't get the old ones out without melting the plastic and loosening the legs to the point they weren't making contact anymore.

One of the sellers offered to ship a replacement, and I picked up another just in case. I don't relish the idea of spending so much on a lottery just to have an Audigy for the sake of having an Audigy. Especially if they're failure prone. So here's hoping it was just bad luck.

not that I think the original Audigy was more fragile then the rest but I've got 3 Audigy 2 ZS's of ebay all work fine.
Audigy1,2,ZS all work fine in Win98 as alternatives if your not aiming for a specific year.
I'm pretty sure the Audigy 4 also works fine but cant confirm this

Eh, it's more about the evolutionary collection really.

I owned everything from the SB Pro up through the Live back in the day, and really took advantage of what the hardware did that made it unique. I had that mentality that every component should be specifically curated as best-of-breed and with purpose. But around the P4 era, everything was built-in to the motherboard and really good enough, so I got lazy. SoundFonts weren't crucial anymore since MIDI disappeared from consumer consciousness and back into its niche in the music industry (where soft-synths were more than adequate, and I had moved on to pro audio hardware for I/O.) I guess I'm mostly curious about how EAX evolved, although I don't really know how much that mattered in the mid-to-late 2000s, or what else there might be. Hence the acquisition. 😀

It also happens that Creative released a new generation of sound cards at about the same rate that Intel introduced new platforms, so I outfit my series of x86 boxes (386 to Core i) with a representative from the Sound Blaster line from that era. The Audigy 2 ZS is on my list as well for EAX 4 - and that'll cover the Core 2.

I'm a little torn on whether X-Fi is relevant at all, though. I haven't had discrete audio in a while -- do any modern game engines even bother with hardware-exclusive features, or are positioning and environmental effects now entirely software-rendered?

SirNickity wrote:

I'm a little torn on whether X-Fi is relevant at all, though.

For today's PCs? No. For a mid-2000s Core 2 Duo period correct build...absolutely. A X-Fi Titanium is exactly what I use. One thing it does the Audigy2 don't is TOSLINK output on the card itself if that is relevant to you. Also has rock solid WinXP drivers.