I use the audigy se on my system and it has pretty good sound quality. I think the main difference between the audigy and the live is that the audigy support EAX I believe its called. EAX is great in windows dx9 and greater games.
I have read that the live and audigy se are the exact same card except with different firmwares. So you may want to search around to see if you can find any live to audigy flashes.
