The Premium Digital is not quite up there with the professional devices from Asus etc but at a quarter of the price? Well its still a bargain and runs rings around all those internal sound devices you find on computer Mother boards and in Notebooks. The cost for the Premium Digital is around $125 Australian and to get anywhere near the specs of this device then you’re going to have to pay perhaps 4 or more times the price. The Sound Blaster Premium Digital looks totally unremarkable, a box that sits on a desk with connections on the front and back, the box is around 5 inches square by around an inch high, totally unremarkable the box maybe but its inside the box where Creative Labs have given this device its attention with high quality 96K 24-bit DAC’s so let’s look at what’s on offer on the outside. On the front are 2 connections and a volume/mute knob - a metal knob -, press the knob in to mute the sound and turn the knob to adjust volume, simple enough. The Premium Digital has a very good headphone amp which should give out enough power to match the best headphones out there and the quality of the Amp is excellent. And yes, the first connection after the volume knob is indeed the quarter inch stereo headphone jack. The final connection on the front is a mono microphone quarter inch jack, I’ve not tested this facility yet so can’t say how noisy or otherwise the input is. The rear panel is loaded with connections starting with the Mini USB port used to connect the Digital Premium to your computer. Next come the optical digital out and in ports for connection to digital sources. Then there’s a set of analogue RCA jacks for connection to an amp or mixer. The next 2 jacks form a switchable input, when the Premium Digital is connected to a computer you can switch these RCA input jacks to either a standard line-in or a preamp for your Turntable so I would certainly consider the Premium Digital Sound device if you’re considering sampling all those vinyl records to your computer. To the right of these inputs is the Turntable ground terminal. And that’s it, a nice quality sounding device with some very logical connections. 2 CD’S come with the Digital Premium and thankfully I’ve not needed to install any drivers from these to get the Digital Premium working with my PC. I spent a great deal of the afternoon listening to music through the Headphone Amp on the Premium Digital through my Sony MDR-6507 headphones and the listening time was enjoyable. I don’t hear such good sound from my computer through Headphones unless I’m listening through a good headphone amp as found in the B&W MM1 computer speakers or my dedicated Opponent Headphone amp/DAC. And a final word, the Premium Digital comes with a premium USB connecting cable, rather thicker than what you usually see and equipped with RF chokes. Excellent value for money and a great edition to your computer whether that be PC or Mac, Desktop, notebook or tablet, if you listen and record audio then this device will give you great pleasure and satisfaction.
********** Those of a positive and enquiring frame of mind will leave the rest of the halfwits in this world behind.
