That means you'll have to turn the volume up a bit, and if you don't have a good set of speakers you may never get loud enough sound. On the other hand, the ommision of an artificial amplifier gives you much clearer and hiss-free sound. It has an assortment of features that appeal to both the gamer and musician. The standard array of analog inputs is also included like line out, line in, microphone etc. Now that is what I call customer service.
Free software upgrades for all Soundblaster Live owners.
That's not the end of it. You can, at your option, purchase the Live Drive, a device that comes with the Soundblaster Live Platinum, that connects to the front of your PC where you would have your CD Rom drives. That adds a ridiculous amount of digital inputs and outputs if that is your cup of tea. As you might have guessed those hardware upgrades are not free but at least they are available. There is no sound card on the market that is more versatile than the X-Gamer for the price and there is no sound card in the price range with such a promise of being future proof.