Yeah, the AWE32 Gold was one of the best that Creative ever made. The AWE64 Gold was technically good too, although that was around the time that Creative started going downhill - I never did get half of the music software to even install because their installer couldn't believe that a Cyrix6x86 at 200MHz was acceptable. "You must have a Pentium 50 or better."..

Every card that they've made since has been over-priced and under-performing (especially SQ-wise) as far as I'm concerned. Backed up with outrageous bloatware, buggy drivers and a couldn't-care-less attitude towards support. Over 5 years later, and Creative still on seem to test with Intel based systems - witness the *hordes* of Athlon users who have had nothing but trouble with the SB Live.

If I were in the market for a soundcard at the moment, I'd buy either M-Audio or Turtle Beach.