Others say...

"Linux Buyer Beware"
While this is a reasonable sound card for a budget, linux buyers looking for a "modern" SB-16 should look elsewhere. I bought this card to put in a low-profile linux box thinking that it would be based on the same chipset as the SB-16 and have support for hardware mixing. Long story short--this card is a dumbed down version of the Audigy card that only has software mixing. You can get this card to work under linux with some difficulty, but you will never get hardware mixing.

"Great card at a good price"
Even though this is a more 'cost efficient' card compared to the Audigy series, the 'Live!' is still a great card, outputting great sound. It's a solid addition to my system (where other sound solutions have caused system crashing).

The software included is good as well. I'm not very interested in the extra media programs (which are nice) as I am with 'tweaking' the actual card. And the driver/configuration program that is provided does this very well!

"Great Value"
I was very pleased with the quality of the bundled software and the performance of the card. However, I needed to make several hardware and software modifications to realize its full potential.This card is capable of 96kHz/24bit. However, the default settings are 48kHz/16bit. Don't ask me why. You have to go to "Control Panel -> Device Control" to change this. "Device Control" is such a generic name, it's easy to miss.Also, I noticed that this card has a low quality resampling algorithm, so if you are playing 44.1kHz files, you might want to get a software resampler to convert 44.1kHz to 48.0kHz before sending a wav output to the sound card. HQSoftProc for winamp worked great for me.I did notice some Sigma/Delta DAC modulation noise when using sensitive headphones. (Shure E5C) The problem was that I was forced to turn the volume almost all the way down to get a reasonable volume. Normal headphones should be less of a problem. But I was able to easily modify the output stage on this card to reduce the gain and thus get more signal out of the Sigma/Delta DAC. It required changing four 0402 resistors. The Audigy series has better SNR out of the box.

"A step up from motherboard audio."
I noticed a lack of positive reviews for this product, based on its rather exclusive compatibility: it only works for Windows. And that doesn't help much, but if you are a Windows user (including XP; that was apparently a problem with older SB Live! cards) who uses the common Intel chipset and would like better sound without spending a lot of money, I would recommend this.

Even basic sounds like the click you hear when you click your mouse with Windows sound better. I noticed much better stereo separation, for example. A faster sampling rate, up to 96 KHz, also helps a lot. Various 3D effects are available, including reverb, EQ, sound cleanup and other enhancements, are also available. Surround Sound is supported, up to 7.1.

I've read other reviews on SoundBlaster products saying the tech support is bad. I haven't had to call them yet (I found installation was pretty easy, but I'm fairly experienced with installing hardware and software), so hopefully you won't have any problems.

Also, if you plan on using MIDI - and being a songwriter/composer, I do this a lot - I recommend shopping around for a better soundfont. The four-megabyte soundfont file doesn't cut it for me, though it does sound a little better than the GM.DLS used by DirectMusic, and it supports the Roland GS extensions to General MIDI. If you use a very large soundfont (they can run up to 128 MB and possibly even more), you will need a lot of memory: 256 MB RAM at the very least, and a fast microprocessor is a must as well, especially if you use a MIDI controller to your computer, in case you want to make your PC double as a synthesizer.

This product isn't perfect, and doesn't have all the features of Audigy or other higher-end soundcards, but it delivers what it promises.

"Only a Windows card"
The SB Live 24bit is a Windows only sound card. It relies too much on the operating system. Linux users must deal with a lot of tweaks to get it work at 50% because no input is supported.