14 DAY TRIAL // Creative had a really tight partnership with THX until a while ago, and probably still maintains a collaboration.
It's no longer essential though, because Creative has its own audio software now: SBX Pro Studio.
It is this software that now ships with the Sound Blaster Recon3D sound cards.
Speaking of which, a new card collection is out: Sound Blaster Z series.
And somewhere in limbo between Sound Blaster Recon3D and Sound Blaster Z rests the Sound Blaster Recon3D r2.
It's essentially the Recon3D but with the new software.
That means it has a Sound Core3D native-PCIe chipset, Cirrus Logic-made DAC, 5.1-channel output, 24-bit resolution, 102 dBA SNR, a dedicated 600 Ω headphones amplifier, 96 kHz sample rates, and OpenAL hardware-accelerated audio API support.
It also gets EAX 5.0 Advanced HD and compatibility with Windows 8.