What happened to Creative Technology, the Asian company that created the legendary Sound Blaster sound cards?

Long gone are the times when having a sound card was practically essential for many people. In the late 1980s, audio was beginning to gain prominence in the PC world. Creative Technologya Singapore-based company, He found a great business opportunity in this. and for years their Sound Blaster products dominated the market.

Nowadays, however, buying a sound card has become uncommon. The solutions built into the motherboard are quite good for most users. And, those who need extra quality can use an external DAC together with an amplifier rather than modifying the internal configuration of their computer. So what happened to Creative Technology? Let’s see.

The company that was synonymous with sound on the PC

Creative Technology was founded by Sim Wong Hoo and Ng Kai Wa in Singapore in 1981. Like many other companies, their first products weren’t exactly what made them successful. Long before entering audio world, Creative focused on the development of personal computers. In 1984 he presented his first device, the Cubic99, and in 1986 launched the Cubic CT that we can see in the cover image.

Sales of the Cubic CT did not meet expectations, presumably because of how difficult it was to gain a foothold in a market of clone PCs. But this device had some very interesting things: it was capable of displaying color images and included a sound card. The latter, precisely, was essential for the next few years of Creative.

Creative subsidiary in California, United States

Creative started selling its sound card Creative Music System, opened a subsidiary in the United States called Creative Labs and generated links with the software world to promote its product. Since this proposal was aimed at the pc gamers, was renamed Game Blaster. Creative was becoming an international company.

In November 1989, Creative launched a sound card called Sound Blaster 1.0. It was a board with recording capabilities, a video game controller port, and an 11-voice FM synthesizer. Inside was a Yamaha YM3812 chip which, interestingly, was the same one used by a competing Canadian manufacturer called Ad Lib.

The main difference between the Canadian product and Creative’s was that the latter had support for PCM modulation. That is, the key element to offer CD-quality audio playback. The Sound Blaster soon benefited from huge sales thanks to the new Intel 386 processor and Microsoft’s Windows 3.0 operating system.

Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold (CT4390)

The rise of sound on the PC prompted the launch of improved versions of Sound Blaster, but the first obstacles did not take long to appear on the scene. A change in the Windows 95 hardware support model and the decision by motherboard manufacturers to incorporate integrated audio solutions were a blow to the company that in 1994 had begun trading on Nasdaq.

Creative’s management thought about diversifying its business, so it also entered the CD-ROM drive and graphics card market with the Blaster EXXTREME. But things did not go very well, these movements generated economic losses and the company even suffered a collapse in the value of its shares. In any case, it still led the PC audio market.

Sound Blaster AE-9

Among the firm’s biggest successes of that time were the Sound Blaster 16 card launched in 1992 and the Sound Blaster Live line that appeared in 1998 and two years later embraced surround sound with the Sound Blaster 5.1. We cannot deny that the company did not stop innovating. In the following years it introduced MP3 players, USB sound cards, headphones, speakers, sound bars and even webcams. Many of these products today make up their catalog.

One of the company’s last major launches occurred in 2019. Creative launched the Sound Blaster AE-9a kit consisting of a sound card PCI-e and a DAC 32 bit/384 kHz with headphone bi-amplifier and Audio Control Module. The product, which promised to once again redefine PC audio, is currently priced at 299.99 euros.

Creative voluntarily delisted from Nasdaq in 2027, so its shares are currently traded only on the Singapore Stock Exchange. Company titles have collapsed by 68.68% in the last five years. On a financial level, precisely, It has been making losses for more than three yearsthat is, their annual balance sheets do not record profits, although management is optimistic and confident that it will reduce its operating expenses.

Images | Creative Technology (1, 2) | coolcaesar

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