During the '90s and the early '00s, dedicated soundcards were in-demand components in much the same way GPUs are today. From what I know, Creative won, on-board sound became good enough sometime between Windows XP and Windows 7, and the audio enthusiasts moved on to external DACs and $2000 headphones. Today Creative still sells soundcards, but none of them appear to be substantial improvements over previous models.So what other reasons could have caused the decline in interest? Was there nothing that could be improved upon? Were there improvements on the software side that made hardware redundant and/or useless? Is there any other company besides Creative, however large or small, still holding the torch for innovating in this space?