XFI vs Xonar : WTF?

FatRakoon

FatRakoon

FatRakoon

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Everywhere I look, everyone is telling me how much better the ASus is over Creatives efforts and for years I have been using Creatives cards, I am a stupid hoarder and I still use a fair load of them in various PCs

2 x Audigy 1
2 x Audigy 2 ZS
1 x XFI Gamer
1 x XFI Extreme Gamer
1 x XFI Fatal1ty

And recently I added an Asus Xonar D2 to my collection.

The thing is, that the Asus is quite simply not as good as the XFI in spite of what people seem to say... Its simply not!

My main PC's Speakers are Altec Lansing 995 and they are a fair age now and so, I thought that they might simply be starting to struggle and so, I tok the Xonar and the XFI upstairs to my Music gear to give them a proper trial, using my Yamaha Pro amp & Studio Monitors and its the same on those... The XFI is simply a much better card than the Xonar.

As for stability etc, I have yet to have any issues at all with Win7/64 and any of the XFI's - Sure the Audigy 2 sometimes had a problem with the sound going silly but this was ONLY with the Dawn Of War game and never any other time, but that was all.

So, in spite of what the general masses seem to say about the Xonar, has anyone else found this, or is it just me?
 
I've had more problems with my Xonar than my old xfi. I actually got rid of the creative card after they ordered that cease and desist to the gentleman who created those modified creative drivers.
 
I went from an Audigy 2ZS to Xonar Essense ST. It does sound better

I mainly listen to FLAC and 320kbps MP3 through Nad C352 amp and B&W 603 speakers. No problems yet with Xonar drivers, but then i had no problems with the Audigy 2 ones either once i got the correct drivers
 
I think the Xonar is over-rated sometimes in comparison to the X-Fi but I've always thought it sounded better with music and movies compared to the X-Fi - the sound is warmer, richer - I've always found the X-Fi to sound cold and clinical...
 
According to what i've heard the Xonar is best for Media (Films, Music etc.) and good for games whereas the X-Fi is meant to be avarage for Media but it gives you "the edge" when gaming.
 
Creatives drivers for Vista were not just bad, they didnt really exist for months. It seems they have thier act together for Windows 7 and so Creative have the edge, plus they own a lot of the technology like EAX, which i think only Creative cards used the newest version, but not much difference there i understand.
 
Yes, it seems to be that the Xonar seems to be better for Media and the XFI for games

I think that for me though, the crystaliser of the XFI takes it to way above what the Xonar has to offer

Turambar said:
Define "not as good".
Click to expand...

Ok, well clearly I have been testign my best quality files and also my most musically diverse... From the likes of Floyd to Zappa, from Oldfield to Ullulators, and ozric tentacles to Barbieri, so plenty of scope, mostly Im looking for plenty of rides & Cymbals played over a strong bassline with tons of mid-range.

I can see EXACTLY where people say the XFI is too clinical.

This is something I have said with all creative cards. I first noticed this when comparing the NF7S against a SBLIVE. They do indeed lack a warmth that isnt really noticed until you put them head to head against another card.

However, this alone is simply not enough.

When you hear some music, that is indeed playing a full range of sounds covering the entire audio spectrum, you can hear the differences, you can hear the times when the xfi goes over a certain part of a song and its flawless and then the xonar does the same place in the song and its not able to. It miht be a little muffled or the card certainly strain to play a part properly.

So, they do sound slightly different in the playback sure. The Xonar has a warmer sound than the XFI but then again, my 12 year old Turtle Beach Santa Cruz has a warmer sound than the XFI, so for me, thats a poor arguement, but when it comes to music across the range, the XFI plays them all back better.

And I dont mean any form of POP music or the like... Im talking proper music.
 
I dont think EAX means much anymore.

Many new games are not even bothering with it, it seems?

Either way, I dont find much difference in environmental audio between the XFI and an Audigy 1.. Not really. Heck, even my old Turtle Beaches play back Environmental effects fairly well ( As long as nothing else plays or they kind of struggle LOL )
 
I bought a Xonar d2 a few weeks ago to replace my dying X-Fi and tbh, the difference is nowhere as spectacular as some people make it out to be. I really can't hear the difference but then again, I'm not much of an audiophile.

On BF2 however, the xonar does struggle compared to the xtrememusic.
 
FatRakoon said:
I dont think EAX means much anymore.

Many new games are not even bothering with it, it seems?

Either way, I dont find much difference in environmental audio between the XFI and an Audigy 1.. Not really. Heck, even my old Turtle Beaches play back Environmental effects fairly well ( As long as nothing else plays or they kind of struggle LOL )
Click to expand...

Yeah EAX is dead, i dont know why people keep citing that the x-fi has a gaming "edge" EAX has been a dying technology since vista came out, its finished. Even back then not many games supported the latest EAX 5.0. Also the xonar can now emulate up to EAX 5.0 i gather so unless you are playing a niche game which both has EAX 5.0 and it only works with x-fi then the xonar is the better buy.
 
FatRakoon said:
I think that for me though, the crystaliser of the XFI takes it to way above what the Xonar has to offer
Click to expand...

Hang on....what?!

The 'crystaliser' is quite possibly the worst 'feature' added to a soundcard...ever!


In my experience the D2X is ahead of the X-Fi by quite some margin for music, but the effects in some games were pretty cool on the X-Fi.
 
Rroff said:
EAX is not the major reason people buy the X-Fi for gaming.
Click to expand...

so what is?

I have also noticed the lack of 'eax 8' or whatever in new games. I think companies are slowly phasing out eax and effects in return for (hopefully) better recordings/quality in the first place
 
Better recording/quality can't replace EAX... tho IMO even the latest EAX is still not a patch on a proper A3D implementation and that was possible many years back...

X-Fi have superior positional audio for gaming, use less resources than most other soundcards - in some cases boosting performance by more than 15% and tend to handle multiple streams/sounds better in games when the action heats up.
 
FatRakoon said:
My main PC's Speakers are Altec Lansing 995 and they are a fair age now and so, I thought that they might simply be starting to struggle and so, I tok the Xonar and the XFI upstairs to my Music gear to give them a proper trial, using my Yamaha Pro amp & Studio Monitors and its the same on those... The XFI is simply a much better card than the Xonar.
Click to expand...

Hi, what monitors are they? If they are NS-10's, then I can see why you may think the XFI sounds better, NS-10's are mid-fi at best. Also, your amp may or may not be helping here...

I suggest a decent pair of headphones would give you a better comparison of which card sounds best...

Personally I think the XFI sounds like a bag of crap, but one mans gold is another mans poison (or something like that :p)... So if you prefer the XFI then keep it!
 
Bought a Xonar, tried to pump a 44.1Khz DTS audio CD through it as an SPDIF signal, no go.
No matter what I tried it wouldn't have it (there is an old thread of mine about it here in the Sound section somewhere).
Eventually I tracked down the problem to the fact that the Xonar resamples everything to 192Khz, then downsamples it to whatever sample rate you have selected, even if you have it set to pass through.

Sent the Xonar back, now I can listen to whatever I want on my XFI without having to faff around, material played through the SPDIF just works and all is well.

The Xonar only "sounds better" because it resamples everything it touches...a false positive in my book.
 
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