Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium - Fatal1ty Professional Series 7.1 Sound Card

Vakas

Vakas

Vakas

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I am thinking of buying this card as I have always used creative sound cards I wanted to know how any of the Asus card would compare to this?

What is the sound quality on the Asus cards and what is the software bundle like is it as user friendly as creative's?
 
I personally find the Xonars to sound weak in comparison to the Creative although there are literally hundreds of reviews out there which would disagree with me.

Sound is so personal and subjective - it is a difficult question to answer in that what sounds good to me might not sound good to you...to a point.

My view is that the Xonar has a lack of 'depth' to it not accurately reproducing my favoruite albums in a way which I perceive to be pleasing. Also, when I switched back to my X-Fi Xtreme Audio from an Asus Xonar D2X I found more clarity in the high end of the frequency spectrum and less muddy bass. Whether this is due to the Xonar being more sonically accurate I am unsure (and the Creative accentuating 8kHz+).

In your case, as you are familiar with Creative and clearly happy with the UI of the driver panel I would say go for the Creative.

Might I ask what speakers you are planning to connect to your new soundcard? You might not even need such a frilly soundcard. Do remember that you are paying more for the Fatal1ty brand than anything by purchasing said card. Conversely, I would probably never recommend a gaming card to anyone apart from gamers. What are using your soundcard for primarily:

Music?
Gaming?
DAW (production) work?
Movies?

Knowing what speakers you have/will be buying will influence any advice given so post back with some more details on what you run and we can take it from there ;)

Tom
 
Hi

Thanks for the info Tom,

I am using a set of Logitech Z5500 speakers and I currently use the Ceatuve X-FI Gamer sound card.

I now listen to a lot more music than play games, so my primary use for the card would be for music...
 
Whats your budget? If its for primarily music i'd go for a Xonar D2/D2X. That seems to be the general consensus anyway from what i've read up on. The D1/DX is also great for music, but at a lower cost. Its best to look at the features of each of the Xonars and see what you need as they all do a good job, even the DS, which i'm using in our other pc.

However as hughythomas says some people like myself prefer the x-fi overall, even for music, despite it being a 'gamer card'. The bass to me sounds overall punchier with a very crisp high end, but then again i haven't got a great speaker setup (logitech x230s) so i probably don't reap the benfits of a xonar to say its better.

Based on your speaker setup though and your primary usage, i'd play safe and go for a xonar ;)
 
I see the primary hopeful gain from going from an Xtreme Gamer to a Fatal1ty Professional is extra musical quality, is that correct? You do realise you are paying for the EMI shield and fancy name? As Tom pointed out above. Would it not be better to save £36 and get the Titanium? Same card without the added money grabbing features. Really though, I see no gain at all going from an Xtreme Gamer to a fancy named Titanium.
 
Got to agree with Marsman here.

Irrespective of which card you choose these are all gaming cards - if you want something proper that will give you some serious music quality get a budget semi-pro audio interface like a M-Audio Audiophile 2496. This card is £54 from another etailer and would offer you the following benefits:

1) You could keep your current Soundblaster for gaming or sell it on.
2) the Audiophile has SPDIF with DTS pass through for connecting digitally to your Z-5500.
3) The converters are MUCH higher quality than any gaming card.
4) The Audiophile will not colour the sound like an Asus/Creative leaving you with a much 'truer' representation of your music. Remember, producers and engineers are often paid thousands of pounds to produce music in studios worth hundreds of thousands of pounds - don't you think we should trust them as to how THEIR records should sound?!

Also, lets not forget the price. Like Marsman said, you are paying through the eyeballs for the Fatal1ty brand by purchasing that X-Fi gaming card when it will not offer you any sonic upgrade over your current one.

If I was in your position I would keep your current card to use for gaming (obviously the M-Audio will not support EAX etc) and buy the Audiophile 2496 for music but of course I'd say this as I live, breathe and work music! This is exactly what I have done with my gaming rig - I have the X-Fi Xtreme Audio for gaming/Windows and the RME Fireface 800 for everything else (mostly music/movies). This is easy to setup if you use something like Winamp where you can individually assign the outputs.
 
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Ha ha!

It's true digital mastering is the bane of my existence at the moment...do I master my records like everybody else and pump the living hell out of them with multi-band compression or do I make a stand for dynamic range?!

Afterall, it's not as if the end user has a volume knob...oh no wait!
 
hughythomas said:
Just to verify is it this card you are using at the moment?

If it is, presumably you connect to the Logitech Z-5500s via analogue and not digital?
Click to expand...

This is the card and yes I am connecting it via analogue to my speakers,

Can I do digital with this card and if so what will I need to do it:?
 
Yes you can do digital with your card but you will need a toslink adapter to plug an optical cable into the 3.5mm white flexi-jack on the rear of your card. Check the accessories that came with the X-Fi. You might be lucky and find one. If not, they are easy enough to find online.

For a quick boost in sound quality without having to spend any money, check your sample rates are @ 96kHz and synced.

To do this, set your sample rate to 96kHz / 24 bit in the Creative panel and then open up (by right clicking on the volume icon in the taskbar) the sound properties menu. Now right click on your device (it will normally just be called "speakers") and go to the advanced tab. Make sure it is set to 96kHz / 24 bit. This will give you an instant boost in quality. Couple this with the digital cable you need to connect to your Z-5500s and I really don't see the need to upgrade as you will have a bitching system!
 
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