The Sound BlasterX AE-5 Owners' Club

Gee · 26 Jun 2018 at 10:47

T.Kay said:
Great deal on the AE-5 at the moment, you can get 35% off sitewide with code SUMMERSW35. Just ordered and totalled to around £103 with a free sound blaster inferno. Went for the Pure edition as the RGB was too tempting, only £83 if you go for the black edition.

You get 1 RGB strip with the normal (black) edition. IIRC 4 come with the Pure edition.

T.Kay · 26 Jun 2018 at 11:11

Gee said:
You get 1 RGB strip with the normal (black) edition. IIRC 4 come with the Pure edition.

Yeah, took into account that if I were to buy led strips seperate with controller would have costed more than £20 so I went for the Pure plus it fits in with my white interior

Random Guy Esq. · 30 Jun 2018 at 01:09

Just had the AE-5 delivered today. Unfortunately, I won't have a PC to put it in for a few weeks

billyboyd · 30 Jun 2018 at 10:21

That sucks about the forum, the guys on there saved my bacon many times, unlike their support bots.

Mickcas · 30 Jun 2018 at 17:22

Ordered mine today, should be here Wed / Thursday. Will be pairing with some AKG K702s. Looking forward to hearing them

Mickcas · 4 Jul 2018 at 14:49

so this should be with me today and I'm wondering ( as I've never had a soundcard before ) which PCIE slot this should go into, or does it not matter, motherboard is the Crosshair vi x370.

V F · 4 Jul 2018 at 15:44

I kept mine in the last slot which is at the top of the case away from everything. Since my case is inverted.

Rroff · 4 Jul 2018 at 15:49

I try to keep soundcards away from things like NICs (including the circuitry for the onboard) due to them potentially being a source of interference and graphic cards for heat purposes - my current setup I've got it in the middle of the row of PCI-e slots but that is out of necessity due to the requirements of other devices I've got plugged in.

T.Kay · 4 Jul 2018 at 16:02

I just put it in any free slot on the motherboard.

Mickcas · 4 Jul 2018 at 16:47

thanks, its here now and installed, just trying to figure out the software, changing profiles doesnt seem to alter the sound?

T.Kay · 4 Jul 2018 at 17:05

Mickcas said:
thanks, its here now and installed, just trying to figure out the software, changing profiles doesnt seem to alter the sound?

Have you selected the correct output in the setup.

sgavan · 4 Jul 2018 at 17:34

Mickcas said:
thanks, its here now and installed, just trying to figure out the software, changing profiles doesnt seem to alter the sound?

If you select direct it won't use the profiles

Mickcas · 4 Jul 2018 at 17:46

yip I had it on direct, seems for the profiles I had to choose 7.1 headphones, any tips on some good settings for music and games or are the profiles good enough

Rroff · 4 Jul 2018 at 17:46

With direct mode some applications will take exclusive use of the soundcard as well so if you are trying to game it might knock out voice comms, etc. unless you use one of the non-direct modes.

Mickcas said:
yip I had it on direct, seems for the profiles I had to choose 7.1 headphones, any tips on some good settings for music and games or are the profiles good enough

For music I tend to use Neutral as I like to hear the original sound - for movies and TV shows I tend to use the Cinema setting - for gaming depends a bit on the game I actually game quite a lot without any processing - sometimes use a variant of the Gaming profile with some of the settings slightly dialled back.

sgavan · 4 Jul 2018 at 18:02

I like to have surround off when using my akg702 and 990s, also like to have bass around 35, use this for pretty much all situations. If you set the audio quality to it's highest 38k something, not by my PC so not sure the value, it may not work in all programs like Spotify, so you may need to set it to the second highest

Rroff · 4 Jul 2018 at 18:07

Yeah I have to set it to the second highest setting 24bit/192KHz IIRC as some programs go all robotic sounding with the highest. If you are using processing settings I don't think you can go over 96KHz anyhow.

Mickcas · 4 Jul 2018 at 18:18

Rroff said:
Yeah I have to set it to the second highest setting 24bit/192KHz IIRC as some programs go all robotic sounding with the highest. If you are using processing settings I don't think you can go over 96KHz anyhow.

how do I go about changing these settings, I dont see it anywhere within the software

Rroff · 4 Jul 2018 at 18:20

You have to do it in Windows sound settings on the AE-5 playback device.

Mickcas · 4 Jul 2018 at 18:24

Rroff said:
You have to do it in Windows sound settings on the AE-5 playback device.

ah yes I see it now, so 24 bit 96000hz is what I should be looking for

sgavan · 4 Jul 2018 at 19:05

Mickcas said:
ah yes I see it now, so 24 bit 96000hz is what I should be looking for

i have mine at 32bit 96000Hz