Which USB sound card for "virtual surround" with headphones?

[Engram]

I've recently unpacked my mothballed gaming PC and my X-Fi XtremeGamer seems to have died. (Not detected by Windows in any way).

I was a big fan of the CMSS-3D virtual surround feature (as I can no longer game with speakers) and I'd like to get something else that has a similar feature.

I only have a PCI slot available (which appears to be a total dead-end now), so it looks like I'll need to switch to a USB sound card.

Any recommendations? Should I get the Sound Blaster X3?

 

[Marsman]

Probably Creative X3 or G6. From what I've seen the G6 is better from a hardware point of view, but the X3 uses Creative's new Super X-Fi; G6 uses SBX Prostudio, which was the successor to CMSS 3D.

Whether Super X-Fi is better than SBX Prostudio when it comes to virtual surround sound in gaming, I don't really know. Not sure there have been any comparison videos been made like there have with SBX and Dolby, etc.

@EsaT might know more about how they compare.

 

[Engram]

Thanks. The G6 seems to get a lot of poor reviews (on Amazon) saying that it’s buggy and unreliable - which puts me off a bit!

I think that the X3 has an SBX mode as well as the new Super X-Fi Mode.

I guess the other contender would be the GSX1000 but it’s almost twice the price and in the YouTube videos I’ve found the positional audio is not as good as SBX (particularly for sounds behind your head).

 

[EsaT]

SBX G6 has indeed better audio hardware and is capable to driving more demanding headphones than SB X3.
Which for one thing has officially 3Vrms max output, likely because of simpler power supply with only negative rail generation and no positive rail boosting.
(USB's 5V doesn't leave room for much else than 3Vrms)
But unfortunately SBX G6 has only old fixed HRTF algorithm.

Really sad how slowly Creative has been bringing head shape customizable Super X-Fi HRTF into sound cards, while gaming would be the way biggest benefiter from it:
We hear in 3D with two ears, because shape of the head (+pinnae) causes direction dependant changes to signal received from sound source by both ears.
Hence details of those binaural cues obviously depend on listener's head shape.
So some average head shape based HRTF is more or less compromise for most people.
And HRTF better for one person is worser than another HRTF for second listener and vice versa.
Customizable HRTF helps to that.
(but also makes recordings less usefull for comparison because of possibly entirely wrong tuning of HRTF)

If even remotely same amount of effort would have been used to improve gaming audio as graphics, we would have had customizable HRTFs in start of the decade.

Thanks. The G6 seems to get a lot of poor reviews (on Amazon) saying that it’s buggy and unreliable - which puts me off a bit!


I guess the other contender would be the GSX1000 but it’s almost twice the price and in the YouTube videos I’ve found the positional audio is not as good as SBX (particularly for sounds behind your head).

Problem is unreliability of those user reviews.
Thinking ability of average consumer is falling to such level that lots of them would no doubt give bad reviews to pencil, because they couldn't figure out how to sharpen it...
Though likely some of toyphone generation would already fall on their face in trying to find correct end of it!


For my head HRTF of GSX is pretty good and not falling that much behind Creative's old fixed HRTF.
But of course for your head shape it could be worser.
And rest of it can be defined as heavily overpriced audiofoolery brand hype scam:

Because it doesn't have any good DAC and neither it has any real headphone amplifier.
It uses cheap Conexant CX20745 meant for cheap phones and tablets:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/sennheiser-gsx-1000-1200-impressions.824923/page-30#post-13504383
http://dtsheet.com/doc/1214288/conexant-cx20745
https://prom-electric.ru/media/CX20745_ds.pdf

That's struggling to match 30-40€/£ Audigy Fx/Xonar DGX budget sound card DAC.
And of course you don't expect cheap phone/tablet to have any headphone amplifier.
Page 10 of datasheet says 1Vrms as max headphone output.
Which Sennheiser now seems to have updated into their "fact sheet".

 

[Engram]

Thanks for that thorough reply! It sounds like the GSX1000 probably isn't worth the extra cash. I'm hoping I'll be able to register for the 15% upgrade programme for the X3, which brings the price down to match the G6.

 

[EsaT]

It sounds like the GSX1000 probably isn't worth the extra cash.

Wouldn't buy GSX even for 100.
That hardware is such total lackluster.

 

[Elku]

Wouldn't buy GSX even for 100.
That hardware is such total lackluster.

gotta agree. mine went straight after a couple of weeks. i don't know a lot about audio equipment but the dac/amp sounds on par with a £30 sound card. The shame in all this is their HTRF is up there with the best. If I had to price it up given the unit is actually semi decent Id say £70-£80. That's about what it would be worth to me. but really just give me the software and a £60 chifi dac/amp combo!

 

[Engram]

X3 it is then... I'm hoping for a deal on Friday!

 

[Wegason]

Ah, another EsaT rant against the GSX 1000. Apparently those of us who like it and give a good review shouldn't be trusted because user reviews are unreliable because:

"Thinking ability of average consumer is falling to such level that lots of them would no doubt give bad reviews to pencil, because they couldn't figure out how to sharpen it..." - EsaT

While then proceeding to give a very detailed user review of a Creative product, which, given his logic that user reviews are unreliable, should not be relied upon, no? @Engram I refer you to the GSX 1000 thread where there are some sound tests to listen to with your headphones that may prove useful to you.

For gaming and productivity, the ease of switching from speakers to headphones, the easy control of a bit of EQ, and control over the level of reverb; attracted me to it. For me, out of all the sound solutions i've tried, it had the best spatial positioning which was important to me. However I'm just an average consumer and probably can't review a pencil...

 

[Engram]

Ha ha!

My decision is primarily based on the fact that the X3 is significantly cheaper, and in the demo videos I found the X3 had better positional sound. I realise that those videos are fallible, but short of buying both devices it's the only thing I have to go on.

 

[yashiro]

Creative Labs stuff varies in quality, both in terms of hardware quality and software stability. They're also well known for ditching support and leaving critical bugs unfixed. So always be wary of this.

Also Windows 10 has built in support for Virtual Surround. Just buy a good quality USB DAC/AMP if you're a headphone gamer for the foreseeable future to be honest. If you want something cheap and gamer-y, get the Creative SBplay 3. It has knobs to twiddle for Bass, Fake Surround, Eq, should you not want to use Windows Sonic.

I picked one up for a tenner as a backup audio device and it works OK. You will need to install the drivers package on Windows to get the control panel and to fix a mic levels bug. Their software is a bit janky but it hasn't crashed; which historically for Creative is a tremendous feat.

 

[Engram]

Having tried Windows Sonic, I'm not convinced it's any kind of substitute for CMSS-3D, SBX, etc.

That dongle kind of looks ok, but it has no volume knob, which is actually a feature I need.

 

[EsaT]

Having tried Windows Sonic, I'm not convinced it's any kind of substitute for CMSS-3D, SBX, etc.

Have heard some saying that it's basically broken/nonfunctional on PC side, which fits to how Microsoft has been treating PC game audio after XP. (as subordinate to Xbox)
And it really sounds like dumb downmixing from what little game recordings I've found.
Though neither Xbox recordings have sounded exactly good, including comparison to Dolby Headphone.

 

[Nick1881]

I'm looking for a new USB soundcard, I have the Sennheiser GSP 550, which is a GSP 500 with an inline USB soundcard, I think it's the week point, in hindsight I should have bought the GSP 500 and a soundcard.

I'm looking at the X3 and G6, the G6 looks to have a batter DAC but I've seen some users say the X3 sounds better, is the G6 older?

I'm ruling out the GSX1000 as it's too expensive.

What about the Asus offerings such as the U7?

I just want the best positional audio for gaming.

 

[liamd89]

Unless you need hardware to drive your headphones, check out Hesuvi. It's software that lets you select from all kinds of surround sound profiles, including cmss, sbx, gsx etc. https://sourceforge.net/projects/hesuvi/

 

[Marsman]

@Nick1881

Wouldn't bother with the U7. Uses Dolby Headphone, which isn't as good as Creative's SBX. Not only that, but the U7 reliability seems suspect. There was thread not that long ago where some people seemed to have an issue with the U7 once the warranty was up.

G6 is older than the X3, but not enough that it would have any bearing on whether the X3 sounds better or not. I would have said the G6 will be the better sounding of the two, but with audio, it's all very subjective! One possible reason is that the X3 has Super X-Fi and some people are probably liking that.

Edit: I should mention that B grade G6 can be had for £70 from Creative's site.

 

[PapaLazaru]

I'm looking for a new USB soundcard, I have the Sennheiser GSP 550, which is a GSP 500 with an inline USB soundcard, I think it's the week point, in hindsight I should have bought the GSP 500 and a soundcard.

I'm looking at the X3 and G6, the G6 looks to have a batter DAC but I've seen some users say the X3 sounds better, is the G6 older?

I'm ruling out the GSX1000 as it's too expensive.

What about the Asus offerings such as the U7?

I just want the best positional audio for gaming.

If you do replace the dongle and chuck it up in the MM, let me know. I've got an old PC363D headset and the dongle on that is failing so would be a simple replacement.

 

[Nick1881]

@Nick1881

Wouldn't bother with the U7. Uses Dolby Headphone, which isn't as good as Creative's SBX. Not only that, but the U7 reliability seems suspect. There was thread not that long ago where some people seemed to have an issue with the U7 once the warranty was up.

G6 is older than the X3, but not enough that it would have any bearing on whether the X3 sounds better or not. I would have said the G6 will be the better sounding of the two, but with audio, it's all very subjective! One possible reason is that the X3 has Super X-Fi and some people are probably liking that.

Edit: I should mention that B grade G6 can be had for £70 from Creative's site.

Thanks, the G6 is looking good especially if I can get a B stock one. Asus is ruled out then, I'd already heard bad reports somewhere.

If you do replace the dongle and chuck it up in the MM, let me know. I've got an old PC363D headset and the dongle on that is failing so would be a simple replacement.

I will do but I'm likely to keep it as a backup.

I wish they bundled the normal cable in with it, I bought a copy off Amazon and it's braided so looks nice, but one thing I didn't consider was cable noise, it's really bad, I can hear it rubbing against my shirt material. I think I'll have to buy another one.