Soldato
Before I got my hands on the X7 I was a little concerned about where I could put it but was pleasantly surprised by how compact it is, so I tip my baseball cap to Creative for cramming so much into a small case.
The box would have us believe that it contains an Ultra High -End Sound Blaster with 24bit/192kHz High Resolution 127db DAC and Audio Amplifier.
There are also a lot of icons, logos and numbers obviously meant to impress....
So ignoring the box, what's inside? Well there is the aforementioned, relatively compact Sound Blaster X7, a quite chunky power supply, a choice of power leads, a USB lead (1m) an RCA to 3.5mm cable, a female 3.5mm to RCA adaptor, a set of RCA cables and a headphone stand. Yep, a headphone stand, which clips into the rear which in some cases would be a nice touch but in my case it would have meant standing my headphones in front of the monitor, so it stayed in the box - thanks for the thought anyway Creative.
The components used inside this little beastie are quite impressive too:
Burr-Brown PCM1794 D/A Converter
Burr-Brown PCM4220 A/D Converter
Texas Instruments TPA6120A2 headphone amplifier
Texas Instruments TPA3116D2 Class-D stereo amplifier
Nichicon “Fine Gold” capacitors
SB-Axx1TM multi-core DSP
Bluetooth 4.1 Module supporting HFP with HD Voice and A2DP with AAC, aptX and aptX-Low Latency
The X7 works with pretty much everything, including phones, tablets, computers (mac & PC), iPod, iPhone, iPad, TVs, PS4, XBOX One and XBOX 360.
The DAC is good for 127db signal/noise and operates at up to 24bit depth and 192kHz sample rate.
The ADC is good for 24bit/192kHz recording.
The headphone amp is tried, tested and powerful enough for most high impedance or insensitive headphones.
The Class-D amp will deliver up to 38W per channel using the standard 24V 2.9A power supply and up to 50W per channel with the uprated 24V 6A model (available separately).
The headphone amp has two gain settings, normal for 32 to 300ohm and high for up to 600ohm.
On the underside of the case you'll find a little hidden panel ....
This is where you can roll those op-amps to fine tune the sound.
The unit comes with the following op-amps fitted:
Dual op-amps: New Japan Radio NJM2114D
Single op-amps: Texas Instruments LME49710
Generally these will be the best overall pairing but if you have others or want to experiment then the following pairings have been tried and tested.
Dual op-amps + Single op-amps
NJM2114D + OPA627
MUSES8920D + LME49710
MUSES8920D + OPA627
LME49720 + LME49710
LME49720 + OPA627
OPA2132 + LME49710
OPA2132 + OPA627
The front of the unit is nice and free of clutter and the layout was obviously dictated by the shape, or vice versa (or the designer really likes Toblerone).
The fascia is dominated by a large "free turning" volume control, which is obviously digital because it changes the Windows volume plus the give away was that it is free turning, it has no end stops.
In practice it works really well and is very smooth in operation but it does mean a lot of knob turning to take it from loud to quiet and back again.
Thankfully you won't need to do that very often because the knob also acts as a mute switch which you can toggle on and off by pushing the knob.
I don't know why but I was slightly disappointed that the volume control surround wasn't illuminated, a dim blue glow would have been a nice touch.
Below the volume control is a small grill, which is actually a beamforming CrystalVoice microphone.
Under that you will find the power button which you press for on/off and hold down for two seconds for Bluetooth pairing.
Next to that is the Dolby Digital indicator LED and finishing the line is the SBX on/off button and indicator.
Completing the front panel are the 3.5mm microphone input, a 3.5mm headphone socket and a 6.3mm headphone socket, both of which can be used at once.
The rear is quite busy compared with the front, with the top row comprising an impedance switch for 4/8ohm passive speakers, four binding posts for passive, stereo speakers which can also be used with banana plugs and finally the power socket.
On the next row we get two RCA sockets for line level front speakers and two 3.5mm sockets for rear and sub/centre speakers to finish off the 5.1 capabilities.
Next up are two RCA sockets for line in and sockets for both optical out and optical in.
Lastly we have the USB input, which for some strange reason they have decided to use a mini-USB socket rather than the more usual and far more robust type B used on printers (and most external DACs).
There is another mini-USB port on the side of the unit, which can be used for connecting, using and charging phones and tablets - for this they use a full sized type A plug (thumbs up).
Setting up was very easy, just plug the USB into the unit, connect the power, plug in speakers and install the latest driver from the Creative website. I did have a few initial frights when turning the unit on and having music blare at me from the speakers but that stopped when I eventually realised that the headphone socket operates a relay that switches between headphones and speakers - D'oh!
So how does it sound?
Equipment used: Sennheiser HD650 and AKG K702 headphones, Edifier R1600T II active speakers, Wharfedale Denton passive speakers.
Compared with Asus Xonar Essence STX and Schiit Modi & Vali external DAC and amp.
With gain set to normal a volume of 40% to 50% is enough for most of my music through either the 300ohm Sennheisers or the 62ohm but very insensitive AKGs.
Both are plenty loud enough and the sound quality is clear and clean and slightly warm.
I did have a little trouble playing a couple of 24bit/192kHz files but that may well be cured by using a better quality USB cable.
The Modi only goes to 24/96 and also had problems with the same files. In fact the only piece that was able to play them without any problem was the STX.
As the STX has by far the shortest digital path the problem may well be due to USB cables not being made with unobtainium or even the USB ports themselves.
No such problems at 44.1, 88.2 or 96kHz and that's where 99.5% of my music lives.
The sound stage on the X7 is nice, slightly wider than the Modi & Vali or the STX and with more front to back depth.
Not quite as much bass as the Vali but it still has a satisfying thump.
There seems to be a little more space around the instruments, making them easier to pinpoint and the vocals are more forward than with the other two setups.
For music playback I left the "Direct" setting ticked as it bypasses all processing, much the same as the "HF" button does for the STX.
For movies though that's the first thing you need to turn off and then hit the SBX button (making sure surround sound is turned on) and away you go, convincing surround sound through your stereo headphones.
I was quite surprised by how well SBX worked with the Edifiers while gaming.
I started up Dragon Age: Inquisition and set sound to Home Theatre then hit the SBX button (with surround selected) and even though I was just using two speakers the sound seemed to expand out beyond the speakers and even push out towards the sides.
Most of my listening over the past few weeks has been through headphones, a necessity for us apartment dwellers but I did give the X7 a spin with my Edifier R1600Ts and some borrowed Wharfedale Dentons.
The Edifiers sounded very good considering I only paid £50 for them and the X7 had no trouble driving the Dentons to neighbour annoying levels.
Conclusion
The biggest negative I have with the X7 is it's cost, at £329.99 it can hardly be called cheap.
I would have to mark it down slightly for not having a metal case, plastic at this price point just doesn't cut it.
For the average gamer it's obviously way over the top but that's not who this is aimed at. It's a fully featured external sound card and in that category it is currently best in it's class by a mile.
On top of that you have a quite capable amp for passive speakers.
You also have a good sounding, powerful headphone amp with the option for op-amp rolling.
Then you've got the Bluetooth connectivity, a built in microphone, compatibility with computers, tablets, phones and games consoles.
Add all that together and the asking price may not seem so steep.
Oh and it still looks like a Toblerone.
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