The Jet said:
I loved my M-Audio 24/96 and it helped me to track my drums for a good 2 years solid. I've got other means to mic track stuff now, but it still played a mean MP3 when it had too. On recent reviews the X-Fi has been well praised for its Crystalizer feature and that's the ONLY real reason i'm getting it.
I will order it tomorrow. Got my fingers crossed it'll be in the Weekly Offers tomorrow. (Ack, I won't be countin' my chickens though)
Be aware that the 'Crystaliser' is just a multiband compressor (and maybe a few other toys) as far as I can tell.
It's a lot of money to pay for what you could do with a VST plug-in, and IMO will ruin the music.
Why run music through extra hardware and software when it's been meticulously mixed and mastered?
The claims they make for the Crystaliser, specifically that it can make MP3's (and even CD's) sound better, by somwhow regaining lost data from the original recordings are complete rubbish. This is impossible to do! Anybody involved with audio (or even with computing to a serious degree) will tell you so.
My guess is that people raving about this technology are listening on PC speakers, where boosting certain frequencies with a multiband will make things sound 'better' initially.
Also people are probably testing the feature by switching it on and off. This might seem like a sensible way to do it - until you realise that, if it's doing what I think it is, the multiband is introducing significant make-up-gain - thus making the signal louder. Anything louder is going to sound better to somebody who's not into their audio and can't hear the compression artifacts.
The only way to really test compression quality is to introduce a very clean make-up gain (level matching) unit into the circuit - such as the Nautilus Nemo DMC-8:
http://nautilusmastertechnology.com/
Ultimatly I'm betting that, if you have decent speakers and amplification, the Crystaliser will do what compressors always do, degrade the dynamic range of the music and produce artifacts, creating a bossted, but tiring listen.
On these terrible little plastic PC speakers that people seem willing to shell out stupid amounts of money on these days, yes it probably will sound better.
IMO you should at least trial the card first if you can, and make sure that you really do want this feature.
