Creative Xmod X-Fi External any good?

So does this thing 'enhance' the audio output from an already installed sound card or is it an external mini xfi?

if it is the second of the two i would be interested in it for my laptop :)
 
How would this effect the system performance wise in comparison to an inbuilt pci x-fi?
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Well, it's USB as opposed to PCI so it's inherently going to use more CPU power than a PCI card. But it might not make a huge amount of difference.

I know that in the old(ish) days of Pentium 3s, my laptop had a heck of a time trying to cope with an external USB soundcard but things have moved on somewhat :p

So does this thing 'enhance' the audio output from an already installed sound card or is it an external mini xfi?
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It's an external USB soundcard, so it would be ideal for laptops.
 
Just bothered to do a bit of looking around, came up with this,

creativexmod.jpg

Creative claims that its latest invention is able to improve the sound quality of everyday music sources—like the iPod, Zen or just a stack of MP3s residing in your computer—to "beyond the original CD quality." It uses Creative's X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity technology to enhance the sound. Basically, you place the Xmod, which is the size of a "candy bar," in between your speakers and digital audio source and let it work its voodoo. It draws power from your computer, so if you're hooking it up to a portable audio player, you'll need to make use of the AC adapter, which is sold separately, natch.

The Xmod will hit stores this month and will retail for $79.99. For some reason, the phrase "wait and see" comes to mind. – Nicholas Deleon
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no thanks tbh, its just an external dsp, not a soundcard.
 
agreed - i'd like it to enhance the sound quality of my games also.

Are there any other USB/Firewire alternatives?
 
 
I was looking at this too, but I don't quite understand it. Do you just plug it in via USB (say to your laptop) and it'll alter the audio played back for you? i.e. just like having an X-Fi in the laptop? Is that how it works?

Cheers. :)
 
Firegod said:
I was looking at this too, but I don't quite understand it. Do you just plug it in via USB (say to your laptop) and it'll alter the audio played back for you? i.e. just like having an X-Fi in the laptop? Is that how it works?

Cheers. :)
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No, it just draws power from the usb port, you need to plug an input and output source into it as well, as i said, its just a cheap DSP advertised as an xfi.
 
lay-z-boy said:
No, it just draws power from the usb port, you need to plug an input and output source into it as well, as i said, its just a cheap DSP advertised as an xfi.
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Oooohh cheers for that. :)
 
lay-z-boy said:
No, it just draws power from the usb port, you need to plug an input and output source into it as well, as i said, its just a cheap DSP advertised as an xfi.
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Actually, according to this, it's an actual USB sound card.
That Website said:
It's essentially a USB-driven, external sound card.
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ok here's a question for people then - i'm a high level gamer and so i go to a lot of lan's where the computers don't always have sound cards and rely on onboard sound, so with this in mind would using the Xmod give me sufficient improvements over using a headset with soundcard built in (i.e. Steelsound 5h v2 or sennheiser pc165)?
i will be plugging my headset straight into the Xmod via the jacks but i need something that's going to be very simple plug and play but will give me good quality gameing sound
 
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