I kept getting messages in Device Manager about not being to allocate enough resources. Also sometimes when the drivers were being initialised, Windows would either crash, blue screen or restart. An analysis of the dump files with WhoCrashed pointed to Creative's drivers.
Why does my Creative Sound Blaster Z sound so rubbish?
- Thread starter darael
- Start date
No idea why, but I thought I'd install a fresh copy of Windows 8, but couldn't get the Sound Blaster Z how I wanted. I put the XtremeMusic back in to see if I could get it purring away and now it's working fine with the PAX drivers!
After some reading online, reinserting the card can help issues like I had with resources - must have been a dodgy connection, I don't know.
So it's safe to say that W8 is more tempremental with drivers and hardware, albeit a little quicker overall.
After some reading online, reinserting the card can help issues like I had with resources - must have been a dodgy connection, I don't know.
So it's safe to say that W8 is more tempremental with drivers and hardware, albeit a little quicker overall.
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That's a really old version of the creative control panel.
Uninstall all creative software from your PC, and download latest version for your card. New software is red & black. Like this: http://imgur.com/MoAF2A9
Z series is loads better than xtreme music.
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This is why I haven't made the switch yet, I'm going to buy a bigger SSD soon so I'll do it then.
Older XtremeMusics were Creatives Flagship cards, the Sound Blaster Z is one of Creatives mid-range cards. DAC technology progress has been extremely slow, if not non-existent in recently so its perfectly plausible that the XM DAC/encoding is better than the Zs. Its not hard to see or even explain as to why the Z sounds inferior
The Creative Z uses the same DAC as the Elite Pro which is much better than any of the DAC's used in x-fi Xtreme music cards. There is no way it sounds worse.
Something badly wrong so. Out of the box the Z sounds better than the Xtreme music. Better DAC, higher quality components. You shouldn't have had to mess around at all to get acceptable results.
What speakers/headphones have you got?
Problem is the XtremeMusic has several different versions - which so far I've not been able to dig up any real documentation on. The first batch of them used a different DAC to later cards entirely and more later ones use another cheaper DAC again and some have different X-RAM or even no X-RAM at all, etc.
AFAIK the first run of them if you have one from that batch is close or the same as the elite pro DAC wise.
EDIT: Its even more confusing than I thought, theres various flavors of EMU, AKM, Cirrus Logic and even the odd Wolfson hardware in the DAC/ADC stages.
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I assume that is his old card not the Z as it cannot do those surround settings.
I have a ZxR and its "different" from previous X-Fi's, you have to do a lot of work to get sound the way you like and good audio will sound good but poor audio like YT videos can sound really poor.
It is less forgiving than previous cards, also the speakers matter a lot as the 7.1 set I sued before did not sound good on this ZxR so I went back to my old Cambridge 5.1's.
In some ways its a step backwards for PC game/video use but for pure audio use it would be decent,
I wrote a reply to another user with same issues and gave a lot more details so you can search my name + posts.
As covered by Rroff, the very first XMs features DACs of an equal level or higher to the Elite Pro, following that period they then started changing componentry and the dac. The newer XMs feature a Cirrus Logic CS4382 chip, which is inferior in sound to the 4x CS4398 chips that the Elite Pro had.
If it was one of the former, earlier XMs it is perfectly plausible that is sounds superior to the Z.
Yes, there are several different versions, and some morphed into others but none of them were as good as the DAC in the Elite Pro. The elite pro was nearly a professional grade card when released and was $270 more expensive than the most expensive Xtreme Music at launch and was geared towards the higher end audio lover who also liked gaming.
It wasn't until the titanium HD came along that it was surpassed. (I am only taking about creative cards, not asus ones)
Where? what XM's featured better DAC's? I can't remember any. From release in 2005 they had the 4382. I don't know of any X-Fi XtremeMusic cards before then.
Just a thought, are you and Roff confusing the recording side of the XtremeMusic? The A/D was handled by a Wolfson DAC.
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I may well be, actually - that's given me something to think about. I recall reading a review quite some time ago that stated the XM as featuring Wolfsons DACs, quite possible that I have mixed them up or misread and assumed that applied to both playback and recording.
Time to try and find that article, I guess!
Time to try and find that article, I guess!
No though its quite a long time ago and I'm struggling to remember the exact details.
There was a small number (I seem to remember it being serials upto 221 or 122 or something) that (apparently) had the same DAC/ADC as the emu 1212m, which also appears to be what is on the elite pro. Then there is a batch between that and serials upto 541 or something similar that has no heatsink and a mix of DACs - atleast 2 different models have been seen and a different X-RAM config - those might be the ones that people found didn't have any X-RAM at all.
Some of the review sites also claim to have Wolfson DACs on their review sample XtremeMusic but they might have been getting it confused with the ADC.
What the OP actually has is another matter entirely.
EDIT: I actually have one of the early ones so if I get a chance I'll pull it out and see what is on it.
EDIT2: The reviewers are just as confused mind:
IIRC the Audigy 4 used the same DAC as the Elite Pro.
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Yes, the Audigy 4 has the same DAC as the elite pro. The audigy 2 has the same DAC as the xtrememusic, the 4382.
That 4382 DAC is the only one used in the xtrememusic. The xtremeaudio is the same as the XM but without any of the eax effects and the xram.
All I can think of is that you are remembering some leaked specs, or the leaked specs had the xtreme music name on the elite pro card. And if you think about it, that could easily happen as you would imagine with a name like xtrememusic that it would have the best DAC.
The only other thing it might is if a batch of xtreme music cards got the elite pro dac by mistake. Its very unlikely though.
Thats from a review page I was looking at earlier, link is here. It states they have differing chips in the paragraph prior to the one you quote.
I cannot for the life of me find the review I was referencing earlier, however, so Ive really no idea if there was a short run of matching DACs or Wolfson DACs or what...
Thats from a review page I was looking at earlier, link is here. It states they have differing chips in the paragraph prior to the one you quote.
I cannot for the life of me find the review I was referencing earlier, however, so Ive really no idea if there was a short run of matching DACs or Wolfson DACs or what...
There is/were definitely reviews of the xtrememusic claiming it uses a Wolfson DAC but I would guess they got confused with the ADC. I remembered about them when the topic came up about the audio hardware in the galaxy note as it was the only previous time I'd heard of them.