WooHoo! X-Fi baby!

nikebee

nikebee

nikebee

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t'was my birthday yesterday (20) and got given a nice discount at a competitor so i decided to spend it on a nice little... X-Fi Xtreme Music sound card :)

and it only cost £58 :)

hopefully this should be a nice upgrade from my Audigy 2 ZS, which i'm still over the moon with...

am i to expect a nice boost in sound performance/quality over the Audigy 2?
i use a nice set of 5.1 Logitech X-530 speakers :)

can't wait for this little baby to arrive :D
 
nikebee said:
am i to expect a nice boost in sound performance/quality over the Audigy 2?
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I am going to say the two things I normally say when I read something like this.
1. Let your ear be the judge.
2. Probably :)
 
ive recently had afew problems with the xfi... had to resort to onboard during that period... i was that unhappy with going back to onboard, i was really determined to sort it out.

sorted it out

and my bosh i am really happy to listen to all my music with the XFI card... its amazing the high quality sound (hand in hand with speakers) the 24bit crystaliser is fantastic
 
Even with those speakers you should notice a nice increase in sound quality, although as fish99 said the difference would be more pronounced on a better set. Don't expect a big increase in games performance though. Despite creative's claims the X-Fi doesn't really make games go faster.
 
xiphrex said:
I read somewhere that this sound cards have the equivalent cpu power as a pentium 4, is this true or just creative hype?
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It's probably true depending on what their qualitive measurement of power is. Dedicated processors are often extremely powerful at what they do compared to general purpose processors.

Jokester
 
Aidoscuz said:
Even with those speakers you should notice a nice increase in sound quality, although as fish99 said the difference would be more pronounced on a better set.
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I've got mine connected to a high end Sony AV receiver and some B&W DM600 series speakers.... it sounds a bit good.

The difference (initially) a couple of years ago moving to the Sony/B&W combo from the old Creative Fourpoints was stunning. Connecting the X-Fi to the same kit is absolutely fantastic. Sound quality's amazing and there's no way I'd ever buy "computer" speakers again.
 
lemonkettaz said:
and my bosh i am really happy to listen to all my music with the XFI card... its amazing the high quality sound (hand in hand with speakers) the 24bit crystaliser is fantastic
Click to expand...

yeah the crystalizer makes the difference, really helps to throw out more bass :)
using Z5500's btw
 
I don't think the Hi-Fi gurus get it. (And I guess I'm sort of one of them)

The X-Fi is designed to ENHANCE PC SPEAKER performance. It will make any PC speaker set sound MUCH better. For Hi-Fi it won't really make a difference, as I've noticed. The bass is better but the actual sound quality is the same as my AN8's onboard M-Audio 7.1 Card.
 
X-Fi is not specifically designed to improve the sound of PC speakers. The review I read specifically said the extra sound quality an X-Fi has over something like an Audigy 2 is wasted on most PC speakers. You're talking as if PC speakers and hi-fi speakers are something radically different. PC speakers are just cheap speakers with a cheap amp built into the sub, nothing more.
 
fish99 said:
X-Fi is not specifically designed to improve the sound of PC speakers. The review I read specifically said the extra sound quality an X-Fi has over something like an Audigy 2 is wasted on most PC speakers. You're talking as if PC speakers and hi-fi speakers are something radically different. PC speakers are just cheap speakers with a cheap amp built into the sub, nothing more.
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A Hardcore Hi-Fi enthusiast wants PURE audio; No EQ, NO effects, nothing. That's exactly what the X-fi Doesn't do.

Having said that, I personally think the Crystalizer does an excellent job.
 
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Tommy B said:
A Hardcore Hi-Fi enthusiast wants PURE audio; No EQ, NO effects, nothing. That's exactly what the X-fi Doesn't do.
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Of course it does, if you want it to. Crystalizer can be turned off, EQ can be bypassed, in audio creation mode it doesn't even do any resampling, it can output at 44 KHz if you want it to. If you're saying there's better quality soundcards available, then yes there is, I never said there wasn't (although they're not suitable for gaming). I didn't even say whether X-Fi was a good card or not, or anything about what uses it's suited for.

I just said that any extra quality it has over lesser cards can be better apprecaited with a high quality amp and speakers. There's nothing mystical about hi-fi gear, it's just better quality, better designs, better parts, better materials, made by companies with far more experience of making the best quality audio equipement. Hence most of it sounds better.

Your point is that all the processing the X-Fi does can help make up for crap speakers, which is probably true, but that's no excuse to have crap speakers. For the £80 you pay for an X-Fi you might get 3-5% better sound versus an Audigy 2 maybe. If that money was spent on better speakers instead, you would see far more for your money (I'm not talking about your speakers here, but general PC buyers who buy X-Fi and use it with X-530 as above).

You seem to be forever critizing hi-fi gear since you upgraded to an X-Fi, as if you were expecting it to do something wonderful. It doesn't have the best analogue output of any soundcard. There could be a million other reason why you didn't get the sound you were looking for, for instance, your amp could be crap or knackered, you could be using those floorstanders of yours in a small bedroom, which they are not suited to.
 
Gotta say, I've been using my X-Fi for a good few months on an old set of Cambridge Soundwork DTS2200's if my memory serves me right... they're that old they are discontinued! ;) And the sound is improved! Great card, so I can only imagine what it sounds like on the best PC speakers now or even a Hi-Fi setup. :D If it can make these aging babies sound good again it's doing something right. Music is clear and well defined, bass and cutoff can be altered to any person's liking along with all the up-mixing features and then EAX in games and headphones are amazing! Overall it's money well spent.... just need to buy some better speakers. :p
 
cheers for all the replies guys, i always thought the X-530's are good mid-range speakers... i know they're nothing out of this world, but they sound great to me :p

hopefully the soundcard will arrive tomorrow and i can post my findings :)
 
fish99 said:
Of course it does, if you want it to. Crystalizer can be turned off, EQ can be bypassed, in audio creation mode it doesn't even do any resampling, it can output at 44 KHz if you want it to. If you're saying there's better quality soundcards available, then yes there is, I never said there wasn't (although they're not suitable for gaming). I didn't even say whether X-Fi was a good card or not, or anything about what uses it's suited for.

I just said that any extra quality it has over lesser cards can be better apprecaited with a high quality amp and speakers. There's nothing mystical about hi-fi gear, it's just better quality, better designs, better parts, better materials, made by companies with far more experience of making the best quality audio equipement. Hence most of it sounds better.

Your point is that all the processing the X-Fi does can help make up for crap speakers, which is probably true, but that's no excuse to have crap speakers. For the £80 you pay for an X-Fi you might get 3-5% better sound versus an Audigy 2 maybe. If that money was spent on better speakers instead, you would see far more for your money (I'm not talking about your speakers here, but general PC buyers who buy X-Fi and use it with X-530 as above).

You seem to be forever critizing hi-fi gear since you upgraded to an X-Fi, as if you were expecting it to do something wonderful. It doesn't have the best analogue output of any soundcard. There could be a million other reason why you didn't get the sound you were looking for, for instance, your amp could be crap or knackered, you could be using those floorstanders of yours in a small bedroom, which they are not suited to.
Click to expand...

I'm really pleased with the X-fi. As I said above! Sure, the floorstanders aren't ideal for a bedroom (which is quite large) but I'm still really pleased with the sound quality of my speakers. It just seems that most modern bands have awful recordings, especially rock/indie. When I listen to old stuff the sound quality is outrageously good.
 
Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing the X-Fi and I'm thinking of getting one myself. I was looking at soundcards with better analogue output (M-Audio audiophile 24/96 for instance), but the cpu usage is so much higher on non-creative cards, and they can't do EAX 3-5. I'm just into games too much to use anything but creative.

I do think people should look beyond PC speakers though.
 
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