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Creative X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty to Creative Sound Blaster Zx

C

Carfax83

Diamond Member
I've never really been much of an audio guy, but man, I recently upgraded from a Creative X-Fi Platinum that I've had for YEARS to a Sound Blaster Zx, and I can't believe how much of a difference in sound quality it made. I'm hearing sounds during gaming or just listening to my music collection that I never even knew existed!

Freaking unbelievable! Money well spent :biggrin:
 
There is this persistent thing going around that onboard audio today is good enough and that sound hasn't changed. Having listened to the Dolby headphone v CMSS v SBX pro v Realtek videos in BF4 and then trying this myself I can say for certain there is quite a difference especially when it comes to the surround sound implementations.

Every review I have seen on the topic in the last few years has completely skipped over the whole headphone surround sound setup, yet its arguably one of the more important aspects of the differences between cards. There is some audible differences in output as well but the difference is far more pronounced with headphone surround as the HRTF they use matters a lot and differs with them all.
 
The 5 speaker surround sound headphones are basically rubbish. They do provide somewhat better surround effect than a normal pair of headphones but the sound quality is dramatically reduced due to the smaller more compromised drivers. The best trade off I feel is with a sound card where the HRTF matches you and your headphones well. In essence you need to listen to a comparison on youtube, determine which gives you the best positioning and buy that card. The Sennheiser HD 555's are a reasonable set of headphones so I don't think you particularly need to upgrade those.
 
I'm a big sound guy and I long ago abandoned Creative, always felt their drivers were crap. I'm a big fan of Asus audio lineup now. Got some Sennheiser 650's and a Xonar essence STX card (basically a card made for high end headphones). Loving it.
 
BrightCandle said:
There is this persistent thing going around that onboard audio today is good enough and that sound hasn't changed. Having listened to the Dolby headphone v CMSS v SBX pro v Realtek videos in BF4 and then trying this myself I can say for certain there is quite a difference especially when it comes to the surround sound implementations.

Every review I have seen on the topic in the last few years has completely skipped over the whole headphone surround sound setup, yet its arguably one of the more important aspects of the differences between cards. There is some audible differences in output as well but the difference is far more pronounced with headphone surround as the HRTF they use matters a lot and differs with them all.
Click to expand...

For 3d surround sound gaming definitely go for a sound card for better than 'adequate' quality but for music, onboard might be surprisingly good.
 
Onboard sound has come a long way. I was using an X-Fi XtremeMusic with my Sennheiser 595s for 7+ years. When I was due for a new system I liked the amped ALC1150 setup ASRock was putting on some of their boards so I went with that. Was pretty surprised to find the sound was better than my old X-Fi. SnR is on par with the new Sound Blaster cards.
 
IGemini said:
Onboard sound has come a long way. I was using an X-Fi XtremeMusic with my Sennheiser 595s for 7+ years. When I was due for a new system I liked the amped ALC1150 setup ASRock was putting on some of their boards so I went with that. Was pretty surprised to find the sound was better than my old X-Fi. SnR is on par with the new Sound Blaster cards.
Click to expand...

Does it have SBX Pro as well? This is the big deal with these cards. My onboard did not but maybe yours does.
 
BrightCandle said:
Does it have SBX Pro as well? This is the big deal with these cards. My onboard did not but maybe yours does.
Click to expand...

Considering my onboard is Realtek and SBX is proprietary Creative, that would be a no. But my X-Fi did have the precursors to the current SBX suite. I got the most out of the bass and crystalizer features then, my current onboard seems to produce similar quality natively based on my experience with the X-Fi suite and the impression I'm getting from the SBX demos.
 
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