The **OFFICIAL** Auzentech X-Meridian Thread

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: tk109
So how does this sound for plain stereo?? Is it better than the x-fi? I like my x-fi a lot and am really impressed what is coming out of it. I wouldn't have guessed it would have put out such good sound when hooked to a high end stereo. but I'm starting to look for even higher grade audiophile sound now seeing what just that $100 card can do.

So would this be an upgrade or not? (dont like surround sound and dont use the digital out). Does it have stereo rca outputs on it or just the normal 1/8th inch jacks?

What speakers do you have?

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: Smartazz
Would it be worth upgrading from an X-Fi Xtreme music to this if I plan to buy vista when it comes out?

I would say no unless you are tired of some reoccuring bug on the Creative card or the bloatware software needed to fully use its capabilities

 

[T9D]

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler

Originally posted by: tk109

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler

Originally posted by: tk109
So how does this sound for plain stereo?? Is it better than the x-fi? I like my x-fi a lot and am really impressed what is coming out of it. I wouldn't have guessed it would have put out such good sound when hooked to a high end stereo. but I'm starting to look for even higher grade audiophile sound now seeing what just that $100 card can do.

So would this be an upgrade or not? (dont like surround sound and dont use the digital out). Does it have stereo rca outputs on it or just the normal 1/8th inch jacks?

Don't bother

So you've done an A/B comparison? What were the differences? At least give some kind of explaination instead of just saying "dont bother".

Read this thread

I've read most this thread and most the time people are just fighting about stupid crap back and forth. And nothing that pertained to my question. So thanks for *not* helping.

 

[T9D]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: tk109
So how does this sound for plain stereo?? Is it better than the x-fi? I like my x-fi a lot and am really impressed what is coming out of it. I wouldn't have guessed it would have put out such good sound when hooked to a high end stereo. but I'm starting to look for even higher grade audiophile sound now seeing what just that $100 card can do.

So would this be an upgrade or not? (dont like surround sound and dont use the digital out). Does it have stereo rca outputs on it or just the normal 1/8th inch jacks?

What speakers do you have?

Well I have an adcom stereo amp right now. And some signet speakers, with custom made thick solid core wires. But I'm going to be picking up some Thiel or avalon speakers again eventually (with a pass aleph amp or maybe a BAT amp). I'm building up my audiophile system again. I really like having my front end all in one and with easy access to alll my songs on the hard drive. I dont want all seperates for the front end again that costs thousands (and dont even need a preamp now even! and even less interconnects to interfere with the signal!). Even the x-fi sounds probably as good as what a $1000 dac would I'd guess. So I'd like to just stick with that route. The x-fi pro elite has much better dacs than the regular x-fi so I may even get that. I'll deifinately notice a difference with my system with any and all upgrades in soundcards if they are in fact better.

 

[audioguy]

If your going to be connecting the card a HT system, then I would go with the X-Meridian over the X-fi easily. You can use the included Fibre Optic Cable or go co-ax and you'll have 24/192 of digital goodness. The X-fi's connot compete with a X-meridian in this area of audio. you will only get stereo out of the x-fi over digital...unless you go pass through mode and that's on DVD, games and your music wil be stereo though if you go with a X-fi.

 

[ViRGE]

Since this seems to be our official "all things higher-end audio thread", I thought it would be worth pointing out that it looks like Creative solved their EAX problems for Vista: wrappers are back in style.

 

[SparkyJJO]

I still think it is a stupid move on Microsoft's part to redo the whole sound arena. Force the sound to be processed by the CPU? Brilliant.. :roll:

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: audioguy
If your going to be connecting the card a HT system, then I would go with the X-Meridian over the X-fi easily. You can use the included Fibre Optic Cable or go co-ax and you'll have 24/192 of digital goodness. The X-fi's connot compete with a X-meridian in this area of audio. you will only get stereo out of the x-fi over digital...unless you go pass through mode and that's on DVD, games and your music wil be stereo though if you go with a X-fi.

If you want your music to be of the highest quality possible, you would not compress and upsample it

 

[audioguy]

You wouldn't use a card meant for gaming that's for sure. Between those two cards the clear winner for a HT system is the one designed to be connected to a HT. I have been reading around the net alot about this card and alot of people traded in their X-fi's for the X-Meridian and never looked back. Compare apples to apples.
AS for the CPU processing statments I don't really think it's such a big deal anymore. Guys are running some realy powerful rigs. With Dual cores, gigs of ram and dual card video subsystems..there is more then enough power to do some simnple audio tasks. In the past it was more os a issue. SYstem are just so powerful now though. Also with Vista's little move to OpenAL, it sort of puts all audio cards on the same even playing field. OpenAl can be added to basically any card. So games won't really be designed to use Creative audio hardware they will just be designed to use good audio hardware. For Example look at Splinter Cell: DA -The audio in that game contains routines the X-fi cannot do almost any card has simple EAX 2 routines but
# Sound Card: DirectX® 9.0c-compatible (EAX" recommended) - PC audio solution containing Dolby® Digital *Live required for Dolby Digital audio.
The X-fi has EAX but no support for Dolby Digital Live....
Could this be the shape of things to come? of course this is all just my opinion....

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: audioguy
You wouldn't use a card meant for gaming that's for sure. Between those two cards the clear winner for a HT system is the one designed to be connected to a HT. I have been reading around the net alot about this card and alot of people traded in their X-fi's for the X-Meridian and never looked back. Compare apples to apples.

But I would use a card meant to be great at games, home theater and music like the X-Fi. Since the X-Fi can already do bit-perfect digital output, it is already as good as can be for normal audio. The only thing it lacks is HDMI output for DVD-Audio/SACD and the new audio codecs of HD-DVD/Blu-Ray but no other soundcard has this capability either. People trading in the X-Fis for a X-Meridian will hear no benefit at all for HT and music. And if they use the DD Live/DTS Connect feature, then they will get a degradation in audio quality.

If they do, they probably think they get a benefit from $1000 speaker wires and power cords too.

 

[audioguy]

With all that resampling the X-fi processor does? 70% of it's power to******. I have heard a X-fi and I have heard a X-meridian. The winner is clear the X-fi sound so much better. That's just my opinion. well and alot of other to. I guess there is no sense in getting into a X-fi vs. X-Meridian debate. People can use what they want. Besides it'll crap out the thread.

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: audioguy
With all that resampling the X-fi processor does? 70% of it's power to******.

With bit-perfect, the data received at the receiver is exactly the data of the source. Nothing is resampled or changed at all.

Resampling is necessary if you want to anything else other than playback an audio source, such as for games, you want to hear multiple audio sources at once, etc. The X-Fis resampling algorithms are very good.

 

[audioguy]

Another one of those guys that admits it does crap resampling but say's it does it very good though. Of course you need resampling in certain areas such as audio recording but when it's not asked for it's not a good thing and when it's forced on you it's even worse. So audio in is audio out is that how it works? -What about jitter ? in the CD player and the soundcard? If this is the case then I guess I can pull out my old Audigy 2 set it for bit perfect and it will sound just as good as your X-fi correct? if that's the case I guess you wasted your money then right?
Anyway back on topic, if your considering going PC to HT route I would suggest getting a soundcard that offers features for this setup. Like DOLBY DIGITAL LIVE, DTS Connect. Proper digital output to a reciever..etc..etc. You can get a X-fi of course but it's not gonna give you very many features for you HT. Just my opinion. There are lots of cards that can offer these technologies, not just the X-Meridian. Just the reviews are very good so far.

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: audioguy
Another one of those guys that admits it does crap resampling but say's it does it very good though. Really bit perfect? Of course you need resmapling in certain areas such as audio recording but when it's not asked for it's not a good thing. So audio in is audio out is that how it works? -What about jitter ? in the CD player and the soundcard? If this is the case then I guess I can pull out my old Audigy 2 set it for bit perfect and it will sound just as good as your X-fi correct?

All soundcards resample. Only a few can be set to not to resample the output. The old Audigy 2s don't support bit-perfect output, only the Audigy 4 and Audigy 2 7.1 Value did. The X-Mystique and the X-Plosion didn't support bit-perfect either (along with mediocre analog quality).

If you want just bit-perfect output, then the cheapest soundcard is the Chaintech AV-710. If you want the best combo soundcard for music, games and HT then you get an X-Fi. If you want to sacrific game audio for convenience, then you get an X-Meridian.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Originally posted by: SparkyJJO
I still think it is a stupid move on Microsoft's part to redo the whole sound arena. Force the sound to be processed by the CPU? Brilliant.. :roll:

That's very short-sighted. All the major players (HP, Dell, MS, Intel, AMD, MS, Apple to name just a few) fully understand that in a few years a "personal computer" will be the size of a paperback book or smaller. It's called "System on a Chip". Have fun installing video and sound cards into something smaller than a Mac Mini. It's the reason AMD aquired ATI, and the reason Intel continues to push it's (lousy) integrated graphics. Audio, by comparison, is a tiny amount of data that can be efficiently handled by the CPU right now. Noone complains about NIC's or anything else on the motherboard being driven by the CPU. Do people buy new awesome CPU's to not use them?

To paraphrase Bill Gates: "In the future, hardware will be worthless". People laughed when he said that, but he already proved it true. When people rushed out to buy an IBM PS/2, they bought the hardware and licensed the software. IBM didn't care because "all the money is in hardware". Well, IBM took the beating of a lifetime and MS went from lemonade stand to corporate superpower. System on a Chip will prove him right again.

Another example: For decades, Apple produced computers made entirely of dogshit. Why did people buy them? Software.

 

[audioguy]

@Accord, it's been ahwile but I guess those panels in my Audigy 2 drivers that checkbox indicating Bit accurate playback wouldn't be the same? -no guess not. (sorry it's a A2 value so I have it) Bit perfect or not the quality of the card effects the quality of the output that is just basic electronic theory. All cards CAN resample. Not all are FORCED to...this subject gets so old so fast. Guys with Creative cards read what they want from specs and ignore the rest. Game audio is only a small part of PC audio as a whole. I guess everybody should just snap in a AV710 and everything would be good? -ok sure... I don't know why guys with X-fi's seem to hate X-meridians. They sound better get over it...
@Dangler, I think this move is GREAT for everybody it should really kick the market into gear. Creative can no longer strangle hold the market so other companies can get involoved and people aren't forced to buy substandrd hardware just to have decent effects in games..
it'ike being slapped in the face and saying you like it. It's been happening every since you can remember so you think you do like it -That's Creative labs...THis move is great it will force hardware advances in audio becasue everybody will have to one up the other guy. this translates into great audio cards for us!! -C'mon audio war...

 

[SparkyJJO]

I have no trouble really with the audio being done by the CPU as it is plenty powerful for it, but forcing it to be so is what I find annoying because if someone (like me 😛) has an Audigy 2 ZS and wants to use the hardware sound capabilities of it they can't. I think it should have worked both ways, the integrated sound yet allow for hardware for the extra effects and such if the user wanted.

Just my opinion. I'm not happy about M$ shutting out the hardware sound capabilities, gives me less reason to upgrade to vista because I'll have to get a whole new sound card then (unless creative releases a driver update for the ZS like for the X-Fi, which I highly doubt they will)

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: audioguy
@Accord, it's been ahwile but I guess those panels in my Audigy 2 drivers that checkbox indicating Bit accurate playback wouldn't be the same? -no guess not. (sorry it's a A2 value so I have it) Bit perfect or not the quality of the card effects the quality of the output that is just basic electronic theory.

With bit-perfect, the bits seen at the receiver is the same regardless of soundcard. And jitter is not going to be an issue to the overwhelming majority of users.

All cards CAN resample. Not all are FORCED to...this subject gets so old so fast. Guys with Creative cards read what they want from specs and ignore the rest. Game audio is only a small part of PC audio as a whole. I guess everybody should just snap in a AV710 and everything would be good? -ok sure...

All cards resample. Current Creative soundcards can be made not too resample. Perhaps the new X-Meridian will offer this feature too.

I don't know why guys with X-fi's seem to hate X-meridians. They sound better get over it...

Where's the evidence? It seems to me its always the Auzentech owners who make the claims without any proof. They said the same thing about the X-Plosion and its analog quality barely beats the Audigy 1, while making ludicrous claims about the quality of DD Live.

 

[audioguy]

Believe what you want. I hear this from guys who own X-fi's, sorry who did own X-fi's. Enjoy your X-fi.
@Dangler, do you think this OpenAL turn will force a soundcard surge? being tha it is a open sourced standard it can pretty much be added to any soundcard by writing it into the drivers correct? I mean certain cards now support it in hardware but that's no biggie anymore.
I am really hoping it does happen this way as if more companies start competeing for your aoudncard dollar then it drives the technology further then what is currently available. it has been rather stagnant for a long time becasue of certain things in the market.
@Sparky, you never know perhaps Creative will release a patch or somebody else will hack the driver. Auzentech is working on OpenAL for their cards and they already support DD Live and DTS connect and Dolby Prologic IIX. So add OpenAL and you got everything under Vista aswell..

 

[The Boston Dangler]

I love the SB fanboys (employees?) that crash the X-Meridian thread. First, it's EAX 3+. Then it's analog SQ. Then digital SQ. Then connectivity. "Oh no, spanked again. Did we mention EAX?"

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[Accord99]

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
I love the SB fanboys (employees?) that crash the X-Meridian thread. First, it's EAX 3+. Then it's analog SQ. Then digital SQ. Then connectivity. "Oh no, spanked again. Did we mention EAX?"

I love the Auzentech fans who have no idea what they're talking about.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

@audioguy
no, i think things will remain status quo for the most part. someone here and someone there might release a novel product. but once on-board audio has complete digital connections and nice DACs, then what? there's less and less money to be made in the sound card market. in a few years it will be on-board audio and video, with some expansions for professionals only.

 

[audioguy]

Me, LOL you know a few buzzwords and you think you got it all down? according to you a AV710 will sound as good as a X-fi if it's in bit perfect mode. Your clueless. YOu would think the sky is falling if Creative told you so...
@ Dangler...lol, freaking classic and that's about it...
Did you have a chance to check out the X-pansion board for the X-meridian? I think I may get the pin outs for the header and see if I can come up with one of my own. A Little more suited to what I want to do...
I think your right about the onboards though, so common to see people with awsome rigs and a little dinky onboard with small speakers..what a waste..

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: audioguy
Me, LOL you know a few buzzwords and you think you got it all down? according to you a AV710 will sound as good as a X-fi if it's in bit perfect mode. Your clueless. YOu would think the sky is falling if Creative told you so...

Yes, I would expect it to be indistinguishable.

As for the analog quality of the X-Meridian, there's finally a review with RightMark measurements. Not bad, but not quite as good as the reviews for the X-Fi overall.

http://www.beareyes.com.cn/2/lib/200611/24/20061124020_5.htm

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Originally posted by: Accord99

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
I love the SB fanboys (employees?) that crash the X-Meridian thread. First, it's EAX 3+. Then it's analog SQ. Then digital SQ. Then connectivity. "Oh no, spanked again. Did we mention EAX?"

I love the Auzentech fans who have no idea what they're talking about.

Exactly what is it that I know nothing about?
Is it:
A) The Auzentech X-Meridian?
B) The Creative SB Audigy2 ZS?
C) The Creative SB X-Fi?
D) The fact that I have opened a can of whoop-ass on you, Pariah, and any other lying fanboy?
E) None of the above