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SOUNDBLASTER X-FI XTREME MUSIC A BREAKTHROUGH AUDIO PLATFORM | |
Interface:
PCI
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| Product Reviews from Amazon.com (Rating System 1 to 5) |
| Review | Rating | Last Updated | Great...if you need it for high-end sound via the PC
Beware of people giving this card a 1 star because of microphone/speaker conflicts...To run a mic and speakers, just plug your speakers in the analog jack and the mic in the mic jack. Done.
This card has proven invaluable to producing high-end sound through my PC. I sold my preamp and CD-player and can hook up my 460W amp directly to the computer and power a set of speakers marvelously. I found that it works best this way, and not with a preamp. If you have a high quality amp you won't need all the bells and whistles of this sound card to get the right sound from your musical recordings (MP3 or CD/DVD). If your amp is weak, however, you will find all the extras of this card very helpful/useful to tweak the sound to your liking. Or, if you have a poorly recorded MP3 you can greatly increase it's sound quality by adjusting some of the sound card's optional enhancer functions.
This sound card basically will turn your PC into a preamp/cd/dvd player with high-end results. It has lots of functions for recording, playback, equalizer settings, crystalizer, bass-booster, smart-volume management, EAX effect-- soundstaging, surround functions, digital playback functions, and so on. I'm very happy with this card and have had no negative issues with it at all, owning it for over a year now and using it daily.
On a down point, I see they are up in price to $249. I paid $100 at Staples for mine with the purchase of a new PC. Also, Creative has been very helpful in sending me a proper Vista-install CD for this soundcard, since the original install-CD was not meant for Vista.
Conclusion: If you want to play your music through your PC, get this card! The sound quality is outstanding and the options for tweaking the sound to your liking are numerous.
Cheers. | 5 | Today | No drivers
Card will not work with Vista x64 and 4+ Gigs of RAM. Creative has still not released drivers to address this. I highly recommend buying audio cards from a different vendor. | 1 | Today | Beware! X-Fi cards conflict with higher-end devices.
I've been using Creative sound cards as long as I can remember, so it's quite a shock to discover that several problems are being reported with Creative's "X-Fi" line of sound cards. Google "x-fi problem" and you'll see what I mean. This card worked flawlessly for me on Windows XP, but as soon as I clean-installed Vista, annoying "crackling" sounds occur every time I do something graphically, such as scrolling a window. Without getting too technical, the problem appears to be that the sound card cannot get frequent enough access to the PCI bus in order to maintain a smooth stream of sound data. (If sound were water, the stream is not always flowing.) As a result, sound cuts out, pops, and crackles.
The crackling issue can be worked around by reducing the load on the PCI bus. For example, removing my 3D drivers for my graphics card works around the issue, but at the cost of crippling graphics performance. This applies to both nVidia and ATI graphics cards. Other devices such as RAID drives, however, can't just be turned off like that.
To Creative's credit, the core of the problem seems to be a limitation of the PCI bus technology, not the sound card. If that's true, then people may have to drop PCI sound cards entirely in favor of another sound medium such as HDMI, which newer graphics cards are beginning to support. Since I'm no hardware engineer, I can only guess this would work, and this is the route I'll soon take.
So, if your computer does *not* use high-end graphics cards or RAID hard drives, you could still get excellent sound and music from the X-Fi XtremeMusic and other X-Fi cards. If you're a high-end user, however, keep your receipt handy. Since Windows Vista "Aero" makes use of 3D acceleration, this can aggravate sound issues. Using Windows XP will increase the liklihood of excellent sound quality. | 3 | Today | Waste of money
If you have Vista or plan on upgrading in the future JUST DONT BUY this card. It has been a complete waste of money for me. It is not even remotely compatible with vista, just do an internet search with vista xfi xtreme music problems. I'm into computers and haven't been able to make their drivers for vista work since may 2007 when I bought the card like many others as you will see if you do the search. Good luck choosing a good card! | 1 | Today | Be Warned
I'll keep it short but I am very very frustrated and will never by Creative products ever again.
first of all the microphone jack and digital out are the same so no chatting with speakers on possible.
second the card is simply incompatible with most of Creative's own speaker sets!! (in my case the DTT3500)
do yourself a favor and buy another brand (or keep your Audigy) | 1 | Today | Great for the price...
I decided on a last minute upgrade to Vista Ultimate and I wanted to be able to enjoy Aero.I'm not a gamer at all,and this card will get me through until I make the big computer upgrade later in the year. | 5 | Today | Huge improvement for online gaming
I have been using this sound card for several months now and am more than impressed. Games like Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 2142 sound much more lifelike and the card can handle many different sounds at once and not miss a beat. If you are using on-board audio for gaming, you don't know what you are missing out on until you install a sound card like the XtremeMusic. My favorite feature is how this sound card can turn stereo headphones into full surround for games. I was skeptical but after playing Battlefield for hundreds of hours, I can attest that you know exactly where a bullet is coming from using stereo headphones, even if the difference is only a few feet. I used to think of a sound card as an afterthought but now I consider it just as important as a graphics card to get full enjoyment out of my games. | 5 | Today | Excellent sound!!!
This card's sound output is excellent. I had been using a Creative sound blaster card within my Dell for five years. Recently upgraded to this card along with a new build, I definitely hear the difference. This card's sound is much clearer.
It's definitely worth the money if you play a lot of music. | 5 | Today | The best sound card at the present moment!
This card is excelent!! I use Windows Vista 64 and everything works great. The only two things I got disappointed was:
- EAX doesn't work on Vista, though using Creative Alchemy you can convert EAX games to use OpenAL audio!!!
- DD and DTS deconding doesn't work (yet?).
So if you use Windows Vista, you will pay some features you will not be using (yet?). | 5 | Today | the best
This card will amaze you with sounds you have never heard before and surround you with musical clarity. With good speakers it will rival any high end audio system. | 5 | Today |
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