Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1

 

 

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I bought this sound card from Amazon to use with my Logitech Z5500 5.1 surround speakers and my HP laptop. I am using the system mostly for high-quality (lossless) music and movies, but never tried with games. At the moment, the sound card simply works with all functions it is advertised for.

The only lie on the advert of this product is the EASE to set it up. Yes, I agree that it is pretty easy to get analog sound from this sound card (taking about 10 minutes or so). But it took me a week to pass "true" digital 5.1 DTS/Dolby sound through TOSLINK optical port of this card from the laptop to the speakers. (For those who care about tackling this SPDIF issue, the trick I figured out is so simple: go to Creative support site, download and install ALL updates available.)

I see some users complain about the CMSS 5.1 sound simulation of the card. Yes, most of the time it works quite okay, but sometime it provides distorted and unbalanced sound when used to upmix stereo to 5.1. But I really don't care much about this CMSS function, as I don't need "fake" 5.1 sound coming from low-quality stereo MP3s but always use high bitrate .dts files or DVDs.

So, if you have a good 5.1 sound system and a laptop, just buy this sound card. It is really cheap though, for the price of about £35.

Make sure you look at the dates of the 1 star reviews, autumn 2008, Creative have obviously fixed the problems these people were having back then, because mine sounds great!

Using it with some creative T6100 speakers and it sounds fantastic. The crystalizer and the CMSS3D are very effective and noticeable.

In case anyone was unsure, a 3.5mm jack to phono plugs convertor is supplied.

Firstly this product does work in vista and windows 7, however it is likely that when it first came out there were compatability issues preventing it from working properly or at all, hence the reviews about vista incompatability, creative arent exactly quick to release up to date drivers for things but the x-fi surround 5.1 works now.

I bought this as sort of a side-grade, i got into using a headset as well as my Z5500s and the xonar U1 as cool as it is dosent have enough ports for both, i just got fed up unplugging/replugging stuff into it so i figured i would check this sound card out since it can have everything plugged into it at once. Overall i found the following pros and cons.

PROS:

- Stylish, this was the first thing that struck me when i opened it up, it looks good, better than its precessor the audigy 2 nx which looked a bit retro.

- Multiple ports, it can support the typical 3.5mm cable in stereo or 5.1 (comes with an adapter for the large red/white ports found on the back), it has an optical output, it also has seperate headphone/mic ports on the side and a "line out" port between them. So its got plenty, it lacks the coaxial and optical out found on the audigy 2 nx however it has large red/white ports in place of the usual green 3.5mm one which the audigy 2 nx had, i dont know what to make of that to be honest i imagine it allows hi-fi systems to be plugged into it to use the crystalizer or something? Im just guessing, i dont know what those plugs are about or why they put them there instead of a green 3.5mm.

- Remote that actually works. Never got the audigy 2 nx's remote working, you can play/pause and mess with the volume and crystalizer settings from far away :) However i cant skip tracks/movies, i managed to get WMP to fast forward a song but not skip, this is likely due to the windows 7 beta drivers im using from creatives website because with the drivers on the CD the remote never worked at all.

- Sounds decent, i cant tell if theres a massive difference between this and my old xonar U1 or even audigy 2 nx but theres no loss in quality thats for sure. MP3's do sound a bit better with the crystalizer but i could probably achieve the same effect by messing with any other sound cards graphic equalizer settings. For the record im using logitech Z5500 speakers.

- Runs off the USB cord! Hoorah! The audigy 2 nx needed a power cord with a small brick in addition to the big fat USB cable to hook it up to the computer, the x-fi surround 5.1 has a smaller mini usb port on the back and is powered by that.

CONS:

- Creative software is a bit sluggish, same as the last time i used it, you have to use this in order to get the most out of the card, although it will work with windows drivers without any of the creative software but you wont get the crystalizer or anything doing that just basic sound. Im used to the xonar U1's quicker more lightweight software.

- Only a small complaint here, it was mentioned earlier but the remote wont skip in WMP, it will do everything else except skip, it can actually even close WMP or switch between programs but it cant skip. I put this down to the beta drivers for windows 7 i assume it will be fixed when the final release comes out.


So overall its a pretty good product, a few niggles but its good stuff. It should be noted that i had some interference with the headset when the card was positioned near my phone, a wireless BT verve specifically, took me a while to figure this out but i moved the phone away from the card and its fine now. Thought i would mention that here since it dosent really qualify as a "con" as other cards would probably experience the same thing, and it might save someone some time.

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4.0 out of 5 stars This card is actually really good!
I've noticed there are a lot of bad comments about this product but let me just give my perspective on this as I have owned the soundcard for approx. three years. Read more

Published 10 months ago by Tommy

5.0 out of 5 stars EXCELLENT PRODUCT!
I Love It I Love It! I have tried it, and now I cant do without it. The sound quality is improved over and over! the sound effects are excellent. Read more

Published 14 months ago by rhon

5.0 out of 5 stars Great sound
The X-Fi was a doddle to install on Win7 64bit. Just followed the instructions in it was up and running all in about 10 mins. Read more

Published 15 months ago by Tone the Moan

1.0 out of 5 stars XP driver issues
I've now had this soundcard for a year, but not for much longer...

There are a couple of driver issues (I'm using XP if that matters; I doubt it). Read more

Published 19 months ago by Steve Swift

2.0 out of 5 stars Shoddy hardware, shoddy support
Despite Creative's usual attempts to force at least 10 useless pieces of resources-hogging software, setting this card up is relatively simple. Read more

Published 21 months ago by Rich

3.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't wait to try it when it arrived
I wanted this card so that I could play tunes through an old
set of 5.1 Creative speakers using my laptop. Read more

Published 21 months ago by A. Rowley

5.0 out of 5 stars If you appreciate music...................buy this
Have purchased the Sound Blaster X-Fi surround 5.1,if you appreciate your music, then this is a must. Read more

Published 22 months ago by A. Mitchell

5.0 out of 5 stars Very good option for a sound card
I will give 100% to this product because it is an excellent sound system with a software the sound can be controlled according to our interest. Read more

Published 22 months ago by Anand Balachandran Nair

3.0 out of 5 stars No native support for Dolby Digital
I purchased the sound card shortly after buying my home theatre system when I realized that the laptop card did not handle 5. Read more

Published 22 months ago by Mr. M. Rossi

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Purchase
A great product straight from the box.The Card sounds amazing. Works absolutely fine with Windows 7. A real bargain price for what you get. Read more

Published 23 months ago by Mr. S. A. Lucas

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