I just upgraded my rig with an Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic

The only thing I can say is


If you are motherboard audio or anything below Audigy2 GO AND GET ONE NOW !!!!!!
If you are on Audigy think for a minute THEN GO AND BUY ONE !!!

I can't stop listening to the music currently playing
dj toshiRo - thundeR

Yep it's a great card and the drivers are very good also

Creative did a good job indeed

I have the X-fi Fatal1ty version

Still not convinced to get an X-Fi... I'm fairly happy with my Audigy 2 ZS. The X-Fi sounds like a good card, no doubt. That said... I just can't imaging all that of an improvment over the Audigy 2 ZS.

Thank you for the tip about DJ Toshiro though. Good stuff.

indeed
the difference is not that big
it does not justify paying double the amount of money
BUT
if you are someone who wants audio at its best and price is only the 2nd critereon then you should go X-Fi
and no, I am not rich

so how much did creative pay you for the advert?

another quality product

The XF-i is a quality product, and well worth the cash imho.. if your in the UK then PC World has a Special Xmas run on the Xtreem Music and Platinum versions, £79 & £99 respectively which is the cheapest ive seen em any where. The platinum is an especialy good buy as it retails for £150 normaly.

god damnit.
its retailing in my country for 1000 nis more or less, thats... almost 160+ $
and thats for the xtreme!?
im waiting for price decrease, i really need a sb for this system, feels so bad to use this annoyign onboard

No sorry i just can't agree with you.

By itself it is an ok soundcard...all the crystalizer does is add distortion and increase the volume of transients !!

If you want real sound at a sensible price go for something made by M-Audio... Creative wouldn't know good sound if it jumped up and bit them.

If however you have crappy speakers or a 'tinny' midi system...X-fi is for you

I have a X-Fi Extrememusic and also a M-Audio Revo 7.1 and the X-Fi sounds better. Seems to me that M-audio is left behind a bit these days.
The crystalizer is pure marketing. It's nothing but a loudnessfunction that does indeed add distorsion. But you don't have to use it and I don't.

The Revo 7.1 is a mainstream surround card.

Have a listen to the 192

hmmm
the card does cost 50% more
and does not have the good game support as audigy/X-Fi ... good choice ? no thanks!

The 192 only costs £90

While it doesn't offer compatibility with all the latest gaming audio standards....it sounds absolutely fantastic which is what soundcards are for i would have thought ?

As you say though..the X-fi does support all the standards e.t.c...it's just that if you are truly after sound quality i would strongly suggest having a listen to the 192.

There are lots more soundcards that are just as good and much better than the m-audio 192....i just think it's great value for money

here the cheapest offer for the 192 is 155€ while its 99€ for X-Fi

I really hesitate to say anything derogatory about the X-FI cards because I can't find the links that back up what I'm about to reference. I also know that music and sound, in general, are completely subjective [listening] experiences and that what "sounds" good to me might very well sound like crap to someone else. However, there are certain guidelines that apply to that perceived subjectivity and that's what I'll address (among other things).

The links I can't find at the moment describe blind listening tests with a group of people comparing the sound quality of the X-FI and the Audigy 2 ZS. Just because I happen to own and Audigy 2 ZS Platinum, that doesn't mean I am biased though. I bought my ZS long before the X-FI was even a twinkle in Creative's eye and I've been extremely happy with it from day 1. That's not to say either that I wouldn't buy an X-FI card if I was convinced that it was a better sound card than what I currently own. I'm not convinced it is though. And yes, I have heard the card. That's the problem. I can hear the card and NOT just the music.

These blind tests involved a variety of music and video soundtracks (DVD) and the listeners weren't told what the delivery devices were (which sound card was being tested or heard during any part of the tests). An important element in these tests was the sound pressure leveling of the outputs of each card. The individual who performed all these tests used a digital SPL meter to insure that the output levels from each speaker were the same, regardless of which card was being used. THIS is what made the difference in the tests, more than anything else.

The X-FI card boosts the output signals and modifies the original sound source (music or DVD soundtrack) in such a way that it's output voltages are higher than just about any other card around. So, when comparing this card with any other card, it's important to level the sound playing field (literally) so what's being heard from each card and speaker (it's auditory volume or level --- how LOUD it is) is the same. This is a very basic and fundamental testing procedure for any audio component comparison but one that appears to have escaped most reviewers.

It is also important to remember that electronic audio processing adds colorations to any audio source or signal and that the more pure (meaning less processed) a sound source is, the more pleasing it will sound to a listener (subjectively, of course). This is true whether you're comparing amplifiers, preamplifiers, speakers, D/A converters, whatever.

In it's purest, unprocessed form, imagine a single individual seated on a chair playing an acoustic guitar in a fairly small room that that has no hard surfaces to cause reflections of sound waves (no echoes) and no reverberant characteristics (no wood). A "dead" room, if you can imagine such a thing.

Imagine then taking the finest microphone made along with the finest preamp and mixer made, placing the mic on a stand in front of the guitar player and connecting the output of the mixer/preamp to the finest recording device made. Imagine also that the speakers are the finest phase-coherent speakers on the planet and that their spacing and physical relationships to the listener (the recording engineer) are optimized and the sound waves from each speaker arrive in phase at the engineers ears in perfect alignment.

Push the record button and tell the guitarist to begin. When he's finished playing, hit the stop button and play back the recorded material. What you will hear is as perfect a reproduction of the original sound source (the guitar) as is humanly possible to achieve. Clean, undistorted, unprocessed acoustic guitar sounds with the only reverberant characteristics heard being those of the GUITAR (whatever it is inherently capable of producing). Not the room or any electronic processing device in the signal path.

Now the Producer walks in, listens to the track and says he wants to add more ambience to the recording, that it sounds too "flat". Some people like more bass, some like rich mids or highs and some like echo and/or reverberation. The point is, what the engineer recorded is completely uncolored and pure but to the Producer's ears, it doesn't have the added sound reinforcement that he or she expected (i.e. no echo or reverberation from the room or bass/mid/high enhancements).

At this point the engineer starts pushing buttons to turn on reverberation or echo and he or she starts tweaking the knobs to increase bass or add more boost to the mids or highs, which changes the original character of the recording by adding more electronic processing. In effect, changing the sound from it's original, unprocessed character into something highly processed and colored.

Each time you add an electronic device (or processor) in the path, you add colorations to the source material. Again, subjectively some people like these sound colorations and reinforcements but some people don't. To my way of thinking and listening, I'd much rather hear a pure, unfettered recording than one that was highly processed (electronically).

Unless you turn off ALL the processing, this is exactly what the X-FI (and to a lesser extent the Audigy 2 ZS) are capable of doing to an audio recording. In the case of the X-FI, there are literally millions of transistors (51 million to be precise) that comprise the processing power of this card. That translates to over 10,000 MIPS of computing power and as impressive as that sounds (figuratively), adding that many electronic "devices" (discrete or solid state) in the path of an audio signal will do nothing BUT add colorations to the sound. This is FACT --- not marketing hype.

What it all boils down to are the quality of the DACs (Digital to Analog Converters) that are present on these cards as well as having the ability to completely bypass any and all pre or post processing functions. When you're discussing computer-based audio, which is exactly what we're talking about here, the quality of those DACs have the biggest impact on the sound quality itself, as does the quality of the speakers and amplifiers/preamplifiers being used.

I won't plug any specific component here but I will say that THE finest DACs made (the chips themselves) come from a company called Burr/Brown. They are completely transparent and what you hear through them is as accurate as the current state-of-the-art is capable of producing. When the day comes that a sound card company starts using Burr/Brown DACs on their sound cards, THEN you'll have something to get excited about. High-end home audio components (stand-alone DACs) that incorporate high-end Burr/Brown DACs can cost several thousand dollars. Compared to a sound card that costs $150, well, there is no comparison.

Until the day comes though when GOOD DACs are used in sound cards, try turning off as much of the OVER-processing power in your sound card as you can. Try listening to a recording in it's purest form (unprocessed), as the musicians and engineers who recorded it intended for it to be heard.

In a lot of cases, there is already significant processing in the recording (mostly due to numb-nut Producers) and adding even more processing (as the X-FI card adds) might make you wish you'd never bought that card in the first place. If you experience the "Gee! I never heard that recording sound that way before!", then you're not hearing the recording. You're hearing the sound of the sound card. The recording engineer didn't throw in extra or hidden bits of audio information in hopes that some day someone would make a sound card so the masses could hear those extra bits. They were never there to begin with.

Having the ability to bypass ALL the electronic processing devices and listen only to the output of the DACs (preferably via an SPDIF connection) is what will net you the purest form of the music you're listening too (and hopefully what the engineers and musicians intended for you to hear).

Audio excitation devices (which is what the X-FI really is) have been around for decades. Someone is always trying to come up with a new way of coloring sound to make it more appealing to those individuals who don't really care about the quality of the sound. All they want is QUANTITY.

The results of the A-B comparison tests I read about (the links I can't seem to find at the moment) were fairly predictable. The X-FI "sounds" more processed (because it IS more processed) where the Audigy 2 ZS can be made to sound LESS processed. Blind listening tests proved that and common sense tells you to expect those results. Every time you add a layer of electronic processing to a sound stream, it's like adding a veil or screen in front of your speakers. They may be very thin layers of veiling or coloration but they are audible, nonetheless.

One of my closest friends is a member of SMPTE (the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) as well as a member of the committee that is deciding on which DVD-HD format to adopt. If you'd like to take a look at some of the other engineering committees SMPTE is chairing, here's a link -
http://www.smpte.org/engineering_committees/

My buddy (Dave) has been a recording engineer in both the broadcast industry as well as an audio engineer. His background in this business goes back about 30 years and from his initial involvement to today, he's been (above all else) a real purist when it comes to audio devices, recordings and playback of audio signals. Having an engineering background myself, he and I relate on a variety of subjects but when it comes to audio, I've learned over the years that his ears are considerably better than my own. I attended far too many LOUD rock concerts back in the 60s and 70s and although my hearing isn't badly damaged, it could be better. Mostly it's a high-end roll-off that I can live with, some of which relates to my age (I am an old fart after all).

That said, I spent more money on my last home audio system than most people spend on their cars (in excess of $25K U.S.) and with Dave's help, I ended up with a system that is transparent, extremely accurate and nearly as dynamic as a full-blown sound system you'd hear at a live concert. It consumes roughly 2.2 kilowatts of power though (at rated power consumption), so excessive clockwise rotations of the volume knob tend to be infrequent. Moderate listening levels help to keep both my electric bill from going through the roof and from damaging my hearing any more than it's already been damaged.

As is the case with ANY audio component, if you can hear the component and/or it's colorations or hear things you didn't hear before, you're not hearing the music or soundtrack at all (in either it's purest form or as it was intended to be heard) and you're only fooling yourself into thinking otherwise. You're hearing the sound CARD and not the music.

What I wrote above was NOT intended to convince you NOT to buy the X-FI card or make you feel bad if you did. I'm sure it's an excellent card for non-critical listening environments. However, it adds more coloration to the sound of recordings than I personally enjoy hearing.

If any of this helps even one person to look at their sound card buying decision process in a different light, then I've accomplished what I set out to do. If not, sorry for wasting your time.

Later.