- Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 10 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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3 out of 3 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"the best semi pro card I have ever used. Yummie!"
Pros: options-packed creation mode, very good build and sound quality, stable drivers, surround over headphones- awesome
Cons: no firewire port
Summary: 1.Creation mode gives you options to tweak almost all sound parameters.
2.X-Fi does not resample audio at fixed clock rate as most of the other cards on the market - you can select clock rate in the creation mode. That's great!
3.Card can resample introducing zero audible noise if you need to mix sounds from sources at differnet sampling rates, this is really great! I freqently have to combine sources recorded originally at various rates and it was always pain in neck. No more.
4.I auditioned this card with my adam studio monitors and sony hi-fi speakers for stereo and Logitechs for surround in games.
Sound was clear and crisp with no colouring unless I switched the Crystallizer and CMSS enhancements on. Really nice, I did not expect such good sound from Creative, I mean they used to be good with gamers audio, but this one is far beyond that.
5. Crystallizer and CMSS. If you have good +$500 speakers let these options on off. But if you have some cheap multimedia logitechs or so, test this Crystallizer feature, you may like it. I tried it on with original Dungeon Keeper and the game sounded brilliant.
6. Drivers. No problems encountered during installation. I used the latest 2.07.0004 from Creative's site. It is 64-bit, too.
7. Surround over headphones. Amazing. Try it and you will know what I mean. I saw demos on Creative site, they give yu rough idea of what it really sounds like
www.soundblaster.com/products/x-fi/demo/
8. Price is high, on the other side it is high end product. Nice casing, LEDs, half-rack-width size, handy remote control, you pay for extras... If I was on tight budget I'd go for X-Fi Xtreme Music instead.
9. No firewire was a dissapointment. Audigy had it. Why does X-Fi not have it I do not know. Pity.
10. All in all this is the best semi pro card I have ever used. Well, it is difficult to draw the line between pro and non-pro these days. I think the unbalanced, -10dBV inputs of the X-Fi put the card on the non-pro side. Nevertheless it brings versatile features-pack with proffesional sound quality, something unknown so far. Yummie!
- 2 replies to this review
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any child could speel out this reporth its like a walkman the better the earphones the better the sound.what about the midi on this card is it any good is the fonts true sound or do they sound like a cheep keyboard all in chinies sounds these are the things i would like to no did creative go back to the soundfonts of the awe 64 gold because all the rest are no good and this in my eyes is how to tell a pro card or not
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any child could speel out this reporth its like a walkman the better the earphones the better the sound.wat about the midi on this card is it any good is the fonts true sound or do they sound like a cheep keyboard all in chinies sounds these are the things i would like to no did creative go back to the soundfonts of the awe 64 gold because all the rest are no good and this in my eyes is how to tell a pro card or not
Where to buy
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro:
$305.00
| store | price | in stock? | rating |
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Amazon.com Marketplace
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$305.00 | Yes |
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