Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 sound card

• Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 9 reviews
• My rating: 0 stars

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• 1 stars

  creative labs drivers *consistently* suck!

  by techcafe on January 29, 2009

  Pros: hardware 'looks' nice

  Cons: the X-Fi sounds like sh*t
  popping, cracking artifacts and intermittent dropouts in the audio stream. it's absolutely unacceptable... and creative labs just doesn't care

  Summary: Creative Labs must hire the WORST programmers on the planet, because the drivers for their products consistently SUCK! i'm so fed up with Creative, they NEVER LISTEN to their ...

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  Summary: Creative Labs must hire the WORST programmers on the planet, because the drivers for their products consistently SUCK! i'm so fed up with Creative, they NEVER LISTEN to their customers because they just don't give a sh*t.. all they care about is pushing 'products' out the door, despite the FACT that their horribly coded drivers absolutely RUIN the user's listening experience (cracks, pops, artifacts and dropouts in the audio stream). i'm DONE with creative labs, the hardware might be OK, but their REALLY CRAPPY, totally unreliable drivers ruin everything. i'd like to URGE people, please do NOT support Creative Labs' bad business practices any longer... do not buy their gear, period. that's the ONLY way to get the attention of these greedy SOBs and make them FIX the serious issues with their really, really bad drivers.

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  3 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 9 stars

  Jesus Christ is number one! This is the best..

  by fujitsulover on December 23, 2009

  Pros: Makes sound crisper and punchier!

  Cons: Needs earphone.

  Summary: While playing movies, I wear earphones plugged into this sound card and I think I am at the theatre! I would recommend leaving all settings to default and installing all ...

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  Summary: While playing movies, I wear earphones plugged into this sound card and I think I am at the theatre! I would recommend leaving all settings to default and installing all softwares on the disk even though you do not even use it all. Without the installed softwares, the volume knob will not work! It is a very useful thing to see the volume knob work and be displayed on the screen as well! You can also add 5.1 speakers to this sound card. Just make sure you buy the sound card first so you know what inputs it will take. I use Creative brand speakers, but a different brand earphone! One thing that it doesn't tell you is that if you push the knob, it mutes or unmutes the volume! I would recommend this product for Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium. Make sure you disable any other sound devices in your device manager section of Windows or else the sound card may not work. The device works with a 2.0 USB cable. It works fine with a duo core 1.87g laptop.

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  1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 1 stars

  SUCK-o. Doesn't work with Vista.

  by tubbsbright on January 14, 2009

  Pros: Looks pretty good.

  Cons: Does not play with Vista. Drivers that came with package in CD didn't work nor did the drivers downloaded from the Creative website. Suck-O.

  Summary: Suck-O. Big Time/

  Summary: Suck-O. Big Time/

  1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 10 stars

  Awesome sound card.Great value for money.

  by satya4099 on August 15, 2011

  Pros: It is convenient easily portable.It is great for both lap and desktop

  Cons: It should have a bass and treble control.

  Summary: Very nice package in small unit.would recommend to everyone.

  Summary: Very nice package in small unit.would recommend to everyone.

• 10 stars

  A tiny little Sound Card

  by trompfy on April 24, 2011

  Pros: It is great you want to connect 5.1 speakers to it because your laptop doesn't have a sound card in it.

  Cons: It doesn't come with a remote control.

  Summary: I bought this so I can watch my Home and Away on my laptop in cinematic surround sound with my Logitech X530 Speakers

  Summary: I bought this so I can watch my Home and Away on my laptop in cinematic surround sound with my Logitech X530 Speakers

• 3 stars

  A flower that grew on turd.

  by swift6912 on August 1, 2010

  Pros: Sounds good for music and movies. Well designed unit with ease of access to inputs.

  Cons: Not recommended for those who wanna plug their guitars in the line in jack. Has enormous latency and BLUE SCREENS your PC with low latency sound driver such as ASIO4ALL. Worst card ever manufactured by Creative.

  Summary: Cheap card, the first i took mine out of the box, i shacked it and something was moving inside. I tried to play guitar with it just to realize the ...

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  Summary: Cheap card, the first i took mine out of the box, i shacked it and something was moving inside. I tried to play guitar with it just to realize the huge amount of latency wasn't fixable. Blue screened my WIN XP and WIN 7 while selecting Asio4All as sound driver. This is a cheaper version of the discontinued LIVE 24 bit External usb card, It sounds better but is unusable for audio recording with instruments and even instrument playback. The LIVE 24 bit EX handled everything better and had the same price as the 5.1 X-FI external. How to bring down features and quality whilst making the thing look better is what this card is all about.

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• 2 stars

  Agree with techcafe

  by kevvyb2005 on October 30, 2009

  Pros: Not a lot if I can't use the damn thing

  Cons: Drivers don't work on Windows 7 x64 !!!!!

  Summary: Creative drivers cause popping, cracking, weird 'fingerbobs' sounds and dropouts. About 30 seconds into all video files, audio is completely lost, even the distortion!
  
  When I first had a Creative ...

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  Summary: Creative drivers cause popping, cracking, weird 'fingerbobs' sounds and dropouts. About 30 seconds into all video files, audio is completely lost, even the distortion!
  
  When I first had a Creative card in 2001 I remember spending hours trying to same sorts of issues. Years (literally) down the line, Creative released a driver that worked. Here we go again.
  
  techcafe noted these problems in January this year. Now it's November. How long does it take? I think I'll take the Creative card out and sell it an stick with the Realtek Azalia on board sound which works fine having uninstalled the Creative drivers.

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• 8 stars

  It supports Vista. Download driver frm Creative website

  by sreehari199 on July 26, 2009

  Pros: Optical out, sound quality, volume control, remote and power off options are good features.

  Cons: Has to install driver to get full features..with out driver supports only stereo output

  Summary: For the current price, good external sound card for laptops. Price in India 3850 + tax (Jul, 2009)

  Summary: For the current price, good external sound card for laptops. Price in India 3850 + tax (Jul, 2009)

• 9 stars

  Good upgrade for Notebook with 2 channel support

  by taranfx on November 29, 2008

  Pros: - Good for Music, Movies, Gaming
  - Crisper, Punchier sound
  - High Fidelity

  Cons: - Bit expensive
  - Decreases volume compared onboard sound

  Summary: Well, I bought Creative x-fi USB 5.1 external sound card today. I was excited to pump up my laptop audio to HD 5.1 surround experience. I already have ...

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  Summary: Well, I bought Creative x-fi USB 5.1 external sound card today. I was excited to pump up my laptop audio to HD 5.1 surround experience. I already have Logitech?s z5500 speakers which kick ass with 505Watt RMS expandable upto 1000W RMS.
  
  My HP Laptop shipped with built in Conexant HD audio, it was sufficient till I started to think about surround sound inGames, movies and giving a new definition to Music.
  
  Well, this sound card has it all. Initially when I attached them to speakers, I felt there is not much difference. but over time I made some adjustments and realized the Fidelity difference.
  Music: What makes up good music ? Good High pitch, clarity of sounds, clearly distinguish individual sounds with higher reolution, crisper and punchier sound.
  
  Fidelity: Well, luckily, Creative has lived upto all of these. There was good level of clarity at all types of sound effects supported. I liked the way it was able to surround 2 channel music into 5.1. This was bit different from what z5500 does in music mode, it tries to take some background music into rear channels while creative x-fi tries to put main, background music in rear channels. Thanks to CMSS 3d & x-fi crystallizer.
  
  Bass: OOOH! Bass became more punchier and responsive on all music tracks that i played. Jazz reproduced better accuracy. Rock was kicker, Hip-hop was more happening.
  
  Surround: There are various settings for EAX, sound gives good echo and reverb as compared to other softwares like DFX and SRS 3d.
  
  Movies: This was the part where I feel my investment paid back the most. God! I played the same movie that i earlier played on Conexant, there was hell lot of difference. 5.1 adds a different dimension. Even though z5500 upchannels 2 to 5.1 very well, still there was a huge difference when you upgrade to 5.1 audio.
  
  Dialogues: On z5500 i played movies in 6 ch direct, didnt use any dolby effects like movie or stereo and sound was great.
  
  Action: It was full of surprises and real. Helicopter scenes, gun shots, machine guns all sounded just near perfection. I often go to imax, but believe me, My Home audio sounds better that their?s.
  
  Gaming: I?m not a hardcore gamer or smthin. I m a occassional passionate gamer, loves to play first person action shooters and racing. There was not much difference in nfs underground2. Then i played UT 2005, Whoooooaaa! EAX 5.0 really works! Its worth every bit of it. The ambiance, the gun shots, the dialogues, all were breathtaking.
  
  Conclusion:
  
  If you are a Higly ambitious and Geeky about music, movies, games, you should consider this upgrade. If you own a low-end music system that is lower than 100Watts RMS ( or 3000Watts PMPO) you shouldnt consider this upgrade as it isnt for you. Its for speakers which can really do well at 96Khzor 48khz and 24bit sound. You will not observe much difference on these lame audio systems. Its better to invest in upgradingg your speaker system.
  
  It costs around US$60, Rs.4500 in India and is worth, if you can recognize its worth. Else its just a wastage for Lames.
  Detailed Review: http://taranfx.com/blog/?p=123
  
  Updated on Jul 20, 2009

  works on vista, windows 7. im on 7

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