http://www.techspot.com/reviews/hardware/soundblaster_xfi/index.shtml
This is one of the best product reviews I have ever read! Unlike some of the other reviews for the X-Fi, Techspot compares what makes it different from previous generation of Audigy cards along with a detailed look at the new features 
I’ve had the Xtreme Music one for a while now (paired up with the Logitech Z-5500’s) and I love it. :love:
Thanks for sharing though. :thumb2:
I am considering getting a X-FI, but I would probably need to update my speaker set also if I really want to see any benefits. My current Audigy 2NX (External USB) is good, but the limited USB bandwidth and CPU overhead certainly don’t help for FPS games.
Hey Kirupa!
I have the X-Fi Platinum and I HIGHLY recommend it. It’s amazing. Everything sounds amazingly clear, all frequencies come out very nicely and timed perfectly. (Absolutely no bass delay at all. This is something you don’t even realize until you listen to the actual card and find out that the whole time you had been listening to the music differently than how it was supposed to sound. 
)
Ha. Clever. :thumb:
[whisper]I have no idea about sound-cards. Or really any hardware.[/whisper]
[COLOR=“Gray”]That’s cause you got a beautiful sound card in your MacBook Pro you lucky dodohead. :D[/COLOR]
[whisper]I did?[/whisper]
[whisper]I don’t think so.[/whisper]
I’m not a know-it-all for soundcards either. What’s the difference? Why get a $100+ soundcard? The one in my motherboard seems fine. What does a good soundcard support?
Yes… please explain! I’m sure it’s got more to do than just with audio quality (that sentence sucked…), but I don’t know what else there is…
^^^. I’m not a gamer (which a lot of soundcard reviews tend to focus on), and don’t know a single thing they are talking about in that review. What are all the benchmarks of soundcards? More specifically for music playback?
Thanks!
Good soundcards reduce the amount of sound data your main CPU processes. For the most part, you also get better sound quality (better signal to noise stuff, etc.). The X-Fi’s also provide built-in encoding for Dolby Digital and other popular movie formats.
If you don’t play games or watch movies on your comp, the sound card does not matter that much. Whether the extra $100+ is good for music is entirely up to how much of a music fanatic you are. Finally, you might even be better off with better quality speakers instead of a sound card investment.
:mu:
Ah, thanks. I guess I won’t be needing one.
This card does a good job at outputting a very wide range of sounds, from very high to very low and it does this clearly and at very, very precise timing. Benchmarks for soundcards will be complex and hard to understand. What I would recommend is simply trying to listen to one.
I don’t do any gaming on my PC, either; which is why I went with the cheapest X-Fi. I got it for music (since I got rid of my stereo) - I don’t want to upgrade soundcards (imo the least important add-on) for at least four or five years. And I also wanted one that would compliment my PC speaker system. And I won’t be satisfied with on-board audio! Ever! 
As far as the benchmarks go, I couldn’t tell you what most of them mean - All I know is that I can optomize my soundcard’s settings to make my speakers go boom. :trout:
Plus, the volume panel kinda matches my speaker’s “control center.” :beam: eh? eh?
For me, that was reson enough…
… kidding of course.
Haha, I got the Platinum one because I wanted MIDI operations.
X-Fi is wonderful.
Ah so no sound card for me then. Thanks!
Yeah when I build my new comp. come November this year or so…I’ll get an X-Fi I’ve been looking into them for some time now. :thumb:
Oh yeah, that’s true. I should mention that I listen to music almost constantly, it plays when I sleep and the moment I get home. My favorite part of the X-Fi is the 24bit Crystallizer. 
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