Make your MP3s sound better than CDs with Xtreme Fidelity. Enjoy headphone surround that sounds like a room full of speakers. Hear immersive EAX sound effects in your games.
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Play DVDs and enjoy cinematic movie sound with PowerDVD. Connect to multichannel speakers with the Surround Sound Upgrade Kit (sold separately).
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X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio technology intelligently restores the highs and lows for rich, crystal clear music playback.
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Restore detail and vibrance to your MP3s. Hear headphone surround that sounds like multichannel speakers.Turn stereo music and movies into surround.Enjoy Realistic sound effects in games.
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Experience cinematic surround sound from DVD movies
Outstanding PerformanceSeptember 8, 2008 Execelent And High Quality sound, very easy to install and the performance of your notebook was increased, with the combination od the 5.1 or 7.1 sorround sound speakers. It had manny options to set up your type and quality of sound, for games and music
Be Aware: ExpressCard only available on newer notebooksJuly 15, 2008 2 out of 5 found this review helpful
I assumed that my Dell Inspiron 9300 was new enough to use this card, but I was wrong. The 9300 has the older CardBus or PCMCIA type slot. Only after reading about ExpressCard in Wikipedia did I realize I had made a big mistake. It is a newer faster interface that is not compatable with CardBus. Oh Well, maybe it's time to get a more modern computer so I can use my fancy new soundcard!
Works GreatJune 13, 2008 2 out of 4 found this review helpful
I bought this card for one reason - I use my laptop for games, and I am running Windows Vista. The onboard soundcard in my laptop doesn't support any EAX-alike (hardware 3D sound) features, even for only 2 channels. This card supports every last one. If you use Creative's ALchemy software, you can run old EAX titles with full hardware sound, in Vista, when using a Creative card. For games, an absolute must-have.
For music, it's decent. It has the "X-Fi Crystalizer", which is essentially a compressor. It can make some songs sound great, and I'm sure I would use it a lot more if I didn't know how to tweak my music manually. Same goes for movies.
For music production, well, it's a little bit lacking. I can get down to 5 ms delay using ASIO4ALL, but it doesn't seem to have native ASIO nor that one Vista sound interface nobody uses ;-). This is kindof a bummer, but it has more support than my onboard card, so it's good enough.
Overall, the card is very nice. I'm not sure about the value - the current going price is kinda steep - but I don't regret the purchase at all.
amazingApril 17, 2008 5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I got this sound card and the optional surround sound upgrade kit for about 80 used here from a seller at amazon and its terrific. I haven't written a review in over a year but I felt that I had to for this product. I had the Creative Notebook ZS soundcard that worked well for my XP machine and when i got a new computer with Vista and installed it, the sound was never the same. With Xp the sound is rich and detailed, with Vista, it always sounded as if it was a "copy of a copy" -- sort of a washed out sound. The ZS's drivers weren't made for vista and the vista updates for it never worked as should. The X-Fi card's drivers are engineered for Vista and you can hear it. The sound is rich, detailed and LOUD. Installation went extremely smoothly and there is an built in update engine so you don't have to go to the Creative website and manually update it. The interface is very user friendly and there are heaps of features that come along with the superb sound. I highly recommend this product to anyone who is interested in excellent sound.
Unbeatable Practicality in Notebook SoundJanuary 7, 2008 12 out of 12 found this review helpful
I raise an eyebrow at reviews that contain statements like, "I'm pretty sure they are all defective." My experience with this card has been nothing short of stellar, and others share the same experience.
This card is not marketed as a gaming soundcard, although it will handle games. The main purpose of this card is to give you unparalleled sound for music and movies, and it definitely delivers on both fronts. I am very particular about sound, and couldn't tolerate the electronic noise contamination from my HP Pavilion's on-board soundcard, thus I bought this card.
Using very sensitive in-ear monitors, I could not detect any electronic buzz at any volume level. The card really isolates your sound from all the other electronic fluctuations going on in your computer, and delivers great sound. The software interface is very intuitive, and even has a button that toggles playback through your notebook speakers--a tiny feature, but it shows that real thought went into the product design.
People are already familiar with Creative's EAX and Crystallizer technologies, so I won't review them here, suffice to say they work just fine.
What won me over was the fact that this tiny wonder has -both- optical inputs and outputs, enabling one to connect it to a Dolby Digital decoder (for multi-speaker setups), an external DAC (Digital-to-Analogue Converter), or any permutation of such devices! Furthermore, sound quality output is versatile with both 48Khz and 96Khz master outputs, in 16 or 24-bits.
Besides the optical ports, the dock provides a multitude of connection options.
When considered from a price-to-performance/features point of view, the Xi-Fi ExpressCard is a real winner. Products in this category are already rare, but Creative has put some real thought into this, and it shows.
Please note that this product is incompatible with the following notebooks: * 1. Fujitsu Lifebook E8210* * 2. Fujitsu Siemens Amilo A1667G*
