Creative Labs X-Fi XtremeMusic Sound Card

This soundcard can be summed up in just one word.

WOW!

I am by no means an audio expert, but I can certainly tell the difference between a high quality sound card and a bogo basic card.

Before upgrading to the X-Fi XtremeMusic, I was using the built in AC'97 audio device on my motherboard, which to be fair wasn't all that bad.
I've been listening to music with it at least 3-4 hours a day, every day, for the last year or 2 and haven't really had any complaints.

It was only recently, that I thought about upgrading the sound card in my computer because of the time I spend listening to music. I searched around and came to the conclusion that Creative is the tried and tested sound card manufacturer; i have also heard lots of great things about their products too.

At first, I was unsure whether I should splash out £100 for a soundcard, I mean, could it really make that much of a difference, was it really worth all that money.
Thankfully, after a little extended searching, I found out that you can buy OEM soundcards for a lesser cost. (Considering you get pretty much everything in the retail version, it’s certainly worth looking at the OEM versions.)
Anyway, I went ahead and bought an OEM version of the X-FI XtremeMusic addition and waited patiently for it to arrive.

As soon as it arrived, I promptly opened up and installed the sleek looking black k and gold card. After booting up my computer with the new card in place, I placed the installation CD in the computer and pretty much from then onwards, all was done automatically. A quick restart was required after installation. Then, once the computer had booted up properly, I was greeted by a short CGI video, which gives a good example of the audio quality this card produces.

I quickly plugged in my headphones and setup the surround sound headphone option and after a little tweaking, I was ready to listen to my music. (I should also point out that the options for this sound card were very easy to use and clear to understand, so personalising the sound card to my preferences only took a moment or two.)

I found a good song which I knew well and had listened to often with the onboard sound device (AC'97) and pressed play. Immediately, you are thrown right into the middle of the music where you can enjoy (as the card states) extreme fidelity music quality.

I have to say, I have no idea why I didn't look into getting one of these much earlier as I cannot I believe that I could have been listening to this quality of music for the last year or so.
If you currently have any doubts about this card making much of a difference, just take my word and get one, I can guarantee that you will never go back to bogo basic sound cards.



James Carson

Installation is very straight forward and the software provided makes this a very smooth process. You really can hear the difference with its 24 bit processing but this will show up any flaws in your audio set up so a decent pair of speakers or headphones is a must.

The 3dss works well on headphones and any x-fi enabled game gets a massive boost in sound quality some even get sounds that weren't there before.

I have no hesitation in recommending this card to anyone who wants to get closer to real hi-fi on a pc

I previously had an audigy 2 in my old machine before using on-board audio on the new machine for a few months. I was expecting an overall improvement in sound, but this card has blown me away!
Playing music sounds like there's a band in the room. I can hear instruments playing that I never knew were there. The separation of sound is absolute joy on the ears.
Playing games (particularly with headphones) is incredibly immersive. You might think you've heard impressive 3D soundscapes before, but nothing compares to this. The positional audio is so good that you can tell where a gunshot has come from on sound alone.
You'll need a good set of speakers to get the best from this card, but even on headphones, the sound is so clear, I don't think there are words in the English language to describe how clear the sound is!

The only downside is the problems related with the Vista drivers. I had only basic functionality using the Creative website's driver and apps, however, after less than 10 mins of googling, I found the software suite for download, and now everything works perfectly.

All in all a superb piece of hardware only let down by the limited availability of good Vista drivers. If you buy this card, do a bit of googling to find the full range of drivers and apps before it arrives, and when it does, you can enjoy the wonders of this card from the get-go.

this is a top sound card for home user. amazing sound and multi-model support to simulate different sound environments. it's the best choose for every music fans.

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fantastic sound and software its a big improvement on the audigy zs i had games and music are crystal clear and you get more controls than you could possibly ever need i would recomend this piece of kit to anyone

A great product, rich sound, deep bass. Works well with speakers.
I would recommend Creative Labs Soundcards to anyone who uses multimedia applications on a PC.

a very good sond card, sadly my first one died on me but i just bought a second thats how good i think it is. you dont need that fancy xfi ram ithis is great as is

WOW YOU CAN REALLY NOTICE A DIFFERENCE!
get the latest drivers of the creative website, enable all the 3d effects and its soo real!
BUT it took me ages to set up all the software options for perfectt sound

Soundcards are often overlooked by the general public and onboard sound is generally good enough for normal use although as soon as I heard this card I was blown away, literally.

It has so much over any onboard setup and literally has to be heard to be believed.

One niggle I have though is the stupid "crystalizer" feature in the driver software, make sure you turn this off and enable audio creation mode permanently for the most accurate and high fidelity sound.

An excellent bit of kit. The sound is far crisper and the card also solved a problem where Call Of Duty 4 didn't want to work :D

As per usual the Creative card is easy to use, totally compatiable with everything and works like a dream. I work my sound cards hard recording 100's of tapes digitally and this card is more than up to the job.

The only negative is the lack of connections and lack of cable available to make use of the internal connections. The card has 3 outputs eg for surround sound but only 1 multi purpose input! Inside there is another input but the cable does not seem to be available. There is also the i/o module connection output but that means spending out and sacrificing a 5 1/2 bay!

Conclusion, very easy to use, great sound and compatable with nearly everything. Not great however if you have more than one input.

s

Well the price tag was good compared to the higher extreme models which all use the same audio chip and run at 109db so theres no difference in sound at all apart from the elite model that costs a fortune and is 119db. some of the others also come with onboard memory which is ok in a budget pc but if you're runing 2gb with xp or 4gb of memory with vista its not really needed.My advice is save some money and buy this.