# Creative Sound BlasterX AE-5 does it support EAX & alchemy



## mobiuus (Sep 5, 2017)

as the title says, i'm planning to switch from my xfi xtreme gamer fatal1ty pro
to this one and i plan to play Witcher 1 which supports eax...


----------



## GreiverBlade (Sep 5, 2017)

http://support.creative.com/kb/ShowArticle.aspx?sid=139102

just googling : "Creative Sound BlasterX AE-5 EAX support" (5sec ~ )

Q/A
Nr:21 :
Does the Sound BlasterX AE-5 support EAX?
Yes. It supports EAX 5.0
Nr:22:
Does the Sound BlasterX AE-5 support Alchemy?
Yes. It supports Alchemy.


----------



## mobiuus (Sep 5, 2017)

thx dude


----------



## RejZoR (Sep 5, 2017)

If you have any questions about AE-5, I can answer you anything


----------



## GreiverBlade (Sep 5, 2017)

DarkStalker said:


> thx dude


no worries, i was actually wondering the same but i forgot to seek info on it and you remembered me to check 

oh well ... i don't really need that soundcard anymore, the Recon3Di (creative Soundcore 3D chip) integrated to my mobo is sufficient


----------



## dvojinov (Sep 6, 2017)

not for me ..dont like this card 


*Can the Sound BlasterX AE-5 support Dolby and DTS encoding for optical out?* 
No; the Sound BlasterX AE-5 does not have Dolby and DTS encoding for optical out.


----------



## RejZoR (Sep 6, 2017)

Well, buying top of the line ANALOG soundcard to then stream out digital signal which entirely bypasses all high end DAC's and stuff doesn't really make much sense to begin with. If that's the case, buy Sound Blaster Z, the most basic model. It has all that including optical-in. Sound quality won't be any different between that and a 3000€ soundcard because it's in the end all encoded with proprietary audio transport encoders by DTS/Dolby.


----------



## dvojinov (Sep 6, 2017)

True Im more on that encoded steams then analogue out


----------



## FreedomEclipse (Sep 6, 2017)

RejZoR said:


> Well, buying top of the line ANALOG soundcard to then stream out digital signal which entirely bypasses all high end DAC's and stuff doesn't really make much sense to begin with. If that's the case, buy Sound Blaster Z, the most basic model. It has all that including optical-in. Sound quality won't be any different between that and a 3000€ soundcard because it's in the end all encoded with proprietary audio transport encoders by DTS/Dolby.




Is it worth the upgrade over a SB-Z??


----------



## RejZoR (Sep 6, 2017)

If you're using analog outputs, most certainly. The audio quality is superb and well above SB Z from what I'm experiencing now. SB Z just didn't sound well without some EQ love. SBX AE-5 doesn't need that at all.


----------



## dvojinov (Sep 6, 2017)

Im actually looking forward to buy a Z have enough of messing around with Realtek drivers and DTS I/ DDL  , if you know of any other brand with good DTS I / DDL implementation and driver support  your advice will be most appreciated


----------



## Madmaxneo (May 12, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> If you have any questions about AE-5, I can answer you anything


Awesome! Since the AE-5 doesn't support DTS or DDL through optical, what are the benefits of using optical then? 
Does optical out then work with the dolby atmos now in Windows 10?


----------



## dvojinov (Jun 2, 2018)

Madmaxneo said:


> Awesome! Since the AE-5 doesn't support DTS or DDL through optical, what are the benefits of using optical then?
> Does optical out then work with the dolby atmos now in Windows 10?


Native DTS and DOLBY  throughput that's it . Everey game or media that supports either one of the standards will play just fine however every 2ch audio will be played only as 2. channel no upmix or any multi channel magic .


----------



## Madmaxneo (Jun 2, 2018)

dvojinov said:


> Native DTS and DOLBY  throughput that's it . Everey game or media that supports either one of the standards will play just fine however every 2ch audio will be played only as 2. channel no upmix or any multi channel magic .



Will I still be able to get simulated surround sound on my logitech z906 surround speakers when playing music?


----------



## dvojinov (Jun 2, 2018)

Madmaxneo said:


> Will I still be able to get simulated surround sound on my logitech z906 surround speakers when playing music?


I think I answered that question above, if you consider "simulated surround" to be any 2ch audio upscaled to 5.1 however not sure if Cretive have somthing to replace the encoders on software wich cold be a form of upscaler or rather speaker fill. This is nothing like true hardware encoded signals by industry standard like DTS Interactive and Dolby Digital Live if available at all. I have SBZ wich does have embeded encoders DTS Interactive and Dolby Digital Live, and I also have Xonar DSX pure DTS card that I prefere. I also have Z906 and both cards performing amazingly however DTS is much beter with Xonar as I can play DTS Master, DTS HD and some other DTS standards, love the card.


----------



## Madmaxneo (Jun 2, 2018)

dvojinov said:


> I think I answered that question above, if you consider "simulated surround" to be any 2ch audio upscaled to 5.1 however not sure if Cretive have somthing to replace the encoders on software wich cold be a form of upscaler or rather speaker fill. This is nothing like true hardware encoded signals by industry standard like DTS Interactive and Dolby Digital Live if available at all. I have SBZ wich does have embeded encoders DTS Interactive and Dolby Digital Live, and I also have Xonar DSX pure DTS card that I prefere. I also have Z906 and both cards performing amazingly however DTS is much beter with Xonar as I can play DTS Master, DTS HD and some other DTS standards, love the card.



How does the AE-5 sound in comparison to the other cards when in full surround mode? I believe even if the card does not have DTS or DDL then windows can still push surround sound.


----------



## dvojinov (Jun 2, 2018)

Madmaxneo said:


> How does the AE-5 sound in comparison to the other cards when in full surround mode? I believe even if the card does not have DTS or DDL then windows can still push surround sound.


That will be more filler (speaker fill) if at all.


----------



## EsaT (Jun 3, 2018)

Madmaxneo said:


> How does the AE-5 sound in comparison to the other cards when in full surround mode? I believe even if the card does not have DTS or DDL then windows can still push surround sound.


If you're using analog connections any upmixing solution will work.
But if you want 5.1 through optical cable then content needs to be either already in 5.1 DD/DTS format or player software doing (first upmixing) encoding.
Without that encoding standard S/PDIF supports PCM stereo.
And I don't think Windows includes DD Live.


----------



## Madmaxneo (Jun 3, 2018)

EsaT said:


> If you're using analog connections any upmixing solution will work.
> But if you want 5.1 through optical cable then content needs to be either already in 5.1 DD/DTS format or player software doing (first upmixing) encoding.
> Without that encoding standard S/PDIF supports PCM stereo.
> And I don't think Windows includes DD Live.


Thanks, that is what I was looking for. There is an option hidden in one of the windows sub menus of the Sound properties that has an option for 5.1 surround sound. I am not sure if that will work with the AE-5 though.


----------



## FreedomEclipse (Jun 3, 2018)

I suppose the irony here is  that the whole thing behind EAX died when vista was released. Its really just old games that use EAX now. And trust me Ive had all manner of creative XFi and Asus Xonar cards 

None of them reproduce EAX correctly, though Creative seem to do it better whereas with Asus you just dont know it its on or not. it would crash games when you turned EAX or hardware acceleration on or create some sort of sound anomalies in game as it tried to 'emulate' EAX playback.

I personally found Creative to work better for gaming though so I sold off my Asus Xonar cards and bought an SB-Z some years back.


----------



## dvojinov (Jun 3, 2018)

I still have my Xonar DSX and I have SBZ however I prefer Xonar so it is in the system and works perfectly .


----------



## erocker (Jun 3, 2018)

RejZoR said:


> If you're using analog outputs, most certainly. The audio quality is superb and well above SB Z from what I'm experiencing now. SB Z just didn't sound well without some EQ love. SBX AE-5 doesn't need that at all.


What is better in terms of quality that you've noticed? The one issue I have is the usual light noise at higher levels with my Zx. I'm using a pretty heavy bowl curve with my EQ and that works fine though I think it misses a bit of the low/mid range. Idk, I'm probably interested in picking up a AE-5 if I can find a good deal on one.


----------



## dvojinov (Jun 4, 2018)

erocker said:


> What is better in terms of quality that you've noticed? The one issue I have is the usual light noise at higher levels with my Zx. I'm using a pretty heavy bowl curve with my EQ and that works fine though I think it misses a bit of the low/mid range. Idk, I'm probably interested in picking up a AE-5 if I can find a good deal on one.


well for start it is 7.1  it can play DTS Master /DTS HD and some other DTS standards , the overall audio quality is better the sound more dynamic , the encoder works perfectly as it is DTS card it only host DTS Interactive Encoder which is what Im  after anyway . I know that SBZ has both DDL and DTS I but I was never using DDL so I dont miss it . The driver I use now is UNIXONAR and so far everything works perfectly . I have at same time plugged in my Z906 5.1 speakers over Optical out (DTS-I) and at same time my 7.1 Razer Tiamat v2 but in 5.1 setup however If I desperately want 7.1 I just unplug the OPT and re-plug the back speaker jack . However using 5.1 + 7.1 Virtualization works like charm so I dont bother .

and something else that I know for fact only works properly with DSX is NEO ...that shit is amazing together with DTS-I + 7.1 virtualization the NEO matrix for 2 CH audio dose the job amazingly well on DSX and I do use it almost always while listening to music however even if I disable NEO it works fantastic throughout all speakers  but in different way .I know that some people doesn't like what NEO is doing some does like I do and it heavily depends what kind of music you are listening and in what quality .  For example DnB , Techno , Minimal , House and this kind of stuff sounds so good it blows your mind away with NEO matrix , however Rock , Pop and more acoustic / vocal music and similar...less impressive .

I have it in my hp OMEN X900-000nx PC I decided to modify the skin in more appropriate way to match my overall OMEN design


----------



## RejZoR (Jun 4, 2018)

erocker said:


> What is better in terms of quality that you've noticed? The one issue I have is the usual light noise at higher levels with my Zx. I'm using a pretty heavy bowl curve with my EQ and that works fine though I think it misses a bit of the low/mid range. Idk, I'm probably interested in picking up a AE-5 if I can find a good deal on one.



Main issue I've had with SB Z was the fact that ramping up EQ sliders caused heavy distortion in audio. You only get it on AE-5 when you're going to really stupid high levels, like over +20dB for each frequency (24dB is max). Also Crystalizer on SB Z was really harsh where here, even when set on max it actually sounds quite nice. And overall audio is much better, on SB Z it just sounded somewhat flat and I was forced to use EQ to improve it. AE-5 works well even without EQ. But then again, I had the base SB Z model, Zx is high end, there might be some differences in audio because of that.


----------



## EsaT (Jun 4, 2018)

Madmaxneo said:


> Thanks, that is what I was looking for. There is an option hidden in one of the windows sub menus of the Sound properties that has an option for 5.1 surround sound. I am not sure if that will work with the AE-5 though.


Windows can do anykind audio processing, including upmixing, in its  own "audio stack" before sound card, but without DD Live or DTS Connect/Interactive resulting 5.1 can't be sent out using optical.




RejZoR said:


> But then again, I had the base SB Z model, Zx is high end, there might be some differences in audio because of that.


Only difference of Zx to standard Z is that connector dongle.
Whose serial resistor based volume control shouldn't be used for bigger lowering of volume with headphones, because of it increasing output impedance.
ZxR is the one with higher end components.
Though neither its TPA6120 (overhyped chip) based headphone output is without quirks and is plain mediocre compared to AE-5's headphone output.


----------



## RejZoR (Jun 4, 2018)

Iirc, Zx had higher grade DAC's. Not by a lot, but a bit.


----------



## Madmaxneo (Jun 5, 2018)

EsaT said:


> Windows can do anykind audio processing, including upmixing, in its  own "audio stack" before sound card, but without DD Live or DTS Connect/Interactive resulting 5.1 can't be sent out using optical.
> 
> 
> Only difference of Zx to standard Z is that connector dongle.
> ...


So would you say that if you are using headphones then the AE-5 is the way to go but if you are using a surround sound speaker set up (like the Logitech z906 I use) then it's probably better just to stick with the Zx or the ZxR. Correct?


----------



## dvojinov (Jun 5, 2018)

Madmaxneo said:


> So would you say that if you are using headphones then the AE-5 is the way to go but if you are using a surround sound speaker set up (like the Logitech z906 I use) then it's probably better just to stick with the Zx or the ZxR. Correct?


You can connect analog with Z906 only optical or TOS lack of 5.1 upmix as there is no encoder available.


----------



## EsaT (Jun 5, 2018)

Madmaxneo said:


> So would you say that if you are using headphones then the AE-5 is the way to go but if you are using a surround sound speaker set up (like the Logitech z906 I use) then it's probably better just to stick with the Zx or the ZxR. Correct?


Actually Z906 itself seems to have some upmixing options.
http://support.logitech.com/en_us/product/speaker-system-z906/faq#link_23020
So for stereo content like music it would work through optical.
But for games or movies that wouldn't work and you would better off with headphones.
Though if room acoustics isn't good messing sound good headphones would likely do actually better.
With binaural sound simulation they give even sense of distance besides direction. (instead of some sounds just being more muffled than others)

Though AE-5 would have better DACs than Z906.


----------



## dvojinov (Jun 5, 2018)

I dont know I didn't find any headphones "binarual" type or if you wish more precise 2 driver ( 2 ch) headphones that can do correct representation of true 5.1  or 7.1 headphones , sorry just desnt work out . It does have some sense of "depth" even some awkward sens of direction ( mostly misplaced ) compared to my Razer Tiamat true 7.1v2 headphones or before them ZALEMAN ZM-RS6F 5.1 Real Surround Sound Headphones . And I tied most of the top brands and models from  Logitech , Creative ,Asus , Razer  and even Sennheiser .
I settled with Razer Tiamat 7.1 v2 as for me they sounded best in games for what Im using it,  they are expensive but not even the most expensive ones from all of them I tried .
Z906 has upmix matrix under 3D option as well as sort of speaker fill under 4.1 , however I don't have any idea what matrix is in use sort of DTS tech , Dolby or something Logitech developed  ,it is also never mentioned in the specs.


----------



## EsaT (Jun 5, 2018)

dvojinov said:


> Z906 has upmix matrix under 3D option as well as sort of speaker fill under 4.1 , however I don't have any idea what matrix is in use sort of DTS tech , Dolby or something Logitech developed  ,it is also never mentioned in the specs.


Doesn't matter whose upmixing it is.
Sound already "flattened" to stereo has lost spatial information except for left/right direction.

Binaural sound isn't anything in headphone.
It's two channel recording/signal which contains direction dependant changes caused be head and outer ears to signal received by ears from sound source.
http://berkeleybside.com/sound-dimensions-of-binaural-recording/
















Those signal changes can be also modeled mathematically when use of dummy head recording isn't possible.
Creative has very good algorithms for it.








It just requires lot more from headphones than any stereo music, which forgives even seriously inaccurate or totally bad reproduction without sounding crap.
So very few headphones are truly capable for it and especially closed headphones are mostly bad for it.

5.1/7.1 input "true surround" headsets are marketing bullcrap for selling Chinese trinkets at even higher profit margin.
It's physically impossible for them to imitate sound of proper home theater setup.
In actual environment sound from single channel reaches both ears, which is needed for that smooth 360 directionality.
In headphones that won't happen.
And cramming in garbage truck load of even cheaper drivers with nothing certainly properly tuned can only mess sound.


----------



## dvojinov (Jun 6, 2018)

What ever you say truth is I can pinpoint sound direction on my Tiamat 7.1 in games and turn to the correct side while I wasnt sure or couldnt determine where the sound comes  from on any 2 driver vitrual surround headphones. They may be garbage by your standards but they are definitely do the job by mine gameing standards. I dont use them for anything else though.


----------



## RejZoR (Jun 8, 2018)

Creative released new drivers for AE-5 today, fixing the EQ and few other things.


----------



## audiocool (Jul 5, 2018)

I'm currently using -Creative X-Fi Titanium HD which connect to Bose Sound Bar (sound touch 300 with surround speaker and woofer) via Optical Out (turn on DTS) and plan to upgrade to Sound BlasterX AE-5. 

But knowing now this new card did not support DDL or DTS via optical out. Is that the sound will become 2.1?

Any new sound card you can recommend ? Mostly use for listening music and movies.


----------

