Breathing new life into an "old" soundcard. Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

[INSTG8R]

Cheers @INSTG8R that is what i was thinking and what i have read and heard about for many many years and due to where i sit i would say my tweaters need to be lvl with the top of the TV.

Also checked my edit regarding your sub. Yeah my current speakers are on top of my AV unit as I cannibalized my stands for my rear speakers for my PC. So basically “over my head” at my listening position. Granted any decent speaker will have a pretty wide “image” that should make placement unnoticeable within reason but I really need to get another pair of stands and get all my speakers on the same plain again…

 

[Steve-007UK]

Also checked my edit regarding your sub. Yeah my current speakers are on top of my AV unit as I cannibalized my stands for my rear speakers for my PC. So basically “over my head” at my listening position. Granted any decent speaker will have a pretty wide “image” that should make placement unnoticeable within reason but I really need to get another pair of stands and get all my speakers on the same plain again…

Hehe no probs i also updated my last post to as it was lacking needed infomation

Also i am not doing any surround sound stuff here pure stereo only and just lucky my yamaha A-S501 has a sub out hehe

 

[INSTG8R]

Hehe no probs i also updated my last post to as it was lacking needed infomation

Also i am not doing any surround sound stuff here pure stereo only and just lucky my yamaha A-S501 has a sub out hehe

Running a kinda disappointing Yamaha RX-V479. My previous Yamaha had a much better overall sound and frequency response on the same speakers but I wanted the HD audio formats for films and I like the Spotify Connect and Airplay options. The HDCP pass through port and my cable box don’t get along either trying to run 4K but not a big deal.

 

[Steve-007UK]

Running a kinda disappointing Yamaha RX-V479. My previous Yamaha had a much better overall sound and frequency response on the same speakers but I wanted the HD audio formats for films and I like the Spotify Connect and Airplay options. The HDCP pass through port and my cable box don’t get along either trying to run 4K but not a big deal.

I used to have a pioneer 7.1 surround amp with all this modern HDMI and 4k upscaling but one day i turned it on very quiet as was getting up for work at 6am and after about 5 mins there was a loud pop from my speakers and the amp turned off, Not knowing what it was i unpluged the amp then pluged it back in turned it on and it went pop and the blue smoke of death came out lol (think the hdmi board died)

Was a nice amp to and sounded great with both films and music but one thing that always pissed me off with it was the heat it gave out. You only had to turn it on and leave it 30 mins without it doing anything and it would get very hot to the point could fry and egg on it.

After it died and £550 down i decided i am going back to a stereo amp but one with a sub out and so after looking at many reveiws i went for this yamaha A-S501 and have loved it since and works well with my small wharfedale 9.1's and also worked well with my old wharfedale pacific evo 20 floor standers and this yammy never gets warm realy i have to push it hard for hours before i heats up lol

 

[INSTG8R]

Also the extra sub is not to get more bass it's to even the sound out on the deep bass, i have a funny shaped room and not many corners to put a single sub and get it to fill the room how i want.

Yeah I moved a while ago and my sub couldn’t be in a worse position. At the edge of a wall where my kitchen startes leading to the open space of it … the opposite side would be the doorway out of my living room so pretty much the same…

Poor thing all out in the open…

 

[Steve-007UK]

Yeah I moved a while ago and my sub couldn’t be in a worse position. At the edge of a wall where my kitchen startes leading to the open space of it … the opposite side would be the doorway out of my living room so pretty much the same…
View attachment 200440
Poor thing all out in the open…

Awww damn poor thing hehe defo looks out of place and not doing it's job like it could if in better position hehe

 

[INSTG8R]

Awww damn poor thing hehe defo looks out of place and not doing it's job like it could if in better position hehe

Yeah when I moved in the landlord figured I was gonna use the opposite wall and where the existing Ethernet connection was. I asked him to wire up the other side because they layout seemed weird too have my couch by the doorway and in the way of “traffic” as opposed to my “flat” AV unit so I got no corners at all on that wall…

 

[Steve-007UK]

My amp also has the A/B speaker option and my speakers are also Bi-Wire capable.
I run my speakers with a single cable atm and i believe my amp pumps 90 watts RMS into them.

If i am not mistaken if i do run my speakers in Bi-Wire mode then my amp will splitt the wattage so tweeter gets 45 Watt and mid/bass gets 45 Watt?
What would you do? go Bi-Wire or stick with the single cable?
I have tried it both ways but i dont think i can notice any difference
@INSTG8R what are you thoughts?

Also not trying to promote myself or anything with this but i do mess and like trying to make my own music.
I try my best at coming up with my own things and also tried remixing some tune to.
This is all my own stuff using programs i have had nad still have over the years and have never tried to make money from it as i do it for fun but if it's ok to post this here , Then here are a few things i have done and uploaded to soundcloud.

https://soundcloud.com/stebennett

 

[INSTG8R]

If i am not mistaken if i do run my speakers in Bi-Wire mode then my amp will splitt the wattage so tweeter gets 45 Watt and mid/bass gets 45 Watt?
What would you do? go Bi-Wire or stick with the single cable?
I have tried it both ways but i dont think i can notice any difference

If your speakers and amp can do it and there’s no impedance issues I don’t see why not. I mean like you said you couldn’t hear the difference so they already run well enough without resorting to “exotic” connections.

 

[bobbybluz]

My amp also has the A/B speaker option and my speakers are also Bi-Wire capable.
I run my speakers with a single cable atm and i believe my amp pumps 90 watts RMS into them.

If i am not mistaken if i do run my speakers in Bi-Wire mode then my amp will splitt the wattage so tweeter gets 45 Watt and mid/bass gets 45 Watt?
What would you do? go Bi-Wire or stick with the single cable?
I have tried it both ways but i dont think i can notice any difference
@INSTG8R what are you thoughts?

Also not trying to promote myself or anything with this but i do mess and like trying to make my own music.
I try my best at coming up with my own things and also tried remixing some tune to.
This is all my own stuff using programs i have had nad still have over the years and have never tried to make money from it as i do it for fun but if it's ok to post this here , Then here are a few things i have done and uploaded to soundcloud.

https://soundcloud.com/stebennett

Bi-wiring is a total waste of time and energy. Bi-amping however is completely different thing (separate power amps for high & low frequencies using a passive or active crossover network).

 

[Steve-007UK]

Bi-wiring is a total waste of time and energy. Bi-amping however is completely different thing (separate power amps for high & low frequencies using a passive or active crossover network).

Thank you I did think that to when it comes to bi-wiring and have tested it many times with many different setups and i could never tell any diff with the music quality.

When it comes to Bi-Amping i can see where that can make a difference and if i could run dual optical out then would get another yamaha A-S501 amp haha

 

[Radical Vision]

I am also using Titanium HD from many years now.. Replaced back in the day the JRC amps with some cheap Texas Instruments chips in oder to make the sound better.. Now did find cheap OPA 2134PA, and replaced the old ones.. But not sure what to use to replace the buffer single channel ones... MUSES seems good amps, but the prices is too much, to buy 4 of these will cost like couple of TitaniumHD cards lol...

So any ideas for something good like these OPA2134PA for the buffers, as these wont work there, they are 2 channel, the buffers are single..

 

[GotNoRice]

I am also using Titanium HD from many years now.. Replaced back in the day the JRC amps with some cheap Texas Instruments chips in oder to make the sound better.. Now did find cheap OPA 2134PA, and replaced the old ones.. But not sure what to use to replace the buffer single channel ones... MUSES seems good amps, but the prices is too much, to buy 4 of these will cost like couple of TitaniumHD cards lol...

So any ideas for something good like these OPA2134PA for the buffers, as these wont work there, they are 2 channel, the buffers are single..

Well, if you are looking to try something different for the "single" opamps, I'd suggest the OPA627. It probably won't be too far off from the OPA2134 you were looking at. But really, the two LME49710 single opamps that it comes with stock are already pretty amazing. They are basically the "single" version of the LM4562 "dual" opamp, which is one of my favorite non-discrete opamps and I use it in many applications.

I feel that the majority of the benefit from upgrading the OpAmps on this card came from upgrading the JRC dual opamps, which it seems like you've already done.

 

[Radical Vision]

Yes i heard these LME49710 are fine, but did read some forums and reviews, and there they stated there are better ones, to replaces these, so is why i asked, as i am not very familiar with the whole opAMP thing on these audio cards... Saw MUSES 01,02 and 03 to be prob one of the very best, but the price is way too much.. So i wonder will some OPA be upgrade over these LME49710 to match better the OPA2134. There are also these big a$$ buson upgrade opAMPs, but damn the card becomes too big, and cant even mount back the damn cover lol..

Ordered today ASUS Xonar Essence STX II, it have the MUSES upgrade kit with it, so it will be good test for me, sadlt the way ASUS did engineer the card the buffer there is dual channel, not single, so i cant replace the single channels of the TitaniumHD in order to try the muses on that card...

I wonder if the MUSES 01 and 02 worth so much money, prob they dont, as i dont believe at all if installing these on my TitaniumHD i will find so much difference to make me spend so much money...
If you have experience with opAMPs for audio cards share, i wnt some perspective, expensive and best price/ performance ratio or better to say best price/ quality ratio.

 

[qubit]

X-Fi cards sound awesome. Haven’t looked back since I bought my first one over a decade ago.

The Fatal1ty on I’ve currently got in my PC (see specs) is no longer supported by Creative and the 2019 dated driver has a few issues with W10, but I won’t change it for as long as possible.

 

[djisas]

I love my X-Fi cards too, but since chaning from the Fatal1ty champion pci to the Fatal1ty pro pci-e, i get a ton of noise trough the headphones, I dont know if it's picking noise from psu, probably due to the cable connecting to the front panel.

 

[Radical Vision]

I love my X-Fi cards too, but since chaning from the Fatal1ty champion pci to the Fatal1ty pro pci-e, i get a ton of noise trough the headphones, I dont know if it's picking noise from psu, probably due to the cable connecting to the front panel.

You should get then TitaniumHD is very good, and i never did hear any noise, or the Xonar Essence ST i did have before the Titanium same never heard anything.. Not sure if i did have any noise from the X-Fi Xtreme music on one of my old systems, or from the Audigy 1...

X-Fi cards sound awesome. Haven’t looked back since I bought my first one over a decade ago.

The Fatal1ty on I’ve currently got in my PC (see specs) is no longer supported by Creative and the 2019 dated driver has a few issues with W10, but I won’t change it for as long as possible.

Well i am not 100% sure, but when i moved from Xonar Essence ST to TitaniumHD, it did appear to me, that in HI-FI mode the Essence ST did sound a bit more clear and better. Will test this now when i get the Essence STX II....

 

[qubit]

Well i am not 100% sure, but when i moved from Xonar Essence ST to TitaniumHD, it did appear to me, that in HI-FI mode the Essence ST did sound a bit more clear and better. Will test this now when i get the Essence STX II....

It's quite possible that the Essence sounds better. All I can do is compare to my previous cards which were budget ones, including a Creative Soundblaster Live! 5.1 and Realtek mobo sound and that the X-Fi sound is very punchy and detailed. Of course, I'm so used to that X-Fi sound now that it just sounds normal to me. It's only when I compare again that the difference becomes apparent again.

 

[Radical Vision]

It's quite possible that the Essence sounds better. All I can do is compare to my previous cards which were budget ones, including a Creative Soundblaster Live! 5.1 and Realtek mobo sound and that the X-Fi sound is very punchy and detailed. Of course, I'm so used to that X-Fi sound now that it just sounds normal to me. It's only when I compare again that the difference becomes apparent again.

Well i will check that these days, it is quite interesting to me, what i will find.. But the STX II is very good card it have Wima german caps, nichicon fine gold electrolytic caps that suppose to sound way better over the normal polymer metal capacitors, also it have MUSES opAMPs as upgrade, while i did upgrade with OPA2134PA the TitaniumHD i bet they wont sound as good as these MUSES, not to mention i did reasearch even before after i moved from the Essence ST to the TitaniumHD, and some guy did made review of the X-Fi gen 2 (used in TitaniumHD) and the chip used on the Xonar Essence series (C-Media Oxygen HD) and he did found that the Oxygen HD perform better for HI-FI audio.. So the way i see it STX II vs TitaniumHD the STX II have BIG upper hand based only on the components used, the chipset and even the opAMPs... Sure i can replace the AMPs on the TitaniumHD too, but i have the feeling even with MUSES 02/01 and 03 and use the same amps on the STX II that card will possible sound way better...

But there are other cards out there too... Such as EVGA NU Audio, Auzentech X-Fi Home Theater HD (some ppl claim this to be superior to the TitaniumHD die to the higher quality of the caps used), Onkyo SE 300PCIE Wavio, there are of course the newerCreative cards SB ZXR and Sound Blaster AE-9.. But the way i see it the last great card from Creative was exactly the TitaniumHD, as ZXR have crap processor,and prob the new AE series is the same did not even look at them...

From all these cards the ones i think are the best are STX II, TitaniumHD. Now X-Fi Auzentech Home Theater HD vs X-Fi Onkyo vs TitaniumHD i think the battle there is between TitaniumHD and Onkyo. But the Onkyo does not have sockets to change the AMPs, that may be problem, unless they did use some quality AMPs for their card.. EVGA NU Audio is prob crap the fanboys of EVGA claim that card to be very good, others non fanboys say the card is nothing special prob they are right...

 

[INSTG8R]

EVGA NU Audio is prob crap the fanboys of EVGA claim that card to be very good, others non fanboys say the card is nothing special prob they are right.

The real issue with them are they are treated as a “USB device” and are basically using some kind of PCI “Bridge” that’s when it went right off my radar…I’m still happy enough with my ZX I miss my Fatality but it was PCI and well that slot is long gone…

 

[Radical Vision]

The real issue with them are they are treated as a “USB device” and are basically using some kind of PCI “Bridge” that’s when it went right off my radar…I’m still happy enough with my ZX I miss my Fatality but it was PCI and well that slot is long gone…

I see i know stuff about the Essence series and the X-Fi PCI series and the TitaniumHD, dont know much about the EVGA, Onkyo or the Auzentech..
Essence cards are the same, i mean the C-Media Oxygen HD chip does not support PCIex, so the STX was made with some PCI>PCIex bridge chip too, but they did fuck up something with the clock gen there or something, and they fixed it later with the STX II.. So is not only the EVGA with bridge chip, but people like the Essence series very much, unless they want to game or something more then just listen to music and movies (BTW the Dolby the Essence have is really good for movies, and the other effects), for me the Esscence series is very very good for HI-FI audio and home cinema with the effcets, but for games is ok, is far cry from the X-Fi`s abilities on supported games (not that this matters after windows XP anyway) . Is interesting to me, that u find the ZX (i look only the high end cards that would be ZXR for me) good sounding card as sure the components used on the high end ZXR are very good same quality as the Xonar Essence series, i was fan of the ZXR and wanted to find one for cheap, but then did talk with another retro collecto enhusiast, and he told me that the damn ZXR does not have audio processor such as the X-Fi, but rather process the audio via software, and that made me not to want to have anything with the Z series of Sound Blaster... Another guy that did have both X-Fi TitaniumHD and later he did buy Sound Blaster ZXR, he did put to sale the ZXR very fast, he said the ZXR sound way worse for HI-FI audio...

But everyone is different i guess.

 

[GotNoRice]

I love my X-Fi cards too, but since chaning from the Fatal1ty champion pci to the Fatal1ty pro pci-e, i get a ton of noise trough the headphones, I dont know if it's picking noise from psu, probably due to the cable connecting to the front panel.

Yeah soundcards can be very hit or miss depending on the system they are in, and are obviously susceptible to RFI (radio-frequency interference) as well as ground-loop issues. I stopped using my X-Fi Titanium HD in my gaming system because I couldn't fully get rid of the background noise. It was obvious that it was coming from my computer as the noise would change pitch when I moved my mouse, etc. But with an overclocked high-powered CPU and GPU, among other components, it's hard to blame the sound card too much.

I moved my Titanium HD into the computer that I use as a source for my dedicated music stereo. That computer has a very sparse internal layout with only integrated video and no major components next to the soundcard. Even using headphones into my preamp I cannot hear any background noise when the card is used in that system. So it's not a guarentee that there will always be background noise. It's absolutely system dependent.

In my gaming system I use an X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty now, feeding an external DAC via optical. My computer is so electrically noisy that even using the external DAC directly via USB still caused background noise / ground loop issues, so being able to use optical to break any possibility of electrical interference was super helpful. And even though I'm not using the DAC that is built-in to the X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty, I still use CMSS-3D every day when I game and would have a hard time living without it. I have still yet to hear any other algorithm that does a better job than CMSS-3D when it comes to downmixing 7.1 for headphone surround, despite the card's age.

I run 5 different X-Fi cards at the moment. An X-Fi Titanium HD, an X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty, an X-Fi Titanium, an X-Fi XtremeMusic, and an X-Fi XtremeGamer. All the systems (even the ones not officially supported) have been upgraded to Windows 11 and the cards all work great using the latest Windows 10 driver from 2019.

 

[INSTG8R]

I see i know stuff about the Essence series and the X-Fi PCI series and the TitaniumHD, dont know much about the EVGA, Onkyo or the Auzentech..
Essence cards are the same, i mean the C-Media Oxygen HD chip does not support PCIex, so the STX was made with some PCI>PCIex bridge chip too, but they did fuck up something with the clock gen there or something, and they fixed it later with the STX II.. So is not only the EVGA with bridge chip, but people like the Essence series very much, unless they want to game or something more then just listen to music and movies (BTW the Dolby the Essence have is really good for movies, and the other effects), for me the Esscence series is very very good for HI-FI audio and home cinema with the effcets, but for games is ok, is far cry from the X-Fi`s abilities on supported games (not that this matters after windows XP anyway) . Is interesting to me, that u find the ZX (i look only the high end cards that would be ZXR for me) good sounding card as sure the components used on the high end ZXR are very good same quality as the Xonar Essence series, i was fan of the ZXR and wanted to find one for cheap, but then did talk with another retro collecto enhusiast, and he told me that the damn ZXR does not have audio processor such as the X-Fi, but rather process the audio via software, and that made me not to want to have anything with the Z series of Sound Blaster... Another guy that did have both X-Fi TitaniumHD and later he did buy Sound Blaster ZXR, he did put to sale the ZXR very fast, he said the ZXR sound way worse for HI-FI audio...

But everyone is different i guess.

I’d bet dollars to donuts the ZX and ZXR are using the same core chip just the ZXR has a little more “bling” I mean I use my PC purely for gaming and I game exclusively in 5.1 via Logi Z906s connected analogue. We lost all real “hardware sound” when Direct Sound pretty much killed it. Yes despite that some cards definitely do still do a better job than others sound cards have been “hobbled” for a long time now. Does my ZX sound better than the latest and greatest onboard solution? Absolutely it does. I can say this because when I switched from Intel to AMD o nearly smashed my sound card because on AMD it went absolutely to crap, static, lost channels, switching channels etc etc. WELL turns out there was a very simple solution staring me right in the face that dawned on me in the middle of the night….

Spread Spectrum! This absolutely ANCIENT feature is enabled by default on AMD boards….basically it lets your clocks “float” which apparently sound cards absolutely HATE! Now I’m an AMD beta tester and went through MANY lengthy arguments with staff as to why is this on and explaining how and why this was breaking my sound card with no real conclusions or reasoning other than “it doesn’t hurt anything being on” blah blah…Heck even Daniel K hopped into the fray putting out drivers trying to solve the issue…Bottom line, Spread Spectrum disabled, Sound Card performs exactly as it should and always had….

 

[Radical Vision]

Huh is so strange to me to hear someone to have so much parasite noise and buzzings... I have heard this crap only on very old Sound Blaster cards (or other ones) such as Sound Blaster 16, Creative AWE64 Gold/ Value, some ISA audio cards such as Crystal or Yamaha. Also some integrated audio cards in old motherboards such as socket 462 based ones, 478 socket 939 too.. But newer ones nothing, i think even my Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Platinum does not make noise or much of it, similar with Audigy 1 and X-Fi Xtreme Music i think does not do noise at all. For the Essence ST and now TitaniumHD i neve did hear anything no noise no matter what i do... I changed 2 systems while i did use Essence ST (with AM3+ socket first the mobo was 990FX Saibertooth R2, after that was Crosshair Formula V), and the TitaniumHD now with AM4. Did not have any buzzing or crap liek moving the mouse and hearing how the mouse moves, that i see only in ISA audio cards or integrated audio on motherboards that are old.. Even my LGA 1366 system does not have buzzings... But i have always use high end power supplies such as Seasonic 850W SS Gold, at some point EVGA SuperNova 850W Platinum (this PSU was shit did have coil whine on the second year..) and now Corsair HX1000w, even with the EVGA i did not have buzzing..

So the problem is prob in your PSU, or way more likely in ur house power delivery or something else that make electric distortion near your system, that is my bet...

 

[Radical Vision]

Got the card is very good as expected.. Now i think this card have a bit more stage to it compared to the TitaniumHD with OPA2134PA, that is die to the MUSES opAMPs the card have on, the music have some times more stuff i can hear compared to the Titanium, but both sound extremely good, so is a very close call, i expected to hear a far bit more with the STX II.

What i use to listen music is
SONY TA-F670ES AMP
JBL LX800 MKII Speakers
player is AIMP set with ASIO, and some FLAC music..

Will try to put the MUSES AMPs to the TitaniumHD and see how that will go.. Sadly the SB card uses 2 single channel sockets, meaning i cant use any of the AMPs i have to replace the stock buffers...