Creative Announces Sound BlasterX AE-5 Audiophile-grade Gaming Sound Card

[RejZoR]

Internal sound cards should just die. Get an external USB DAC and an amp for headphones/speakers, and a proper receiver if you need surround.

If anything, it should be time to bring them back again and start using dedicated hardware acceleration for it again. We had all that and then it was all taken away in favor of garbage software emulation with really crappy environmental effects engines. For anyone who has experienced EAX 5 HD, using today's crap is making my ears bleed.

@Prima.Vera
Reason why things are geting downgraded is because Microsoft shut Creative out from hardware acceleration. And if you can't use audio on such low level, you really can't do all that much to it than do post process effects. They can help, but it's a problem doing 3D positioning and special effects. Yeah, it sucks., but we can't do much about it.

I wonder, how are they replacing countless capacitors? With those solid flat ones? Also, what are those flat, tall red and black elements?

 

[Ferrum Master]

I wonder, how are they replacing countless capacitors? With those solid flat ones? Also, what are those flat, tall red and black elements?

Black ones are plastic TO-126 transistors and red are those Wima PP caps.

HW accelerated games were really the thing. And M$ didn't like Creative taking a serious part of their audio stack.

How did they replace need for caps? Using a simple and cheap design?

 

[bug]

You think USB doesn't have noise? It does and a lot. Coupling with an end amp will screw the noise floor up, USB is a really noisy thing also... only solution is also to use an additional device an USB isolator(and it costs a lot, I have one, without it you cannot do any kind of measurements at all). If you use headphones only it is not really needed. If it is even a cheaper device feeding from the USB 5V rails... then oh gosh...

Each device and solution has their trade offs, you have to analyze each of their own, you cannot generalize all internal cards are bad and USB is the holy grail or vice versa - it's all gray.

Wtf does USB have to do with anything?

 

[R-T-B]

Wtf does USB have to do with anything?

Everyone and their dog here is talking about external usb dacs being "better."

 

[qubit]

I still hang on to my old Creative X-Fi cards which work fine with W10. These sound amazing and have better control software than their replacements, especially when it comes to the bass and treble controls. The new software only has equalizer sliders which are not the same thing.

Maybe this new generation fixes this problem.

 

[bug]

Everyone and their dog here is talking about external usb dacs being "better."

Not really, I was talking about proper external amplifiers. I've never seen an audiophile browsing for USB amplifiers anyway.

And yes, even if you can build crappy USB amplifiers, noise is not the issue, because USB is digital. Noise will alter the 0 and 1 level a bit, but that will be corrected on receive.

 

[R-T-B]

Not really, I was talking about proper external amplifiers. I've never seen an audiophile browsing for USB amplifiers anyway.

And yes, even if you can build crappy USB amplifiers, noise is not the issue, because USB is digital. Noise will alter the 0 and 1 level a bit, but that will be corrected on receive.

DACs, not amps.

 

[Blueberries]

No analog output or dedicated 5V source.

I might consider it if the price was right and the drivers were crisp.

Wtf does USB have to do with anything?

USB is an uncompressed digital signal ideal for sound output so long as you have a good power source with a good transient response / low 5v ripple.

 

[Ferrum Master]

DACs, not amps.

DSD is currently the audiophile holy grail... so it uses USB... Toslink also have their own flaws and the thing slowly dies as it doesn't have enough bandwidth.

Creative drivers currently are fine, both Linux(surprisingly) and Windows... I can vouch for it too.

 

[bug]

DACs, not amps.

Same thing (for the purpose of this discussion). You move DACs outside the case, you save yourself a lot of grief.

Toslink also have their own flaws and the thing slowly dies as it doesn't have enough bandwidth.

Enough bandwidth for what? Music is encoded in stereo (most of it) and soundtracks you output over HDMI/DP.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Same thing (for the purpose of this discussion). You move DACs outside the case, you save yourself a lot of grief.

That's the cause... it ain't the same thing.

SACD doesn't run on SPDIF, DSD is needed.

HDMI doesn't eliminate problems considering loops. You can screw it up as easily as with internal cards especially if you already experience problems at home.

We can say the same... if you don't notice some flaws - good, some may point at it. Each product has it's own use and also problems... external devices also suffer from certain noise issues.

 

[Frick]

I don't mind a very nice sound card. I'm more worried about creative's mega-awful software support

Dunno about that, the X-Fi cards has worked well over several Windows generations for me.

I'm still using PCI SB0460's (Platinum I think, or something) and they are starting to die on me. This is too expensive for my tastes, but if I'm getting anything, I'm getting something with proper recording.

 

[ERazer]

not saying any usb DAC is better, you can have the best SC or usb DAC if you have crappy speaker/headphone aint gonna do you good.

 

[mcraygsx]

One of the benefit when you invest in a good motherboard is excellent Audio Quality such as my Asus MAXIMUS IX HERO. This sound card becomes too redundant.

 

[Frick]

not saying any usb DAC is better, you can have the best SC or usb DAC if you have crappy speaker/headphone aint gonna do you good.

Honestly even crappy speakers sound better with a good sound card. My Logitech Z323 speakers got way nicer when I got the X-Fi. There is a point of diminishing returns though.

 

[Legacy-ZA]

I was just wondering the other day when we're gonna get new soundcards. I'm probably one of rare few who get excited over new soundcards this much. 122dB, 32bit 384kHz DAC's, niiiice. And for 150€, it's not that bad. Plus, it has RGB. Everything any audio enthusiast ever wanted from a soundcard It'll happen that I'll probably have new soundcard before I'll have a new graphic card hehe

Nah, I too am always up for a good internal sound card, it is so worth it. I just wish we see more and with 7.1 support.

 

[Octopuss]

How about keeping your damn stuff supported with driver updates instead of releasing new producs that will be half abandoned six months from now, a**holes? I have ZxR and have seen roughly three driver releases ever since I bought it when it was new stuff.

 

[Daisho]

- "gaming"
- "audiophile"
- creative labs

3 reasons to stay away.

 

[ERazer]

I don't mind a very nice sound card. I'm more worried about creative's mega-awful software support

How about keeping your damn stuff supported with driver updates instead of releasing new producs that will be half abandoned six months from now, a**holes? I have ZxR and have seen roughly three driver releases ever since I bought it when it was new stuff.

thats why im done with addin sound cards, my O2 Dac/amp i can plug into window (xp to 10) and OSX it will simply works.

 

[Camm]

And M$ didn't like Creative taking a serious part of their audio stack.

What? MS didn't give a shit about its audio stack, what it gave a shit about was (creative and others) drivers running in ring 0. Remember how Vista was a buggy POS with bluescreens? It wasn't Vista so per say, but Creative & Nidia with Ring 0 calls causing seg faults. WDDM from Vista onwards abstracted that. Even then, Microsoft did work to allow those cards direct access without going thru the mixer in 7 (and retroactively applied to Vista via patch to WDDM).

 

[RejZoR]

How about keeping your damn stuff supported with driver updates instead of releasing new producs that will be half abandoned six months from now, a**holes? I have ZxR and have seen roughly three driver releases ever since I bought it when it was new stuff.

Realistically, how many issues do you have with it? I have Sound Blaster Z and I have ZERO issues with it from day 1.

 

[Ferrum Master]

What? MS didn't give a shit about its audio stack, what it gave a shit about was (creative and others) drivers running in ring 0. Remember how Vista was a buggy POS with bluescreens? It wasn't Vista so per say, but Creative & Nidia with Ring 0 calls causing seg faults. WDDM from Vista onwards abstracted that. Even then, Microsoft did work to allow those cards direct access without going thru the mixer in 7 (and retroactively applied to Vista via patch to WDDM).

What?? I even crawled out of my bed out of frustration! Keep your facts straight. M$ killed direct sound API and WDM/kernel streaming. Mark that with NT5. NT6 was so raw and hasted it had its audio stack is tied with LAN stack, plain zero - NT6.0 has nothing to do with the past. They didn't actually give a s**** as long EAX was dead and they could not do anything about it too. Actually there were straws from direct sound we are seeing in the OS that are Xbox related software based Xaudio2 fruits due to common base. Actually there so much bad things around that time. Death of Sensaura3D, Glide... and also OpenAL... because it failed to evolve(Doppler effect only), okay Creative did some zombie stuff with Aalchemy thanks to OpenAL, and thanks to them... to do that for free... at least in the end. WASAPI was added just naturally as a kernel feature and not as a patch(it just cannot be otherwise)... actually they started to iron out things, don't blame M$ for everything also, they tried, okay they burned badly, but they still try, as with Redstone 2 they added USB Audio 2.0 Class and spatial audio. They are aware of virtual reality and latency issues... it's a new priority. We have to forget the past, it just cannot work anymore. Skip it... if only one creates some custom DSP intercepting like FMOD calls and doing on a custom DSP... yeah... why not... but just why nowadays? Our CPU's are are like behemoths versus 2004, that's why I am more concerned about the analog and hardware part where inaccuracy, cheapskate and pure scam that actually occurs seeing the hardware.

Okay... what did it cause? Creating of HDA, bunch of deaf people, actually audio became less important and pushed into the back because graphics made the main role, you may judge me over this argument but it is what it is, before it just made more sense due to lack of hardware and GFX power to deliver mood and emotion.

So in the end? What we have here? Still a crap gamer product, limited on the HW side thus the strong critique from me. Drivers are fine for Creative actually... haven't had an issue for a while nor win or linux. Blaming M$? Okay, have you ever reported some bugs and logs to them? I have, they solved it! I beg your pardon, you?

 

[Camm]

Snip

After all that you still didn't address the main problem - drivers running in Ring0 are fucking terrible from both a stability and security perspective.

Could it have been handled better? Sure. But wasn't like Creative really gave two fucks about ensuring that functionality continued to work within the constrains of WDDM 1.2 either.

 

[Ferrum Master]

After all that you still didn't address the main problem - drivers running in Ring0 are fucking terrible from both a stability and security perspective.

Could it have been handled better? Sure. But wasn't like Creative really gave two fucks about ensuring that functionality continued to work within the constrains of WDDM 1.2 either.

Can you name any other maker... especially realtek doing things better? Mhmm? Are you sure blaming one side is really fair here?

 

[Camm]

Can you name any other maker... especially realtek doing things better? Mhmm? Are you sure blaming one side is really fair here?

At least Realtek drivers worked most of the time. But again, you keep diving on 'why should have Microsoft NOT fixed a gigantic security vulnerability'?