Closer Examination

As far as the exterior design and button layout goes, the Creative Sound Blaster X4 is nearly identical to its predecessor, the Sound Blaster X3. While I can only repeat most of what I already wrote in my Sound Blaster X3 review, I am going to point out all the key differences for a good idea of what exactly Creative has done with the X4. All of the following photos are those of the Sound Blaster X4, of course.


The Creative Sound Blaster X4 has a square shape and fairly compact footprint, and it's entirely encased in plastic. It doesn't look or feel as luxurious as it would if it were made from aluminium or some kind of metal. Compared to the X3, the color scheme was changed from black to gray, which does make the X4 look like a slightly more expensive piece of kit. Its weight was also increased, from 330 to 384 grams. While not a huge difference, the X4 does somehow feel heftier and even more solid. There's no risk of the sound card moving by yanking your headset's cable.


The central point of this sound card's exterior is the large multipurpose dial. The dial is surrounded by a glowing ring whose color changes depending on the current function of the dial. In its "main" operating mode marked with a glowing blue ring, the large circular dial is used to digitally adjust the sound volume. Pressing the dial while in this state will instantly mute sound output, and the glowing ring will begin to pulsate. Pressing it again will unmute sound output.


The other two operating modes are activated via the leftmost button below the dial, the one marked with a microphone. Pressing the microphone button will have the glowing ring switch from blue to red, indicating that the dial now controls the microphone volume. As before, pressing the dial will mute the microphone, and the red ring will start pulsating.


Press and hold the microphone button for two seconds to activate so-called "Audio Balance" mode. This mode lets you volume mix between two "software sources"—the game you're playing and Discord, for example. The way Creative made this work is by having the Sound Blaster X4 show up as two separate playback interfaces in Windows/macOS: "SPDIF Out" and "Speakers." To get it to work, set "Speakers" as the default playback device, then open your VoIP app of choice and set "SPDIF Out" as your output device. After that, you can simply rotate the volume knob clockwise to make your game louder and your teammates quieter, or counterclockwise to do the opposite. The color of the glowing ring changes between orange, cyan, and green depending on which "source" is louder. When green, the volume is balanced. You can instantly reset the balance by pressing the volume knob too. Audio Balance mode isn't supported on PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch as it relies on Windows/macOS audio drivers to work.


You can use the aforementioned audio balancing for any other app on your PC—nobody is forcing you to use it for VoIP apps exclusively. You may want to balance the volume between your game and Spotify, which is done by searching for "Sound mixer options" in the Windows Start menu and then selecting "SPDIF Out (Sound Blaster X4)" in the Output drop-down menu next to Spotify (or some other app you want to "assign" it to). The app has to be running to show up in this menu.


The "Mode" button toggles between three equalizer profiles, or it turns it off completely. The equalizer profiles, customizable through Creative App (Windows, macOS, Android, iOS), have three preassigned colors—white, pink, and blue—and a small LED above the button can glow in any of these colors as well. As you're probably guessing, the color of the LED lets us know which equalizer profile is active. If the LED is off, the equalizer is not active. Holding the Mode button for two seconds activates Direct Mode. In this mode, the Sound Blaster X4 doesn't use its DSP as it aims to leave the audio signal as intact as possible for you to hear it in its purest form. However, when switching to Direct Mode, you also lose access to various other features that rely on the DSP, such as the system-wide equalizer, microphone monitoring, technologies like Super X-Fi, and microphone filters and effects. Should you use Direct Mode or not? That depends on the quality of your speakers or headphones. When I paired the Sound Blaster X4 with higher quality gear, such as the Adam A7X and Edifier S2000 Pro speakers, or the Sennheiser HD 660S and Oppo PM-3 headphones, Direct Mode made an audible difference. At the same time, it made very little to no difference when I used a mid-range gaming headset. You can easily check if it makes any difference to you: simply play some music and toggle Direct Mode on and off. If you don't hear any difference or prefer the sound of your speakers/headphones when DSP processing is applied, just keep Direct Mode off.


The third button below the volume knob activates and deactivates the Super X-Fi technology. You can read about it in the sound performance section of this review. Holding the SXFI button for two seconds switches between the front (headphone) and rear (line) outputs. In other words, this is what you'll use to quickly switch from your speakers to headphones (or vice versa).


On the front of the sound card are two 3.5-millimeter analog ports: a microphone input and headphone output. The headphone output is actually a hybrid audio port. If your headset uses a 4-pole TRRS plug, you can connect it to this single port and get the headphones and microphone to work properly. This is a welcome change compared to the X3, whose front headphone output didn't have this capability, so using a splitter cable was mandatory.


All other inputs and outputs are located on the rear. First, we have a set of four linear outputs, which can be used to connect active (powered) speakers. The Sound Blaster X4 supports 2.0, 2.1, 5.1, and 7.1 speaker configurations. Then there's a hybrid 3.5-millimeter linear/optical input, an obvious upgrade over the Sound Blaster X3, whose linear input didn't double as an optical input. You can use this port to connect external sound sources, such as smartphones and digital audio players, but also the PlayStation 4 and 5 (via an HDMI-to-optical converter) and other devices that can output audio through their optical port. When the optical input on the Sound Blaster X4 is used, you're letting the sound card handle the digital-analog signal conversion rather than having it happen in the device sending the audio signal. Naturally, Creative also implemented an optical (TOSLINK) output. It will come in handy when you want to connect the Sound Blaster X4 to an AV receiver or stereo amplifier, or a pair of higher-quality powered speakers, which are oftentimes equipped with an optical input. When connected this way, the Sound Blaster X4 essentially functions as an audio transport. It takes the sound from the source (your PC, for example) and forwards it to a device it's connected to (AV receiver, powered speakers) while keeping it digital. The digital-to-analog conversion happens at the device connected to the sound card. The last connector on the rear of the Sound Blaster X4 is a USB-C port used for communication with your PC, PS4, or Switch and to power the sound card. You can also power it through a regular external power brick by using a USB-C cable.