In terms of its technical abilities (or audiophile prowess, if you will), the Sound Blaster X5 is Creative's most ambitious outing to date. Inside its unassuming case are two Cirrus Logic CS43198 DACs, which support 32-bit/384 kHz PCM playback over USB. They can also decode DoP128 and DSD256 audio formats. The specified DNR is 130 dB, with a THD+N rating of 0.00018%.

The aforementioned DACs are combined with two fully balanced custom Xamp headphone amplifiers, one for each channel. The idea behind having a separate digital-to-analog conversion and amplification for left and right channels is to prevent crosstalk and in-circuit interference. If you're at all familiar with Creative's sound card offering, you already know that they use their Xamp discrete headphone bi-amplification technology in their top-of-the-line products, such as the Sound Blaster AE-9, and the excellent Sound BlasterX G6. The Sound Blaster X5 utilizes the latest, most advanced variant of the Xamp design, which uses a push-pull output stage design and continues to offer three stages of amplification circuitry per channel. Here's a simplified overview of how it all works.



Before going any further with the technical specifications, let me point out that the Sound Blaster X5 offers impressive headphone driving power. Take a look at the power it can output at various impedances through its unbalanced and balanced headphone outputs at both gain settings.



If these numbers don't mean anything to you, let's put it this way: the Sound Blaster X5 is able to effortlessly drive just about any pair of headphones you could possibly own, even the higher-end hi-fi ones, including those with planar magnetic drivers. This isn't only a bold statement by the sound card's manufacturer but also something I thoroughly tested in practice. I used the Sound Blaster X5 to drive the Oppo PM-3 closed-back planars over the three weeks I spent with the sound card, to great results. I have owned (and loved) these headphones for nearly a decade, and I know how they sound when connected to electronics from all price categories. The Sound Blaster X5 drives them with confidence. It manages to extract their rich, engaging bass in all of its glory. It does so without adding any audible harshness to their treble, which was tuned down by Oppo to a certain extent. I can't hear any particular sweetness added to the midrange either, at least not in Direct Mode, which I used for this analysis.

The impression that the Sound Blaster X5 strives to remain as neutral as possible while giving its users all the driving power they might need was fortified after combining it with other headphones from my collection, such as the Sennheiser HD 660 S, the Meze 99 Noir, and the Shure SRH840. All of them were formidably handled by the Creative's sound card. If this had to be my only DAC and headphone amplifier from this moment forward – and I don't say this lightly – I'd be okay with it. Sure, the Sound Blaster X5 can't quite match the mesmerizing sweetness and smoothness of my latest headphone amplifier of choice, the Topping A90 Discrete, but I wouldn't really expect it to, as it costs half as much.


Of course, what you don't get with most other dedicated DAC/headphone amplifier devices, and you do with the Sound Blaster X5, is the ability to tap into the DSP and the 10-band system-wide equalizer. It allows you to significantly alter (and potentially "correct") the tonality of headphones and speakers connected to the Sound Blaster X5. More demanding users would appreciate a parametric equalizer; I'm guessing Creative decided to stick with a graphic one for relative simplicity, seeing as they placed the Sound Blaster X5 among their gaming-oriented products, which I don't think was the best idea, as it doesn't do the product justice.

As I mentioned in the introduction, the Sound Blaster X5 offers Bluetooth connectivity. Bluetooth codec support is limited to SBC, an instant turn-off to audio enthusiasts, but it still has a purpose. You can pair your phone to the sound card and answer phone calls through your headset. The Bluetooth connection is two-way; you'll hear whatever's playing on your phone, but audio from the sound card's microphone input gets transmitted to the phone, too. The sound card doesn't use Bluetooth as a separate "input" - if there's sound incoming via Bluetooth, it simply plays with sounds from other inputs. This is good news for console gamers, as they can use Discord on their phone to chat with friends.

Unfortunately, the Bluetooth implementation is currently shoddy. First and foremost, the Sound Blaster X5 refused to pair automatically with my phone if I activated Bluetooth by using the corresponding button on the front panel. That turned the connection process into a two-step ordeal, where I first had to push and hold the button on the sound card, then enter Bluetooth settings on my phone and select the Sound Blaster X5 from the list of devices. Bizarrely, if I used the Reconnect button in the Creative App instead of the physical button on the sound card, then the sound card and my phone would pair automatically. Then there's the fact I regularly had to visit the Recording tab in the Sound settings of Windows Control Panel and set the "Bluetooth (Sound Blaster X5)" as the default recording device to get any sound from Bluetooth to my PC. This has to be done after every power toggle of the sound card. Of course, if you want to use your headset's microphone, you must go back to the Control Panel and select it as the default recording device to get it to work. The sound will continue playing through Bluetooth after doing so, but sooner or later, you'll have to visit the Control Panel and re-cycle the default recording devices again. It's a proper mess, and Creative should prioritize releasing a firmware update to fix the aforementioned Bluetooth issues.

Surprisingly, even though it appears to have the necessary hardware, the Sound Blaster X5 doesn't support the Super X-Fi technology, which is one of the more pronounced features of Creative's newer sound cards, including the less expensive Sound Blaster X3 and X4. A lack of Super X-Fi support also means you're not getting the Super X-Fi Battle Mode. You can find out more about them in my Sound Blaster X4 review. While this isn't necessarily a dealbreaker, it's never fun to strip features from the best and most expensive representatives of a particular product line, especially those offered by lesser members of the same product family. The absence of Super X-Fi technology only fortifies my stance that the X5 shouldn't have been placed in the Sound Blaster X lineup. It would make more sense to position it as a completely different product aimed toward audio enthusiasts that wouldn't care about hardcore digital sound processing and virtualization conducted by Super X-Fi.


Let me wrap this part of the review up by mentioning that you can consider using the Sound Blaster X5 as a capable USB DAC and have it deliver the converted audio signal to an even more powerful headphone amplifier. This is exactly what I ended up doing with the Topping A90 Discrete because I found the improvised stack very practical in everyday usage. I had the Sound Blaster X5 outputting the sound to its rear RCA ports, which meant the Topping received it and then reproduced where I wanted it; either the headphones connected to the Topping's front ports or powered studio monitors plugged into its rear XLR outputs. When I had to switch to a headset for gaming or an online meeting, I simply had to plug it into the Sound Blaster X5; the sound card would sense it and automatically switch to the headphone output. Thanks to the integrated microphone mute button and gain dial, I could then seamlessly adjust my microphone, which isn't something you'll get by using regular hi-fi DAC/headphone amp stacks, as those are dedicated DACs that lack a microphone input. While I'm fully aware that this is a niche way of using the Sound Blaster X5, I still feel it's worth mentioning – perhaps it gives you an idea you might not otherwise have.