Software: Mobile

Right, software for headphones. In most such cases, it tends to be for Bluetooth headphones, a custom-skinned app with basic software EQ control. With Creative, and especially their Super X-Fi headphone holography, software control is a must to make the most of the hardware. The SXFI Air is best used with two mobile apps together, the first of which is SXFI Air Control (available for iOS and Android). It works with the SXFI Air and SXFI Theater, both of which can be used wirelessly, and allows for more product-specific controls and setup. The SXFI Air can be paired to your Bluetooth device via, well, Bluetooth, natively, which the app will recognize immediately. Otherwise, there is a dedicated connect to device option to walk you through the steps and get it done. If you have multiple compatible devices paired, you can also select the one to use for media applications here.


The dashboard is a set of toggles grouped by Recent, Sound Experience, and Source type. The Recent row is effectively recently played or added music, with a shuffle option to go with the media player functionality abroad the SXFI Air. Sources lists all available inputs, which for the SXFI Air includes Bluetooth, an SD card, or USB audio (line-in does not interact with the digital app). The Sound Experience row has three sets of options, the first of which is the most important of any to utilize the SXFI Air to its fullest. This is where the Creative Super X-Fi app comes in, which we covered in great detail here first, before covering the Gen 2 update at CES 2020. The app allows users to create and upload Super X-Fi profiles to compatible devices, at least if you have an Android device, using a phone camera to map ear and face shapes to generate a preset audio preference based on a large set of data points collected over the past few years. The SXFI Air Control app is the backseat driver in this case, and allows for updating the SXFI Air with your preferred profile. I was one of the lucky few to get an inner-ear recording at CES, which generates a much more accurate profile, but the way it is uploaded remains the same.


The second option in Sound Experience is the equalizer, which has five different presets from which to choose before optionally further customizing the frequency response, in addition to bass and treble levels. This is fairly straightforward and best done while something is playing off the headphones. Finally, we get to Lighting for the RGB LED rings we saw before, if enabled. Here too are some preset colors, but you can choose any of the 16.8 M colors via the color wheel, the hex code, or specific R/G/B brightness levels (256 levels each). It takes less than a second for the LEDs on the SXFI Air to respond to any changes, with the default being red.