X-Fi and the Elite Pro: SoundBlaster's Return to Greatness

Qualitative Analysis: Audio Listening

Over the short time that we've been able to spend with the Elite Pro, we have listened to way too many sounds to talk about every single piece by name. Instead, we will talk about the general experience that we had in a particular category of listening. This way, we will be able to mention the most important aspects of a particular function without getting bogged down in describing each sound that we heard.

Compressed Audio Listening: This is one of the most important categories in today's listening experience. The SB X-Fi Elite Pro is very capable of reproducing MP3, Ogg, and other types of compressed audio streams. Of course, clearly hearing the cold, metallic, distorted sound of overly compressed audio isn't as rewarding an experience as it may sound. What else is all that processing power there for if not to clean up the sound on older files? We turned on the 24-bit Crystallizer and listened for a while. In some 128kbps MP3s, the Crystallizer helped to bring out the snap, crackle and pop, and generally gave life back to the audio (especially in compressed live recordings). In other cases, the experience was overtaken by the effect with already emphasized snare or bass hits becoming almost uncomfortable to listen to (like Massive Attack's Teardrop).

16bit / 44.1kHz Listening: The CD audio experience is much better under the X-Fi Elite Pro than on earlier SoundBlaster products. It used to be that without bypassing the kernel mixer, CD audio would sound a little washed out while playing on a Creative Labs product. The foreground could sometimes get smashed into the background. We had no such experience with the X-Fi. Even our live recordings sounded like they should. When we decided to try the Crystallizer here, our experience seemed less useful than our compressed audio experience. It generally just made music sound different. Poorly mastered audio could sometimes benefit, and in many cases, we didn't care if the Crystallizer was on or off, but there were times when we would have had a better time turning it off and cranking the volume.

DVD-Audio: Crystal clear and beautiful. No need for any filtering here. Unfortunately, try as we might, it is difficult for us to hear any difference in listening to DVD-Audio on an Audigy as opposed to the X-Fi. Each card sounds as good as the source as far as our ears can tell. For lack of a 7.1 speaker system, we were unable to attempt enabling CMSS-3D for upmixing the DVD-Audio beyond 5.1 surround.

Games: Unfortunately, there are not a great many games out there that support X-Fi yet. On our list are Doom 3 and Battlefield 2. We tested both of these games and attained good results. We weren't able to create accurate and repeatable sound tests, but from our subjective analysis of gameplay, we couldn't really discern a quality difference between older hardware and the X-Fi. We will be able to judge better the qualitative use of 127 hardware channels when more games come out built around using the resources that Creative has provided to the fullest. Our experience with the MacroFX feature was less than rewarding. The MacroFX feature of CMSS-3D is supposed to account for a realistic proximity effect for near-field sources. What it did was make our guns hurt our heads while already hard-to-hear friendlies become even less audible. Yes, the feature was effective in performing its task, but at the same time, we aren't quite sold on altering the game developers intended sound.

CMSS-3D and Headphone Listening: One of the heavily talked about features of the X-Fi is supposed to be enhanced headphone listening through positional audio techniques and CMSS-3D. Even with all the advanced algorithms for downmixing 5.1 sound to a spacialized headphone mix, audio played with CMSS-3D sounded rather muddied to this listener. Despite the addition of simulated environmental reflections, frontal sounds felt as if they were located near the sides of my head above my ears. Every listener is different, so your mileage may vary. Under games, CMSS-3D seemed to be more distracting than useful. It can be interesting for a change of pace, or to add a disturbing quality to games that makes you want to squint in anticipation of firing a weapon. Some people may like it, but we prefer gaming (and all other listening) without CMSS-3D enabled. Headphone listening on the X-Fi is excellent if only because of the high quality components used in its implementation. In our opinion, the sound quality enhancements that Creative promises headphone listeners through X-Fi are a hit or miss at best.