1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.

Hardware Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Tim S, 1 Jul 2007.

  1. Mister_Tad

    Mister_Tad Will work for nuts Super Moderator

    Joined:
    27 Dec 2002
    Posts:
    14,070
    Likes Received:
    2,428
    Seconded, theres not much point in debating sound quality differences between cards if theyre being tested with Gigaworks T20 for example (which I suspect they may be?)

    Not sure Hi-fi components would be the best though, as the majority of PC users are going to be listening to music near-field and hi-fi components arent necessarily designed with that in mind. A set of decent active monitors may be more suited for critical listening.
     
  2. dom_

    dom_ --->

    Joined:
    4 Jan 2004
    Posts:
    3,942
    Likes Received:
    8
    Stop trying to get people to buy those tannoys :D
     
  3. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    Point duly noted, thank you :)

    I've got some decent Logitech 5.1 speakers and Sennie headphones, but nothing HiFi-esq. I'm just testing what most PC users will hear, if you're an audiophile you won't watch movies or listen to music through a PC, right? ;) It would be nice to give DTS a bell and ask to borrow one of their setups :D
     
  4. Jipa

    Jipa Avoiding the "I guess.." since 2004

    Joined:
    5 Feb 2004
    Posts:
    6,367
    Likes Received:
    127
    Ok I get it, gamer sound cards and gamer-reviews for gamer-soundcard-buyers, but still I kinda missed the point. I have a hard time believing that one can really hear the difference between the Extreme Gamers (I refuse to write it like a retard) and a half-decent integrated sound card (like the one also included in the tests) with the "standard" gear that people seem to have on their table/head. I just wonder if it would be a better buy to put all the money on headphones/speakers than split it between this sound card and cheaper headphones? I hope someone understands what I'm after...

    As Misted_Tad said, it's hard to listen to the differencies between sound cards if the weakest link of the chain is somewhere else.

    [whine]
    And about the about the Entertainment Mode: such feature is called night mode in AV-amps. I hope I got this right, but it flattens the dynamic range? And doesn't just regulate the volume of different music/movie files? I've had issues sometimes when I first have to crank up the volume while watching movie and then mindlessly click open a Youtube-link or something and end up being deaf for a while.

    And still about a second thing that made me laugh. The chrystalizer! Cmon you don't have to be a purist to figure out you can't just add stuff into audio that's never actually been there. And you can be sure that no purists or even purist-ish people use such feature, "some audio purists" was just plain funny. But maybe such features actually sound good on the average set of speakers/headphones... Opinions.
    [/whine]

    With that said I can continue enjoying my holiday and not visit forums for a while :) And don't get me wrong, the review it self was all OK, maybe I just shouldn't have even opened a review of a gamer-soundcard.
     
    Last edited: 2 Jul 2007
  5. Mister_Tad

    Mister_Tad Will work for nuts Super Moderator

    Joined:
    27 Dec 2002
    Posts:
    14,070
    Likes Received:
    2,428
    I will not!
    I should ask for some money from Tannoy for all my efforts tbh :D

    You would be surprised at the amount of quality you can get out of a PC, I certainly was when I started to put some effort into it
     
  6. Jipa

    Jipa Avoiding the "I guess.." since 2004

    Joined:
    5 Feb 2004
    Posts:
    6,367
    Likes Received:
    127
    Go for a sound card with a frequency responce that doesn't look like a rollercoaster and so on :) Proper card, proper amplifier and proper speakers. And proper cables if you still have money left after these.

    And Tannoys are nice, but my own lovely Amphions are lovely
     
  7. konsta

    konsta What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    2 Jul 2005
    Posts:
    95
    Likes Received:
    0
    I'm still irritated by the fact that 6 months into Vista, there has still been no release of the "Entertainment Centre" part of the software for the Xtreme Music soundcard.
     
  8. Shatylle

    Shatylle What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    21 Nov 2007
    Posts:
    17
    Likes Received:
    0
    Apart from the fact that a vast majority of you seem to have forgotten that this is a site for computer users and not audiophile's and that Creative is not out to take the high end market but rather to sell excellent sound cards to computer owners. And that the X-Fi range has always been targeted at "gamers".

    I am curious to know if anyone has further knowledge of why the "frequency response" on the XtremeGamer is so bad when the previously reviewed Fatal1ty FPS did not seem to suffer from it. Is it a flaw in the card? Or something driver or software related?
     
  9. raster1

    raster1 What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    19 Feb 2008
    Posts:
    1
    Likes Received:
    0
    Poor frequency response measurements?

    I was also troubled by the wildly erratic frequency response measurement, but since I've seen other published tests of the card that show it nice and flat, I took the small plunge to get the XtremeGamer at a great price.

    In my fumbling attempt at running the same tests, I got the same results as reported in the bit-tech testing, including the same lousy frequency response graph. But a little more searching turned up this RMAA testing methodology PDF for X-fi cards and when I meticulously changed all my settings to match, my card mirrored the great results shown therein.

    I haven't gone back through to see which of Creative's "features" was the cause of the crazy frequency response, but I am most happy to report that the card itself seems to test as sweet as just about any out there.

    Sorry to be a latecomer to this discussion, but hope it's a positive contribution!
     
  10. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    Welcome! Yes I went by that same PDF but I still had to have quite a discussion with Creative because I still couldn't get the best results out of it iirc. Remember it's only one piece of software.
     
Tags: Add Tags

Share This Page