I don’t' see a lot of people around here talking about the Creative X-Fi, but I'm not going to jump on the Creative band wagon again until I see some review of it against the X-Mystique on a high end PC speaker system (Z-680, Z-5500 or Kilpsch Promedia 5.1). If anyone here has had experience with something similar, I'd much appreciate a review or comparison typed up for us that are crazed when it comes to audio.
err i wont wait till a review on pc speakers, because i would like to actually hear what its like. im highly dubious though due to its filters and upsampling etc.
Well as I stand, the only reason I'd buy the X-Fi is because of the EAX5 support, and I want to play Call of Duty 2 to the fullest when it comes out. Until I hear of something that really impresses me, that's all I see good about. That's my standpoint, I'm not bashing it or anything. Quake 4, being based on the Doom 3 engine, should have Dolby Digital support, which my X-Mystique is awesome for with it's DDL 5.1 encoding and my Z-680s DDL decoder. The X-Mystique as it is, supports EAX 2, which is perfect for CoD:UO as it is though. With this current sound card and speaker set, I'm perfectly comfortable with my audio quality as it is.
Well I listen to music more than I do anything else. I play games for about an average of 2 hours, and a max of 4 hours. But when I do play games, I want to hear it to the best of it's ability with what I can afford, but still not loose my music and movie quality via digital output.
Creative doesn't incorporate DDL (Dolby Digital Live encoding) into that new X-Fi card of theirs. Ignore the marketing crap from creative and keep your x-mystique and connect it to a DD enabled reciever.
These Logitech Z-680s are fine for me at this point in time. They've got a built in DD decoder, which goes great with the X-Mystique. I just need to do something with it that really takes advantage of it's power before I can really appreciated my X-Mystique I guess. =\
just imagine that you want to hook up your computer to your 5.1 reciever sometime in the future. Imagine that you have the X-Fi card. If your reciever doesn't have a 6-channel input mode for 5.1 then you're in the dirt, with stereo or 2.1 playing from your reciever, with the best possible being some pro logic processing that will give you a "surround sound" effect in stereo. Edit: it may sound like I'm being really harsh on creative here, but when you only have a reciever connected to your speakers (my setup), and not PC speakers, they screw you over unless you have a high end reciever with 6 channel input. The x-mystique gives you the same output modes that will work with PC speakers, but also adds dolby digital encoded signals to your plethora of options.
Regarding X-Mystique 7.1 Gold, This was taken from the product discussion at NewEgg: http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/FeedBack/CustRatingReview.asp?DEPA=0&Item=N82E16829127001&page=1 ---------- I finally got a response from Bluegears regarding the possibility of future EAX 3.0 and 4.0 support. Here is what they said: "Dear Greg, I got their reply and they said that there is no plan to support EAX 3.0 and 4.0 so far because of additional cost. Also they mentioned that if you turn off EAX option, you can hear more clear sound. This is what I got from our tech support team. Thank you for your patience. Best Regards, Jay Heo BlueGears, Inc. 41662 Christy St. Fremont, CA 94538 Tel: 510.657.7252 Fax:510.657.7275 http://www.bluegears.com" Sadly this confirms that the X-Mystique 7.1 Gold is a very nice HTPC card, but is _not_ the card of choice for gamers. I would have _gladly_ paid an extra $20 or $30 for EAX 3.0 and 4.0 support. EAX is copyrighted by Creative Labs. I can only assume that this is Creative's stranglehold on the gaming-audio industry at work. They are probably charging exorbitant licencing fees for the rights to use newer EAX versions. Clearly PC audio innovation is at their mercy, and without open standards it will remain so. Creative is the Microsoft of PC audio, except they make far more inferior products, and ensure that superior products...like the X-Mystique...will never catch on in the gaming world. =(
which is too bad, but i love my X-mystique to death and won't give it up for anything. I got hooked on the sound of the DDL 5.1 and my reciever. Personally i find it that it does a fairly decent job as far as game audio, and i am throughly impressed with the music quality of this card. The biggest feature for me is using 1 fiberoptic cable for 5.1 audio .
