Sound Blaster X-FI XtremeMusic

Installation

    Installation the card was a breeze.  I installed the card into the PCI slot and plugged in my headphones, then turned on my computer.   After it booted into windows I cancelled the new hardware wizard and installed the X-FI from the CD. 

    Installation of the software was smooth and simple.  After I rebooted I went ahead and updated the drivers from the SoundBlaster website.  They have a very handy auto updater that list all updates for your products.  Installation was a cinch and if you have ever installed any kind of add in card all this will seem ‘old hat’.

    Before I get into my observations of this card I feel I should give a bit of a forward on my experience doing the review.  First off, I was one of the many people who visited the Creative booth at QuakeCon and to be honest I was blown away by the demo for the X-FI.  So when I got an offer to review this card I jumped at the chance.  You could say my expectations of this card were incredibly high as I jumped into BF2 for the first time. 

    Unfortunately at first I wasn’t as impressed with the X-Fi Sound as I was at the QuakeCon booth.   Even the CMSS-3D helicopter surround sound demo wasn’t sounding right to me.   I did a lot of tweaking and finally came to the conclusion it had to be my headphones.  The headphones I was using were the Zalman 5.1 surround sound headphones.  I had been having problems with dead zones and just ‘not right’ surround sound with them for a while.  The same problems where made even more apparent with the around your head helicopter sound demo.

   
    I wanted to give this card a fair shake so I splurged and bought a pair of Sennheiser HD-280 pro headphones.  The very same headphones Creative used at QuakeCon.  I decided to be extra fair and played with them plugged into my onboard sound for several days.  Quite frankly the difference was phenomenal.  I had to check and make sure I didn’t have it plugged into the X-FI on accident.  Not that the Zalmans sounded horrible or anything, but they left out a lot of Highs, Lows and positioning that a really good pair of headphones captures.  I was able to hear things that the Zalmans just couldn’t project.  Don’t get me wrong, 5.1 headphones is a great idea and someday someone may perfect them, it just seems now is not that time.   This round the Zalmans got their butts handed to them by the Sennheiser’s.

   OK, I learned my lesson.  If you are serious about how your system sounds, don’t skimp on the headphones.  I mean if you really want to improve the sound of your system: first correct your headphone choice first, then laying down the money on a $100+ soundcard will really be worth it.  Now, having a real sense of what sounds could be, I was ready to review the X-FI extreme music.