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morphine
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Tue Sep 04, 2012 5:47 pm

JohnC wrote:
Yeap, mentioning "Creative drivers" in any positive way still tends to attract a bunch of brainless haters (or people who generally don't know what they're doing with their PC) who like to abuse outdated memes ;-)

Dunno man, unless it changed really quick with the X-Fi generation. My Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro, the über-high-end model, was a string of driver issues and "non-features".

Also, I think I can count on the fingers of one hand the positive reports I've seen. I'll give them the benefit of doubt over their drivers, though nothing will make me like them as a company any time soon.
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Airmantharp
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Tue Sep 04, 2012 6:15 pm

Had an Audigy 2 ZS as well, and you're spot on. These X-Fi's are something different though. With the advent of all-software audio it seems that Creative has gotten on the driver ball. It makes me hopeful for the company in a place where there was once only room for derision :).
 
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Tue Sep 04, 2012 6:31 pm

I'm not sure why you'd buy a external DAC that is worse off then a internal one. The Xonar Essence One linked has worse characteristics then the Xonar Essence or the Titanium-HD.

From my personal experience both Creative and Asus have problematic drivers. Creative seems to have issues like five years down the line after making constant revisions (and on driver install and unintsall). Asus seems to have overall usability problems and features don't always work as intended or nearly as well as they should (virtual surround sound being one of them). Installing the Asus Uni drivers shows you what a mess Asus really makes as it installs both the C-Media control panel and the Xonar control panel. Some options are completely missing from the Xonar panel or vice versa on the C-Media panel. Asus drivers really are a PITA to use once you get them installed, where as Creatives just work (if they're going to). I had absolutely no issues with the Titanium-HDs drivers (as of writing my original impressions of it). That may or may not be the case in the future though.

The Xonar DX is simply a Xonar Essence with worse DACs and onboard components. They function almost identical to each other and use the same C-Media chip.

As far as Creatives Recon series goes, I'm not going to recommend or even bother buying one of these. I really think you should test one of these out before making a recommendation Air. From the reviews I've read on Newegg and what I've learned about the Soundcore3D, it isn't worth my time or money. There is really nothing special about it and it isn't all that different from a plane jane C-Media chip. That is why I haven't tried it and why I continue to hunt for a X-Fi. The X-Fi really is the pinnacle of Creatives audio development so far.


I'm currently waiting for either the price of the T-HD to come down on Amazon (it fluctuates between $120 and $160), the Auzentech Forte to come in stock, or possibly try out one of the Z-Series when they become available on Amazon for **** and giggles. Amazon doesn't have a restocking fee when you buy from them. Really I'd like to try the Forte as a solution I'd settle for, but I'm itching to get the T-HD back after having heard the DX and realizing it wasn't nearly as good as people make it out to be.

I'm also currently using onboard sound while all this is happening. My DFI motherboard came with a built in X-Fi (or Audigy derived X-Fi). Windows identifies it as a High-Definition Audio Device, which is a nice way of saying it doesn't know what it is and I really have no intention of installing the normal drivers for it. XD

Oh, on a slightly related note. Monoprice doesn't post negative reviews of products. I bought four 3.5mm six foot cables as my old X-Fi Fatality had a specialty cable for connecting 7.1 to the analog ports and can no longer use it. All the Monoprice cables that I bought are of inferior quality and produce varying levels of noise simply by having them hooked up to my receiver (with or without anything on the other end). My X-Fi analog cable produces no noise. I've bought cables off of Amazon of higher quality for cheaper. I also do know Monoprice doesn't post negative reviews as I tried and basically got a email back saying it was being taken under advisement as they look into the product. All of their products have 9 or 10 stars as well, what crock.
 
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Tue Oct 02, 2012 5:06 am

Still putting off buying a sound card because all the options look so unpalatable. I either have to go with Asus and get a mouthful of usability problems and a subpar gaming experience or go with Creative and lose 5.1/7.1 over analog (or latency with 5.1 over digital). Auzentech Forte still hasn't come back in stock, which would still be a decent fallback option. Really I just threw my hands up about the whole thing... It's not even a money thing where I can simply spend a extra $100 and get what I want.

Does anyone have any recent news about the Soundblaster Z series? I haven't heard or seen anything since the paper launch in august...
 
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:33 am

Bensam123 wrote:
Still putting off buying a sound card because all the options look so unpalatable. I either have to go with Asus and get a mouthful of usability problems and a subpar gaming experience or go with Creative and lose 5.1/7.1 over analog (or latency with 5.1 over digital). Auzentech Forte still hasn't come back in stock, which would still be a decent fallback option. Really I just threw my hands up about the whole thing... It's not even a money thing where I can simply spend a extra $100 and get what I want.

Does anyone have any recent news about the Soundblaster Z series? I haven't heard or seen anything since the paper launch in august...


1. For digital surround, if you're not using HDMI, you're doing wrong.
2. The Z-series is still paper, but the bottom option looks great for headphone-only gamers. Should push a decent pair of cans, and the mic might be amazing. Like you, I'm still waiting on real reviews and product availability.
 
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Tue Oct 02, 2012 5:08 pm

I have a receiver... At least bother to read the other posts before responding with general advice. :(

Anyone know when the Z series is launching?
 
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Tue Oct 02, 2012 5:31 pm

Bensam123 wrote:
I have a receiver... At least bother to read the other posts before responding with general advice. :(

Anyone know when the Z series is launching?


My post was in general, not specific to you. I've found HDMI to be superior in every way for surround digital audio output. Nothing beats full resolution PCM for all eight channels.

Now, you have a receiver without HDMI? These days, it's hard to not consider that a legacy problem requiring a legacy solution.
 
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:06 pm

How would HDMI be any different then optical or digital over RCA? If it's all digital it shouldn't matter... What matters is what happens before it's encoded. Like 99% of sound cards don't have HDMI output (I only know of one and that's a Auzentech Hometheater HD). Nvidia does HDMI pass through most of the time and AMD actually has sound chips on board their cards.

Unless you're talking about direct output from a digital track on a blu-ray, but doing that with hdmi is no different then optical or digital over rca.
 
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:16 pm

Bensam123 wrote:
How would HDMI be any different then optical or digital over RCA?

With regular SPDIF/Toslink, you have to rely on your source hardware having DTS-Connect or Dolby Digital Live to get 5.1/7.1 sound out - even though there was supposed to be 5.1-over-PCM, it didn't happen in practice. With HDMI, that's not a concern at all (well, except for those super-high-end formats).
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Tue Oct 02, 2012 7:39 pm

Bensam123 wrote:
How would HDMI be any different then optical or digital over RCA? If it's all digital it shouldn't matter... What matters is what happens before it's encoded. Like 99% of sound cards don't have HDMI output (I only know of one and that's a Auzentech Hometheater HD). Nvidia does HDMI pass through most of the time and AMD actually has sound chips on board their cards.

Unless you're talking about direct output from a digital track on a blu-ray, but doing that with hdmi is no different then optical or digital over rca.


This is the misunderstanding that I had till I used HDMI- that essentially it was still limited to stereo or encoded streams. I couldn't have been more wrong. Tell the OS to use the HDMI output for sound, and then tell it to do 7.1. Now you have 7.1 PCM, which is better than anything that can be done over the digital audio interfaces. Full resolution, eight channels, no compression a la DD/DTS. Oh, and full 7.1, where those only give you 5.1. And 5.1 doesn't even include rear channels! 'Surround' in DD/DTS speak means right/left hemispheres for sounds coming from off-screen.
 
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Tue Oct 02, 2012 9:45 pm

Yeah, if your hardware supports it, which mine does, it's not a problem... Heck pretty much all sound cards support DDL. I haven't seen one that supports more then DDL though, like DDP and DDHD though. My experience with DDL and other digital formats has been a crapshoot though. You have to do some finagaling to get a passthrough from lets say a DVD to your speakers without the system interpreting it and rencoding it.

This is part of why I'm trying to stick with analog in addition to using the higher quality components on the soundcard and allowing it to work it's magic.

Aside from the compatibility conundrum which morphine is suggesting, how is HDMI different? How would you even utilize that specifically for sound? HDMI is also a crapshoot on the computer. There is a big mess when it comes to how your computer interprets what it does and doesn't send to it and how it's used in the first place. Like Nvidia as best I know uses a passthrough on some of their cards (which does or doesn't) use your onboard sound for interpolation or has a on board chip for sound, which some cards do. AMD cards on the other hand have their own sound card on board, which makes a secondary sound card worthless.

The only sound card I know of which will inject a audio signal into a HDMI cable is the aforementioned Auzentech Hometheater HD.

Now putting all of this aside, say you're worried about audio quality (which you're implying by saying HDMI is uncompressed and DDL adds compression artifacting or whatever), dvds or blu-rays are encoded in dolby digital at the source, so even if you have a uncompressed source it'll still take the same signal and uncompress it at some stage. If it's sending it raw over a HDMI cable that means it uncompresses it at the front end of the HDMI cable and changes it to the HDMI format. If you're simply using a optical cable your computer will pass through the sound to whatever piece of audio equipment is on the other end and uncompress it there.

Now I can see the benefit of having a HDMI cable if it essentially functions like analog sound, where the sound card can do all the important parts and it simply sends a analogue-esque digital signal to the other side which will simply be output to the speakers, but there aren't really any sound cards that do this. So even if the transport is better, the interpretation of the source is not (no sound card) which leaves the end result being about the same. I'd take analogue over this hodge podge mess any day. Once the movie industry sticks it's greasy hands in the mess it **** everything up.


Dolby Digital includes rear outputs, Dolby Digital Plus is 7.1, and Dolby Digital True HD is 7.1 with much higher bitrates. Dolby DigitalHD being listed as 'lossless'. They do include appropriate channels, this can be tested with any game that supports positional audio. Keep in mind there is a variant of Dolby Digital which virtualizes 5.1 content for 2.0/2.1 setups, I forgot what this is called though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_Digital#Applications
 
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Tue Oct 02, 2012 9:52 pm

You literally just jumped all around the point :).

In reality, you shouldn't need a 'sound card' to do anything. With HDMI (and this is on Intel HD3000 and HD4000, and Nvidia GTX500), the processing is in software just like a sound card, and then sent digitally through the cable. That's it. Your receiver does all of the work from there, such as Dolby modes for spanning stereo inputs across all channels, and you can tell applications which would play DVDs/Blu-rays to either decode the tracks themselves or send them to the receiver for decoding, the end result of which is the same.

If you're not using HDMI, then you're using DD 5.1/DTS 5.1, both of which are lossy and lack rear channels altogether.
 
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Thu Oct 04, 2012 12:47 am

If you're talking about reproducing content from a dvd or mp3 then yes, not when you're talking about muxing sound or playing games. If sound cards have no real impact on how positional sound is determined, then there wouldn't be a difference between Creative, Asus, or generic on board sound (there is, a simple subjective test would confirm this). It's entirely possible for processing to be done in multiple spots such as in the piece of software, the codecs being used, the software drivers, and the hardware. Nothing states it's being only in one spot except when you're reproducing content from a source where it's simply passed through. You can look at decoding chains on dvds or videos for instance to see this (ffdshow allows you to view this).

DDL doesn't lack rear channel support as I said. All you have to do is play a game while using DDL to carry the sound to your receiver to see.
 
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Thu Oct 04, 2012 9:59 pm

Bensam123 wrote:
If you're talking about reproducing content from a dvd or mp3 then yes, not when you're talking about muxing sound or playing games. If sound cards have no real impact on how positional sound is determined, then there wouldn't be a difference between Creative, Asus, or generic on board sound (there is, a simple subjective test would confirm this). It's entirely possible for processing to be done in multiple spots such as in the piece of software, the codecs being used, the software drivers, and the hardware. Nothing states it's being only in one spot except when you're reproducing content from a source where it's simply passed through. You can look at decoding chains on dvds or videos for instance to see this (ffdshow allows you to view this).

DDL doesn't lack rear channel support as I said. All you have to do is play a game while using DDL to carry the sound to your receiver to see.


If you're muxing sound professionally, you're not using a receiver :). For game surround, since there is no hardware/software (no DirectSound/EAX), the card has nothing to do with positional audio. It just takes the channels from the game. If the game does it right (say, Battlefield 3, which I've tested with HDMI and 7.1), there's literally no need for a 'sound card' in the audio path. And if the sound card is doing processing on game audio, it's doing it wrong- it can only distort what the developers intended. I admit that this might be useful in that the distortion might bring more useful audio cues to the foreground of the game's mix, but it's still wrong.

For DDL, there is no real channel in these encoding schemes. You get Center, Front Left and Right, Surround Left and Right, and Low Frequency Effects. 6.1 adds a single rear channel, and 7.1 adds a stereo rear channel. 6.1 may be passed over digital audio, but real time encoders don't exist. If a game is positioning sounds according to the spec, it shouldn't be outputting any rear sounds at all.
 
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Thu Oct 04, 2012 10:27 pm

Muxing happens anytime you have more then one sound being played on your system and your sound card has to mix the two together. I'm not talking about doing it professionally, it's what your computer does for you all the time.

Sound output from your computer isn't simply what the game tells your computer to reproduce, regardless of EAX/directsound. Simple case for this is positional sound sounding differently on different sound cards. I tried out both the Xonar DX, the Titanium HD, and now I'm currently using on board (in addition to numerous sound cards in the past). They all reproduce surround sound differently.

Not just that, but how they interpret virtual surround sound is completely different. For instance the implementation of virtual for the Xonar sounds completely different then that for the THD. When you have headphones or 2.1 speakers selected, that's what the game sees and should be outputting a stereo signal, yet the sound cards are capable of reproducing a accurate (depending on the card) positional audio picture . Not only does that represent a different value for each sound card (and how much they're worth to each individual user) it shows that sound cards do a lot more then simply reproduce what the game gives them. I honestly don't know enough about sound cards to detail how exactly it works, voodoo magic or otherwise, but it most definitely makes a difference and most definitely isn't the same thing across all sound cards.

So no, using the generic sound chip on a AMD 7xxx card is not the same thing as a sound card or even onboard. Even if HDMI technically has superior audio quality to spdif from a spreadsheet point of view it doesn't make it a overall superior solution.


I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say about DDL. I mean I could turn on the DDL encoder on my THD when I had it and test each individual channel by playing a sound through it, not sure how that is any different from a normal experience. Well most definitely using DDL has sound output on the rear speakers that correlates to what's happening in game. I haven't read anything to the contrary either besides what you're saying... perhaps a source is in order for this?
 
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Thu Oct 04, 2012 10:54 pm

The mixing happens in software; hell, everything except the digital to analog conversion is in software. At that point it's just a matter of drivers, but if you're using headphones or a stereo setup, the card is either using Dolby Headphone or CMSS-3D, brand depending. Both attempt to do surround sound with a stereo output are really just there to add 'pop' to the sound.

Just keep in mind that since there is no longer a sound API in use, the sound card drivers have no idea what's going on with positional audio. None. It's all HD audio (the Intel spec). From the HDMI Wikipedia:

"In September 2009, AMD announced the ATI Radeon HD 5000 series video cards, which support HDMI 1.3 output (deep color, xvYCC wide gamut support and high bit rate audio), support for 8-channel LPCM over HDMI, and an integrated HD audio controller with a Protected Audio Path that allows bitstream output over HDMI for AAC, Dolby AC-3, Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio formats."

And that's old. Essentially, all video cards (Intel, AMD, Nvidia) have an eight-channel HD-Audio controller now; you simply have to select it as the output. If your programs and games are doing it right (like BF3 does), the audio the developer intended goes straight to the receiver, unmolested by sound card drivers. Your receiver does the necessary DAC.
 
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Mon Oct 08, 2012 6:54 am

Yes... and you don't think the muxing changes based on the sound card (and drives) you have installed for said sound card? Heck this can easily be seen based on how sound cards/integrated deal with microphone input. Even if they have good components, using the same mic you can sound like ass on one and great on another. It may just be the software, it may be the hardware, but the overall experience does change.

No, no way does CMSS-3D simply add 'pop' by doing virtualization. You must not have used it if that's all you think it does. Playing a game like BF3 with CMSS-3D is a totally different experience then playing it with a simple stereo output or even Dolbys version (which does suck). I know, I've tested both of them as is stated in this thread.

I'm not so sure... Like I said I don't know enough about the internal working of sound cards to state WHY it works the way it does, but it most definitely does work and it's very easy to hear the difference between properly simulated surround sound and standard stereo output. From the sound of it neither do you, along with not actually having first hand experience with the cards in question.

I'm not sure what HD-Audio has to do with anything. Some Nvidia cards completely lack a sound chip as I stated before and they do pass through. Sound simply isn't raw data that is fed to whatever device that is hooked up to your computer unless it's passed through like a DD stream from DVD or Blu-ray. The very fact that you can change the volume on your computer (not in the software you're using) would illustrate this point. When you're doing DD pass through you can't adjust or alter the audio in anyway on the computer, if you can it's not a true stream passthrough and processing is being done on the stream.


In other news, I found a Auzentech Forte on eBay for $110 which I ordered. As long as it's NIB as stated, it should be my last stop on my current quest.
 
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Mon Oct 08, 2012 8:07 am

Bensam123 wrote:
Yes... and you don't think the muxing changes based on the sound card (and drives) you have installed for said sound card? Heck this can easily be seen based on how sound cards/integrated deal with microphone input. Even if they have good components, using the same mic you can sound like ass on one and great on another. It may just be the software, it may be the hardware, but the overall experience does change.

Mixing is one thing. These days all the mixing is done in software so there's little to nothing to be gained from one card to the other. However, as microphone input goes, all the money is in the preamp in question. And of course, a cheaper soundcard will have a pretty poor mic preamp, that's to be expected.

Bensam123 wrote:
No, no way does CMSS-3D simply add 'pop' by doing virtualization. You must not have used it if that's all you think it does. Playing a game like BF3 with CMSS-3D is a totally different experience then playing it with a simple stereo output or even Dolbys version (which does suck). I know, I've tested both of them as is stated in this thread.

Perhaps CMSS-3D's simulation actually works ok for BF3. But historically, all these "surround expanders", "simulators", etc, do more harm than good. In other words, if you do have a game it works ok with, it's going to sound horrible in the next ten.

Bensam123 wrote:
Sound simply isn't raw data that is fed to whatever device that is hooked up to your computer unless it's passed through like a DD stream from DVD or Blu-ray.

Actually, these days, I'm afraid it's pretty much what it is, with software mixing having become the norm. Even the volume changes are done by Windows/driver, not the soundcard. There's an exception about mixing an input with your output (i.e. mixing your line input with your main out), but that's a corner case.

A more expensive soundcard will get you, most to least important (IMO):
- Better output DACs.
- Better drivers (unless you're Asus har har).
- DTS Connect / Dolby Digital Live digital surround output.
- Possibly a dedicated headphone output with amp.
- Better input DACs and mic preamps.
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Mon Oct 08, 2012 3:43 pm

morphine wrote:
A more expensive soundcard will get you, most to least important (IMO):
- Better output DACs.
- Better drivers (unless you're Asus har har).
- DTS Connect / Dolby Digital Live digital surround output.
- Possibly a dedicated headphone output with amp.
- Better input DACs and mic preamps.


To expand on what I've posted before on not wanting a 'sound card' at all, line by line (this isn't a disagreement, just an addendum in your format):
-Get dedicated equipment, i.e. a headphone DAC/AMP or a receiver for surround.
-Windows HAS surround drivers- that's HD Audio. You don't need more, and the most they can do is get in the way and distort sound.
-DTS Connect/DD Live are both compressed and lossy 5.1 streams with no rear channel support (go look them up!); better to use uncompressed HDMI 7.1 PCM, which Windows natively supports.
-Rather have the dedicated headphone amp outside of the enclosure
-Here's where I'd want to focus some improvement- I use a USB desk mic (Logitech) which has it's own ADC and preamp, and I'd like something better (that is also a desktop mic), but the Logitech beats out the mic on my webcam and the Zalman clip-on.

The summary is that you really shouldn't need a sound card for anything if you're using a USB Mic, USB DAC/AMP for your headphones, and a receiver with proper speakers over HDMI.
 
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Mon Oct 08, 2012 4:09 pm

Airman, what do you mean by "no rear channel support"? 7.1?

Also, on the fact that it's lossless, as far as DTS Connect goes, it's kinda "meh" :). I've switched back and forth from standard PCM to it, tried hard to hear a difference, and couldn't. Perhaps at higher volumes in a bigger room, but I doubt it.
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Mon Oct 08, 2012 5:19 pm

morphine wrote:
Airman, what do you mean by "no rear channel support"? 7.1?

Also, on the fact that it's lossless, as far as DTS Connect goes, it's kinda "meh" :). I've switched back and forth from standard PCM to it, tried hard to hear a difference, and couldn't. Perhaps at higher volumes in a bigger room, but I doubt it.


DTS and DD are both limited to 5.1 in real-time encoding formats- and in those formats, 'rear' channels are not specified. Being really specific about it, the channels aren't even 'points' of sound on a compass rose centered on the listener, but rather consist of several 'spheres' that are divided between left and right, along with center and LFE. Only 6.1 (found in rare DVDs) and 7.1 (over HDMI and found on Blu-rays) provide mono and stereo rear channels. To wit, the 'Surround Left' and 'Surround Right' channels in 5.1 setups should never be mapped to speakers that are directly behind the listener.

This means that the right way to do surround is to use HDMI and HDMI only for full 7.1, whether it's compressed or not; DTS does do an excellent job compressing audio streams. But why would you do that, especially if you have audio that's been recorded at higher than normal fidelity? Why add variables that don't need to be there?
 
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Mon Oct 08, 2012 5:24 pm

I see the point about HDMI, was just raising the question more about curiosity than anything else. As a caveat though, since for example, a PC game will count on the speaker being behind the person anyway, there's no problem in using DTS-Connect / DDL for the rear speakers, even if semantically they're not exactly that.

Haven't gone the HDMI route just yet, would have to test it thoroughly to ensure that there's no audible delay, as that's been a bane of many setups.
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Mon Oct 08, 2012 5:35 pm

morphine wrote:
I see the point about HDMI, was just raising the question more about curiosity than anything else. As a caveat though, since for example, a PC game will count on the speaker being behind the person anyway, there's no problem in using DTS-Connect / DDL for the rear speakers, even if semantically they're not exactly that.

Haven't gone the HDMI route just yet, would have to test it thoroughly to ensure that there's no audible delay, as that's been a bane of many setups.


Some drivers (I believe ASUS's does) allow you to 'place' the speakers where you want, though I'm not sure how that goes into surround calculation.

For HDMI, I don't know- I'm still testing it too. The hard part there though is that I'm testing it with an HDTV, at least until I get an HDMI cable that's long enough to use my 27" Hanns-G. I have more projects to conquer before that :).

What I do know is that if you use HDMI, you CAN get a straight 7.1 digital signal to the receiver, and you CAN choose whether to have playback software or the receiver decode compressed streams like DD/DTS. Nothing gets encoded or compressed that isn't already; you get full resolution all the time. You can use the receiver's various Dolby modes to expand music/TV/etc. across more channels if you like and if there isn't already a software option available.
 
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Mon Oct 08, 2012 5:39 pm

Airmantharp wrote:
Some drivers (I believe ASUS's does) allow you to 'place' the speakers where you want, though I'm not sure how that goes into surround calculation.

Only if you're using the gimmicky expanders, which I hate.

Airmantharp wrote:
What I do know is that if you use HDMI, you CAN get a straight 7.1 digital signal to the receiver, and you CAN choose whether to have playback software or the receiver decode compressed streams like DD/DTS.

I know, wasn't questioning that :)
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Mon Oct 08, 2012 5:40 pm

JohnC wrote:
Yeap, mentioning "Creative drivers" in any positive way still tends to attract a bunch of brainless haters (or people who generally don't know what they're doing with their PC) who like to abuse outdated memes ;-)


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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Mon Oct 08, 2012 6:29 pm

morphine wrote:
Airmantharp wrote:
Some drivers (I believe ASUS's does) allow you to 'place' the speakers where you want, though I'm not sure how that goes into surround calculation.

Only if you're using the gimmicky expanders, which I hate.


If all it does is 'copy' the stream to channels on the same side and 'mix' both into a mono signal for the Center channel, then I'm fine with them. If they try to do their own instrument and vocal separation... that's just stupid.
 
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Wed Jan 09, 2013 12:13 pm

Bensam123 wrote:
No, no way does CMSS-3D simply add 'pop' by doing virtualization. You must not have used it if that's all you think it does. Playing a game like BF3 with CMSS-3D is a totally different experience then playing it with a simple stereo output or even Dolbys version (which does suck). I know, I've tested both of them as is stated in this thread.


As a longtime X-Fi Titanium Fatality Pro user, I have to disagree on BF3 (and BFBC2 by extention). The sound is MUCH better and more clear with CMSS-3D disabled and setting the in-game sound to Headphone.

COD4 and FEAR on the other hand have great positional sound with CMSS-3D enabled.

Keep in mind this is my experience using Stereo Headphones (HD-555s). Based on your post, I get the feeling you are playing with a 5.1 speaker setup, which is likely a whole other can of worms! But BF3 and Bad Company 2 are entirely software as far as sound goes, I don't see what the benefit of using CMSS-3D would be when the in-game settings already support 5.1?

From my experience, using CMSS-3D on BF3 that already has a "surround" headphone mode just makes the sound muddy because it's applying positional audio to the mix twice.
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Wed Jan 09, 2013 1:15 pm

I kinda want a Z. I'm guessing the 'SBX' tech is purchased tech they'd been using from THX, considering how similar it all looks, but I only use my card for headphones and it looks like a reasonable card for it.

Realistically though, my X-Fi Fatal1ty Pro still works. I don't feel the need.
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Re: Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

Wed Jan 09, 2013 4:46 pm

Savyg wrote:
I kinda want a Z. I'm guessing the 'SBX' tech is purchased tech they'd been using from THX, considering how similar it all looks, but I only use my card for headphones and it looks like a reasonable card for it.

Realistically though, my X-Fi Fatal1ty Pro still works. I don't feel the need.


The Z's are interesting because they have higher quality components for stuff like headphone output, great software, and awesome mic support. The base model would get my recommendation today; that and a pair of mid-range Sennheiser's would set a gamer up nicely.

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