Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro USB Audio System with SBX SB1095

This card did exactly what I hoped it would do and did it flawlessly.I am using a laptop.My main reason for upgrading to this card was so that I would have an Optical out port for use with my Astro A50 Wireless Headset. The card's optical output works perfectly, without any audio crackling or popping as reported by some other cards. The card is true plug-and-play, but you might want to download the drivers and the Creative software for it that lets you manage specific settings with the card.Some users consider this software as "Bloatware", but If you'd like to really take advantage of the more advanced features of this card, I suggest you install it. It hasn't caused any performance hits for me or delayed my boot time, so I really don't see the cause for complaint. It's a small little icon that gets placed in your taskbar where, upon clicking, gives you access to the Creative Control Panel and the Creative Entertainment Console that lets you adjust things on the card, such as your speaker set up, EQ settings, THX Tru Studio Pro features, EAX effects, and the ability to turn on and off the all important Dolby Digital Live feature. ESSENTIAL if you are planning on using the surround-sound feature on your headset or entertainment system.The card comes with a small remote that can be used to do various things like adjusting your volume, pausing/playing/stopping/rewinding the music/video in the active window, and a power button in the upper right corner. The power button DOES NOT turn off the card. Instead, it closes whatever is currently your active window, so if I had iTunes open and pushed the power button, it would close iTunes. I'd say that the remote has a maximum range of about 5 meters, and remote control requires direct line-of-sight to the card. You have to point it right at the card to get it to function. On a positive note, the remote comes with a battery!The card comes with a fairly long USB cable (about 4 to 5 feet long) and should be able to reach wherever you need to put it. It also contains a CD with the latest drivers and Creative software (at the time of this review).By default, this card will play audio 16bit at 48KHz instead of the 24bit at 96KHz that it is capable of. To change this, simply right click the the volume mixer (little speaker icon in the bottom right.), click playback devices, find your Creative card, right click it, click properties, go to the Advanced tab, then changed the playback under Default Rate to something of your choosing.Also, something for iTunes users: If you set your card to 24bit at 96KHz and the iTunes settings don't match, iTunes may completely refuse to play your music. I fixed this by going into iTunes and changing the playback settings to match. Do this by opening iTunes, clicking on Edit in the top-left, moving down to preferences, click the Playback tab, and in the bottom section you will see the playback settings that iTunes is currently using. Simply match them to what you set your card to and then restart iTunes and everything should be fine!A NOTE TO LAPTOP USERS: If you plan on using this as just a sound card replacement without any additional peripherals like speakers, you will be disappointed. With this card set as the active audio device, your on-board laptop speakers will not work because they are wired directly to your on-board card and without risky soldering, this can't be changed. Keep that in mind. You WILL need a set of external speakers or a headset of some sort to be able to utilize this card.As far as disabling the on-board card to avoid driver conflicts? I had originally disabled my on-board RealTek card to avoid driver conflict, but I'm using a headset and as such, don't have any speakers for external audio. I re-enabled the RealTek card so that I could switch the default playback device back and forth between my headset or laptop speakers depending on my need. I have not run into a single conflict yet, so I would say that it seems safe to keep it enabled. If you run into conflicts or Blue Screens of Death, try disabling your on-board card from the Windows Device Manager.Overall, I am very pleased with this card and feel that the price is easily justified! If you are interested in purchasing an external sound card, ESPECIALLY one that supports surround sound do yourself a favor and pick up this card for about $30 more than the competitors. You won't be disappointed!

In this quick write-up I will outline different aspects of the product.After unpacking, this worked immediately upon connecting to my laptop (Windows 7 x64) - no compatibility issues. After loading up the software (took a couple of minutes), the volume control becomes operational, the blue LED on the unit will flash when you have muted the volume, the remote will work (line-of-sight to the sensor), and all software control can be accessed through the control panel or entertainment console.From the entertainment console you can:- Control the levels of the 5.1 analog outputs (although I don't use these in practice) to setup your speaker balance, and also set subwoofer crossover to any frequency from 10hz to 1000hz in the TruStudio menu- Set options between 2 channels or 5 channels of audio (plus sub) and test that they are operational- Control EAX effects, which are basically reverb patterns, nothing I plan to use- Control TruStudio Pro, which can be useful in some situations (I turn the surround option on very subtly when using headphones on a multi-channel source), including noisy environments (smart volume, dialog plus)- Use the graphic equalizer to obtain an accurate response through the passband of your speakers/headphones; I personally use this to compensate for slight roll-off of my headphones in the bass, and their resonance at 1khz and 8khz- Control the mixer, including microphone/line-in, "What U Hear," and pass-through of the line/mic inputs to your speakers for input monitoring- Activate Dolby Digital Live, which will mix all audio into a 5.1 stream for playback over the optical output; note that if you have a source using Dolby Digital or DTS, you will want to set the sound option in your software to bitstream, meaning this is bypassed to avoid additional processing by the sound card. Dolby Digital Live is intended for everyday sound and use, rather than actual Dolby or DTS sourcesWhat U Hear allows you to record whatever you're playing without actually patching the output to the input with a cable. I find this useful if I think I hear clipping - simply record the sound and verify that it's clipping. There is a myriad of other uses for this, as well.For DTS-HD or Dolby-HD sources, you will need HDMI, which this sound card will not allow due to bandwidth limits. My laptop has an HDMI output which I use when I want to bitstream these codecs for movies.Pros: This card is much quieter than the internal Realtek solution used on my laptop, one reason I bought it. The noise floor on this card is at least 50dB lower.The output gain on this card is higher than the internal, meaning I don't have to have at 100% for DVD and Blu-ray and STILL not be loud enough. Instead, I can run it around 45% volume and any louder would be uncomfortable with DVD and Blu-Ray.Accurate soundfield placement in headphones - I tested a 5.1 source with discrete channels and can confirm that this card's processing will do a good job with this if you have it turned on (you can deactivate all processing if you wish).The output uses a limiter so that you won't experience clipping, meaning much less distortion if you push things too hard on the EQ.Other: This card claims 24/96 capability. I did tests and found that for both playback/recording, the card rolls off to -3dB at 48khz, on-par with specs. It is a similar case, rolling off slightly in the infrasonics, -3dB at 3hz. As for the 24-bit claim, the resolution is 24-bit, BUT signal/noise ratio is slightly over 100dB, effectively limiting the dynamic range to the equivalent of 17-bit. Due to dither, the psychoacoustic dynamic range will approach 19 bits. This is NOT an issue for most people. You still obtain the benefits of 24-bit, including a reduction in quantization noise, just not through the full dynamic range. In other words, the card will not be the limiting factor in most systems.I intend to use this card to record. I was a bit wary of buying a card directed towards normal consumers, but after testing it looks like it will be a non-issue. I'll have to do further testing to confirm this.Cons: At the price, nothing more can really be expected of this card. It would be great if this functionality were paired with HDMI, though. There might be video cards out with such a connection. My laptop has HDMI, but it is noisy when using it for internally mixed PCM audio. There is one issue that I've had with it, and that is an odd polary distortion when using DirectSound to record. It also has no balanced connections, which I would not expect for the price, anyway...I would recommend this to any consumer that wants an upgrade in functionality and less noise than integrated sound. Programs are available for sound processing, but you will still be limited by the hardware.