Creative X-FI Xtreme Audio or Asus Xonar D1 7.1?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davste 

One of the most important things for me is 3D positioning in gaming. I'm getting a Samson SR-850.

The Creative card has CMSS-3D, but the Asus xonar does not. Which would give me superior 3D positioning?

For gaming, get the Creative card. The Xonar D1 has a fairly good DAC for the price, although for unamplified headphone use it should be noted that the card has 100 Ohm output impedance, but it is lacking in the area of hardware 3D audio support for games compared to X-Fi cards.

X-Fi Music has CMSS-3D, Xonar - Dolby Headphone.

Few weeks ago I had both these cards (X-Fi Fatal1ty + Xonar D1) in my PC.

CMSS-3D works quite good in my opinion. While listening to music it is horrible ofc, but in games... Really helpful.

When I turned on Dolby Headphone sound suddenly become very distorted. It makes you feel/hear like you were in a deep well (again - MY OPINION).

You should remeber that Xonar D1 is almost completely neutral (I'd say it offers a litte bright sound). X-Fi Music, Gamer, Fatal1ty and so on are quite 'warm' cards. Fatal1ty wasn't a very good combination for me with Creative Aurvana Live (which are also warm headphones). CAL performed much better with D1.

Today I've got AKG k240 Studio@Xonar D1 (neutral+neutral) and I really like it. I get quite good positioning in Battlefield 3 with 'HF' mode on (Dolby, EAX etc disabled).

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Wait, you wrote X-Fi Xtreme Audio, not Music. My mistake. Xtreme Audio is the worst desktop version of X-Fi (just emulate most of the effects).

I'd definitely choose the D1.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davste 

• Asus Xonar DS
• Creative SB X-Fi Titanium Black
• Asus Xonar D1 7.1
• Asus Xonar DX / XD 7.1
• Creative SB XFi Surround 5.1 USB

I do not know much about the Xonar DS, but since it does not have a dedicated headphone amplifier either, and the D1 is not much more expensive, it is probably best to choose the D1 instead of that. The DX is the same as the D1, but with a PCIe interface instead of PCI.

It is not quite neutral though, due to the high output impedance of the Xonar D1.

The listed games use software audio engines, so a lot of the positional advantages that CMSS-3D Headphone gets over Dolby Headphone with games that use DirectSound3D or OpenAL hardware acceleration are negated since it's only getting 7.1 at the most to begin with.

Also be warned that the XtremeAudio cards are fakes, without the EMU20k1 (PCI) or EMU20k2 (PCI-Express) DSP that marks true X-Fi cards. You won't get hardware acceleration or Game Mode.

The X-Fi Titanium (non-HD) seems like a good bet if you can't get the Xonar DG at $30 (or don't have a PCI slot free, or are just concerned about the longevity of the PCI interface in general). If the analog sound quality isn't good enough for you, start saving up for an external DAC and feed it with S/PDIF. Yes, in-game EAX effects and CMSS-3D Headphone go through S/PDIF; I've verified that myself.