Quite a late reply but if you have not updated then here's the low-down: don't bother.   The WHQL driver is basically the EXACT SAME driver that has been around since the ASIO fix for the ZxR. That means it's been nearly 2 years. Every "new" driver from Creative since then has just resulted...

  Apparently comes with an even beefier power adapter too. 100w > 144w.   All for an extra $100. Hmm.

  I talked about this several months ago on the Z/Zx/ZxR thread. Where motherboards using Creative's software suite did indeed have SBX out of the box.   As a matter of fact, I have a motherboard (my main rig) with Creative's software suite installed. I was testing it out to see if it's the...

  Said this several times already, Sony's VSS DSP is poor. Listen to DLPII and you pretty much have listened to Sony's VSS (of course one is upmix and the other is downmix, which makes Sony's VSS even worse in comparison). Rear cues are just... almost non existant. It's too roomy and has very...

Okay... while I understand that micro-USB does open the doors to better compatibility with many more devices, there's one huge issue looming: broken connectors.   It's bound to happen, micro-USB is one of the most fragile connector in the world today. Good for compatibility, bad for durability.

Good review Evs!    My suggestion next is to play around with op-amps. The stock ones are decent for bright or neutral-ish headphones, but often now a days headphones as you already know are tilting towards the warmish side of things. Considering that, I really did hope that Creative went...

  Agreed. My cheap fix for the ZxR before swithching out the op-amps were to EQ the bass regions down several notches for most headphones and speakers that I paired it with. Never liked EQing but it does help somewhat in cases like this. Can EQing be done on the X7?

^So from your impressions, it does seem to fit what I already know since I own a ZxR - The X7 is on the warmish tilt side of things, of which can be somewhat remedied towards the neutral side with different op-amps.

On my ZxR (I belive the ZxR co-relates to the X7, since they're almost identical hardware wise except for output impedance and some other very minor differences), I've always liked 72% on SBX for games and 61% for movies.    Always felt that 67% is slightly too anemic. Boosting this up to 72%...

  I personally think that $400 just for the PS4 is quite a waste. The X7 is amazing, that much is definite. But $400 worth of amazingness? Nope.           Except, receivers are notorious for adding huge amount of input lag and Yamaha was (and still is) some of the biggest culprits.

  I always felt that the stock op-amps were a little too bloaty in the bass (a reason why the ZxR was never a great match with many warm headphones out of the box). I switched to LME49720HA and LME49710HA. Also messed around with MUSE01 but didn't exactly like it much either. I saw a thread...

  "Optimizing" makes zero sense. 10 ohms for 32ohms is never optimized, period. Will the X2 (or any other 32ohm headsphones) be driven on the STX? Yes. Even 16ohm IEMs or cheapo $5 headphones can. But that's not "optimized".

@conquerator2   Thanks for the pics on the op-amps. Uses the exact same ones as the ZxR, which I didn't like too much. Good thing they make it so easily replaceable though (easier than the ZxR that is). 

  This is a very late reply, but thanks for proving me wrong. So the X7 then, isn't just an external ZxR. It's better than it!   Bummer that HOHOHO3 bug on their site doesn't work anymore. BTW, if it doesn't trouble you, can you check the op-amps on the X7? I just want final confirmation if...

You know... they could have just gave a multi-adapter instead of 7 different power cables and not including a simple optical cable. I mean, the ZxR had a optical cable...

I'm looking forward to your X7 impressions.   But may I ask, why is the E1 there?

  Pfft. The super cheap Omni isn't at the universal 3ohm or lower output impedance either... and that's targeted at gamers who use gaming headsets, which majority are at 32ohms. 

  Do you think Creative would bother tweaking the TPA6120 to be anything less than 10ohms though? Because knowing them, everytime they use something off the shelf they just stick everything together and call it a day (I'm exaggerating, but you get what I mean).   I've been using Creative's...

  Wait, no. The Z/Zx is the one that has 43ohms, but that is at its peak. The ZxR is 10ohms. You're right, implementation might be different on the X7 eventhough they share the same headphone amp. I'm making that assumption because many amps that uses the TPA6120A has come around 8-10ohms most...

  10ohms. It's not a guess, it's written there by Creative. Uses the same TI TPA6120A as the ZxR.

I personally recommend KabelDirekt. It's very much like Media Bridge cables, except the rubber shielding doesn't get scrape as easily.

^$179 actually.   Was a great lightning deal though, it's over now. $179 for the X1 is a no brainer btw.

  That is indeed true. It's basically an external ZxR though the X7 may have different op-amps. Not sure about that one.

  Indeed. I jumped on the SBZ the moment it was announced, just to do a comparison list of headphones between CMSS-3D, DH, THX and SBX. Every one of them sounded different, on the same headphone, on the same game, on the same standard 5.1 settings, and on the same volume (adjusted with a volume...