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Creative Sound Blaster new series Z, Zx & ZxR
Mar 10, 2014 at 7:04 PM Post #2,043 of 3,462
Ok, I agree that for music/videos the ZXR is noticeably better. The xtremegamer sounds more dull and ZXR more pronounced. But the surround sound in games seems to be much worse. It's not great in 1.6, and in CS:S it's even worse. People with crappy/no sound cards can tell where people are better than me (IE: planting lower rather than upper) while spectating me, so we were both getting the same sounds.
 
This might be due to their SBX surround sound not being compatible with hardware acceleration that Alchemy provides. IE: with my xtremegamer I use both Alchemy & CMSS 3D. But like other people mentioned SBX surround sound gets automatically turned off when I use Alchemy with this card.
If their idea was to build in the Alchemy hardware acceleration to the SBX surround sound so that you don't have to configure Alchemy for every game then that's really cool. But it's just not providing the same level of surround sound.
 
RMA'd my card and still having the same problem with it randomly dying in CS 1.6 till I restart.
 
Creative support's reply was:
"It is possible for the sound card to go dead if there is a driver conflict between the game and the sound card. We regret to inform you that Creative sound card cannot guarantee that our sound card will work with all games and software applications."
 
CS 1.6 is one of the most popular games of all time, and one of the most popular esports games till recently. Seems like that is their target demographic.
 
But w/e. I'm not really impressed with the card as a whole anyway. There were times (not in games) where I took my headphones off to check if the sound was coming from my speakers because it was so realistic. But sadly that was a rare occasion and not a standard.
 
Sucks that I'm going to have to keep digging around in the back of my computer every time I want to switch from headphones to speakers, until a new sound card gets released.
 
Mar 11, 2014 at 4:39 AM Post #2,044 of 3,462
Just got my ZXR installed, also picked up a pair of Audio Technica ADG1s. Played a few rounds of BF4, positional audio is excellent, as is overall sound quality.
 
After reading through this thread I'm not running the headphones through the ACM, but the mic is going through it for now because I'm short one 1/4 inch adapter. You'd think a $280 headset would include some adapters.
 
I saw it mentioned a few times that the ACM works the same as the one in the Phoebus, just to clarify - the Phoebus volume control actually changes the windows volume setting, it has a third cable running between the ACM and the soundcard for this.
 
Mar 11, 2014 at 5:28 AM Post #2,045 of 3,462
I removed my ACM to fit my Aune T1, but I am pretty sure the ACM volume does nothing in Windows unless you have headphones hooked up.  I could be wrong on that though.
 
Mar 11, 2014 at 3:48 PM Post #2,048 of 3,462
Well... I just wanted to say that I just upgraded from the Titanium HD to ZXR.
 
I was wondering a bit if it was worth it but damn... yes it was. Zero regrets.
 
People can say what they want about sound cards not being needed for games anymore because EAX is a dead and what not.... whatever Creative is doing it's working!
 
Hands down the best surround sound positioning audio I've ever heard in my games.
 
I also had zero driver issues and the overall quality and packaging was very well done.
 
Perhaps that serial cable between the cards isn't so fancy, couldn't they at least have made it a round cable? Oh well. It's a very minor niggle.
 
Overall a happy camper
smile.gif
 
 
Mar 11, 2014 at 9:14 PM Post #2,051 of 3,462
Film Cap Mod:
 

 
and I decided before I put capacitors on the back of the card that I should get a pic of my final op-amp setup.
 

 
Mar 13, 2014 at 12:15 AM Post #2,052 of 3,462
Hi,
 
Does the ZxR sound card keep up with the HD650s? Does someone in here have this combo? If so, how does it perform in music and games?
 
I almost pulled the trigger on the HD598s for ~170€. Now I can get the HD650s used (bought from Amazon last December) for "only" 250€. 
 
Cumps
 
Mar 13, 2014 at 12:33 AM Post #2,053 of 3,462
manel said:
  Hi,
 
Does the ZxR sound card keep up with the HD650s? Does someone in here have this combo? If so, how does it perform in music and games?
 
I almost pulled the trigger on the HD598s for ~170€. Now I can get the HD650s used (bought from Amazon last December) for "only" 250€. 
 
Cumps
Click to expand...

 
You're in luck.
 
The ZxR has zero problems driving the HD650's.
 
It's a great combo, I would say go for it. Just remember that for music listening it's usually best to disable all the gaming features.
 
Mar 13, 2014 at 12:48 AM Post #2,054 of 3,462
Thanks for your input. :wink: Yeah, I don't want anything colouring the sound when listening to music, just the raw stereo sound, plain and simple.
 
But can the SBX Pro Studio and the other gaming features on the card improve the quality of the HD650s in gaming, soundstage and directionality wise? I'm asking this because, according to Mad Lust Envy's thread, these are only decent at gaming.
 
Mar 13, 2014 at 1:02 AM Post #2,055 of 3,462
I never got to try my old HD650 with the zxr but my current HD580 is driven very easily by it and it sounds very good.
I will say that 2 of the 3 "gaming features" (the surround sound and bass boost) buttons) sound not that great (surround sound) to terrible (bass boost) with open headphones Ive tried... Well the bass boost is horrible with everything Ive tried. That surround sound is actually very noticeable and a good feature with closed headphones Ive tried. I like the 3rd function which I forget the name of that boosts clarity or something like that. YMMV
 
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