[Nikolasi]

Anyone knows if you can get Virtual Surround Sound out from the Optical Out of any of the Z / Zx / ZxR soundcard?

 
Yes you can turn on SBX via Optical Out ,but you cant control volume via windows but you can only on aplication what you use...set a volume

 

[obobskivich]

Anyone knows if you can get Virtual Surround Sound out from the Optical Out of any of the Z / Zx / ZxR soundcard?

Yes. Select "play stereo mix to digital out" and leave the Windows default to "Analog Out - Z/Zx/ZxR" - all functionality will work, including "Headphone Mode", SBX, EQ, ALchemy, volume control, etc. If you need discrete 5.1, go into the encoder settings and enable DTS or Dolby (they're largely similar, and the choice depends heavily on what your downline equipment can do), but this isn't "Dolby Headphone" or similar (although if you have a receiver/decoder that can do Dolby 5.1 -> Dolby Headphone, that could be used with the Sound Blaster's Dolby output; it will very likely come down to personal preference if you like that better than SBX).

 

[PurpleAngel]

  Anyone knows if you can get Virtual Surround Sound out from the Optical Out of any of the Z / Zx / ZxR sound card?

 
Yes, the Z/Zx/ZxR can send the Z series's SBX Headphone surround sound thru the optical port.

 

[blinkstar]

How would the Z card pair with my 32 ohm DT 990s?

 

[PurpleAngel]

  How would the Z card pair with my 32 ohm DT 990s?

 
The SB-Z's headphone jack has an output impedance of 22.5-Ohms.
Which would not really be normally recommended for 32-Ohm headphones, but I'm guessing the Beyer will still do well.

 

[blinkstar]

Thanks for responding, PurpleAngel!
 
This brings me to my next question which I should really just make my own thread about but I'll ask here first:
 
I currently have an Auzentech Prelude sound card. It's a nice card, never have any problems with it--the only thing it is missing is sbx surround sound for headphones, which I have heard and prefer to cms-3d or whatever the older vss mode is, which is what my Prelude has.
 
I could buy the sbx software directly from creative and use it with my existing card, or
 
I could buy the Soundblaster Z, used, off craigslist, which of course, gives me the card along with the software (hopefully).
 
It would mean swapping out my Prelude for the Z of course.
 
What advantages would I get going with the Z card over just the software? I have an external 02 amp already which is okay, not great but okay, if that makes any difference ...

 

[PurpleAngel]

  Thanks for responding, PurpleAngel!
This brings me to my next question which I should really just make my own thread about but I'll ask here first:
I currently have an Auzentech Prelude sound card. It's a nice card, never have any problems with it--the only thing it is missing is sbx surround sound for headphones, which I have heard and prefer to cms-3d or whatever the older vss mode is, which is what my Prelude has.
I could buy the sbx software directly from creative and use it with my existing card, or
I could buy the Soundblaster Z, used, off craigslist, which of course, gives me the card along with the software (hopefully).
It would mean swapping out my Prelude for the Z of course.
What advantages would I get going with the Z card over just the software? I have an external 02 amp already which is okay, not great but okay, if that makes any difference ...

 
I would say to go ahead and replace the Prelude with the SB-Z and plug the Beyers straight into the SB-Z's headphone jack.
You would also have the option of plugging the O2 into the SB-Z's front speaker jack, would not get any surround sound, but might work well for music.

 

[blinkstar]

Do you mind telling me your reasoning? What advantages do you see with buying the Z card?

 

[bcschmerker4]

@PurpleAngel  Concerning the Creative Laboratories® SB1500, what's the highest-impedance headphone ye've run successfully this model?  Given its "unregulated" headphone drive, I have reason to doubt the survival of any headphone below 200Ω, such as my current Plantronics® GAMECOM® 380; the SB1500 seems to want at least a full-on ENG/EFP headphone such as would be used inline in a 600Ω television or radio station audio feed.

 

[obobskivich]

Thanks for responding, PurpleAngel!

This brings me to my next question which I should really just make my own thread about but I'll ask here first:

I currently have an Auzentech Prelude sound card. It's a nice card, never have any problems with it--the only thing it is missing is sbx surround sound for headphones, which I have heard and prefer to cms-3d or whatever the older vss mode is, which is what my Prelude has.

I could buy the sbx software directly from creative and use it with my existing card, or

I could buy the Soundblaster Z, used, off craigslist, which of course, gives me the card along with the software (hopefully).

It would mean swapping out my Prelude for the Z of course.

What advantages would I get going with the Z card over just the software? I have an external 02 amp already which is okay, not great but okay, if that makes any difference ...

I'd probably go for the SB-Z. Here's my reasoning (I don't pretend to speak for someone else; he/she may have an entirely different line of reasoning):

- Auzentech no longer exists, and the Prelude hasn't received driver updates in quite a while. There are some features that were made available for X-Fi (and also on SoundCore (Recon and Z)) that the Prelude doesn't get, like the "Play Stereo Mix" loop for Vista/7 audio (and also IIRC the Prelude doesn't get Dolby + DTS in Vista/7; it only gets DTS because of Auzen's weird licencing arrangement).
- The Z has a built-in headphone amplifier. I don't own a Z, but I own both a Recon3D and a ZxR, and the headphone amps on both are quite competent, and I have no complaints even with low impedance headphones (e.g. Audio-Technica, Grado, Fostex).
- I personally despise the X-Fi "mode switching" thing and would prefer to have everything available all at once, as opposed to doing the "switch" which not infrequently will crash the drivers and require a restart.
- The beam/array mic is a nice add-on.

Some caveats to the Z vs the Prelude:
- The Prelude does 7.1, which the newer cards don't (they only do 5.1).
- The Prelude does both coaxial and TOSlink digital I/O, while the newer cards only do TOSlink (you can convert this to coax but that's additional hardware).
- Prelude (and all X-Fi) have drivers that work in Windows XP; the SoundCore is (iirc) only officially supported in Windows 7 and above (I've gotten my Recon3D working in Windows Vista and 7 without problems).


Other stuff to think about:
- Prelude is a PCI card; Z is a PCIe x1 card. A lot of newer motherboards don't have PCI slots at all, if you have Prelude installed you obviously have a PCI slot, but ensure you also have an x1 PCIe slot available to put the Z into.

 

[RugbyPlayer]

I just picked up this card, i was wanting to use it for gaming with my Maddog headphones, but the issue im having is when i plug my headphones into the ACM module, i get no headphone out, actually no audio out period, this is with switching it in the software to headphones, what gives?

 

[PurpleAngel]

  Do you mind telling me your reasoning? What advantages do you see with buying the Z card?

 
The SB-Z card comes with SBX Headphone surround sound.
So far I've never heard of the older Creative Lab's audio processor (X-Fi), used in the Prelude, supporting the newer SBX Headphone software.
but i will check on that.

 

[PurpleAngel]

  @PurpleAngel  Concerning the Creative Laboratories® SB1500, what's the highest-impedance headphone ye've run successfully this model?  Given its "unregulated" headphone drive, I have reason to doubt the survival of any headphone below 200Ω, such as my current Plantronics® GAMECOM® 380; the SB1500 seems to want at least a full-on ENG/EFP headphone such as would be used inline in a 600Ω television or radio station audio feed.

 
I've plug headphones from 32-Ohms to 600-Ohms into the SB-Z card's headphone jack, this was well over a year ago that I tested the SB-Z for a short time.
So headphones under 200-Ohms work fine with the SB-Z headphone output.
I like recommending the SB-Z sound card and 50-Ohm Sennheiser HD558 headphones, good bang for the buck combo.
Would not normally recommend using the SB-Z for driving 600-Ohm headphones, but it will work.
Guess I'll have to reinstall the SB-Z and plug 600-Ohm headphone into it, because I can't remember how loud the 600-Ohm headphones could get.

 

[teamrushpntball]

Is there any benefit to getting the Zxr over the Z if I plan to solely use the card for sbx headphone via optical to an external dac/amp (magni+asgard)?

Assuming using the schiit stack, would I be better off using line out straight to the amp skipping the external dac and relying solely on the zxr dac?

Pretty much asking am I better off going z > modi > as gard or zxr > asgard? My headphone time is split 50% gaming, 20% movies and 30% music.

 

[PurpleAngel]

Is there any benefit to getting the Zxr over the Z if I plan to solely use the card for sbx headphone via optical to an external dac/amp (magni+asgard)?

Assuming using the schiit stack, would I be better off using line out straight to the amp skipping the external dac and relying solely on the zxr dac?

Pretty much asking am I better off going z > modi > as gard or zxr > asgard? My headphone time is split 50% gaming, 20% movies and 30% music.

 
For optical output, the ZxR or Zx, offer no advantages over the Z.
What headphones are you going to be using?