[Spamateur]

  The on/off button feels a bit flimsy, besides that I'm quite happy. Will try with HD700 as soon as they arrive from amazon.

I used the X7 with the HD700 for a few weeks before I returned the HD700. The X7 powered it well on low gain at a volume of about 30/100. 

 

[Tostitostelli]

I have to get myself a X7, but probably wont. Sure looks sweet though.

 

[earfonia]

Again, thanks for doing this. So here's a Q: when I use "Direct Mode" with my headphones, the mic array should still be able to record my voice? It doesn't do that and I wasn't sure what to make of it.

I remember now, Direct mode is exclusive for direct connection of both line output and line input to USB. So in Direct mode, only recording through line input is possible.
To use mic array must be in DSP mode.

 

[agrosash]

I remember now, Direct mode is exclusive for direct connection of both line output and line input to USB. So in Direct mode, only recording through line input is possible.
To use mic array must be in DSP mode.

Thanks earfonia! That makes it clear

 

[khtse]

Just want to post it here as I saw someone asking earlier and it took me quite some time to figure this out:
 
For PC gaming with SBX Pro Studio Surround using headphones:
 
(1) Disable "Direct Mode" and enable "Surround". 
(2) Set speakers configuration to 5.1. It doesn't matter you whether you set it in Windows' control panel or in Creative's SBX Pro Studio, they will cause each other to change.
(3) Plug in your headphones. This will automatically change the headphones/speakers setting in SBX Pro Studio to "Headphones" - but Windows' setting will still stay at 5.1 (there is no headphone setting in Windows).
(4) Go into the game, set it to surround sound or 5.1 if there is such in-game setting. 
 
Steps 2 and 3 are crucial. I've tried setting speakers configuration to 2.0/2.1 before plugging in my headphones, with rest of the settings unchanged and as described above, the sound positioning is noticeably worse. I suppose the SBX Pro surround feature does take advantage of all 5 + 1 channels and maps all of them to the headphones. 
 
You can still change the speaker settings in control panel to 5.1 after plugging in the headphones, but that will cause the speaker settings in SBX Pro Studio to change to 5.1 (instead of headphones) as well. To go back to headphones mode, you have to manually change it in SBX Pro Studio, or unplug and then plug-in again your headphones...
 
I have to say, once the surround is set up correctly, the sound positioning is really awesome. I was playing Battlefield 4 last night and can easily hear where all the helicopters and jets were, and where the tanks or snipers were shooting me from... awesome stuff.

 

[Spamateur]

  Just want to post it here as I saw someone asking earlier and it took me quite some time to figure this out:
 
For PC gaming with SBX Pro Studio Surround using headphones:
 
(1) Disable "Direct Mode" and enable "Surround". 
(2) Set speakers configuration to 5.1. It doesn't matter you whether you set it in Windows' control panel or in Creative's SBX Pro Studio, they will cause each other to change.
(3) Plug in your headphones. This will automatically change the headphones/speakers setting in SBX Pro Studio to "Headphones" - but Windows' setting will still stay at 5.1 (there is no headphone setting in Windows).
(4) Go into the game, set it to surround sound or 5.1 if there is such in-game setting. 
 
Steps 2 and 3 are crucial. I've tried setting speakers configuration to 2.0/2.1 before plugging in my headphones, with rest of the settings unchanged and as described above, the sound positioning is noticeably worse. I suppose the SBX Pro surround feature does take advantage of all 5 + 1 channels and maps all of them to the headphones. 
 
You can still change the speaker settings in control panel to 5.1 after plugging in the headphones, but that will cause the speaker settings in SBX Pro Studio to change to 5.1 (instead of headphones) as well. To go back to headphones mode, you have to manually change it in SBX Pro Studio, or unplug and then plug-in again your headphones...
 
I have to say, once the surround is set up correctly, the sound positioning is really awesome. I was playing Battlefield 4 last night and can easily hear where all the helicopters and jets were, and where the tanks or snipers were shooting me from... awesome stuff.

Very helpful. Out of curiosity, which cans did you have the X7 powering?

 

[earfonia]

  Just want to post it here as I saw someone asking earlier and it took me quite some time to figure this out:
 
For PC gaming with SBX Pro Studio Surround using headphones:
 
(1) Disable "Direct Mode" and enable "Surround". 
(2) Set speakers configuration to 5.1. It doesn't matter you whether you set it in Windows' control panel or in Creative's SBX Pro Studio, they will cause each other to change.
(3) Plug in your headphones. This will automatically change the headphones/speakers setting in SBX Pro Studio to "Headphones" - but Windows' setting will still stay at 5.1 (there is no headphone setting in Windows).
(4) Go into the game, set it to surround sound or 5.1 if there is such in-game setting. 
 
Steps 2 and 3 are crucial. I've tried setting speakers configuration to 2.0/2.1 before plugging in my headphones, with rest of the settings unchanged and as described above, the sound positioning is noticeably worse. I suppose the SBX Pro surround feature does take advantage of all 5 + 1 channels and maps all of them to the headphones. 
 
You can still change the speaker settings in control panel to 5.1 after plugging in the headphones, but that will cause the speaker settings in SBX Pro Studio to change to 5.1 (instead of headphones) as well. To go back to headphones mode, you have to manually change it in SBX Pro Studio, or unplug and then plug-in again your headphones...
 
I have to say, once the surround is set up correctly, the sound positioning is really awesome. I was playing Battlefield 4 last night and can easily hear where all the helicopters and jets were, and where the tanks or snipers were shooting me from... awesome stuff.

 
Thanks for the tips!

 

[khtse]

  Very helpful. Out of curiosity, which cans did you have the X7 powering?

 
I use mainly 2 pair of headphones, Sennheiser PXC 450 (noise-cancelling headphones) and HD 700. The PXC 450 is mostly for office use (closed-back and noise-cancelling are handy features), and I just bought the HD 700 very recently. Still getting use to the HD 700 (sounds significantly better than the PXC 450 even right out of the box), and the X7 seems to power it pretty well on low gain setting. But both the HD700 and the X7 are still new to me, and I'm probably still in honeymoon period. I will post more in a month or two after I have used them extensively.

 

[khtse]

  Just want to post it here as I saw someone asking earlier and it took me quite some time to figure this out:
 
For PC gaming with SBX Pro Studio Surround using headphones:
 
(1) Disable "Direct Mode" and enable "Surround". 
(2) Set speakers configuration to 5.1. It doesn't matter you whether you set it in Windows' control panel or in Creative's SBX Pro Studio, they will cause each other to change.
(3) Plug in your headphones. This will automatically change the headphones/speakers setting in SBX Pro Studio to "Headphones" - but Windows' setting will still stay at 5.1 (there is no headphone setting in Windows).
(4) Go into the game, set it to surround sound or 5.1 if there is such in-game setting. 
 
Steps 2 and 3 are crucial. I've tried setting speakers configuration to 2.0/2.1 before plugging in my headphones, with rest of the settings unchanged and as described above, the sound positioning is noticeably worse. I suppose the SBX Pro surround feature does take advantage of all 5 + 1 channels and maps all of them to the headphones. 
 
You can still change the speaker settings in control panel to 5.1 after plugging in the headphones, but that will cause the speaker settings in SBX Pro Studio to change to 5.1 (instead of headphones) as well. To go back to headphones mode, you have to manually change it in SBX Pro Studio, or unplug and then plug-in again your headphones...
 
I have to say, once the surround is set up correctly, the sound positioning is really awesome. I was playing Battlefield 4 last night and can easily hear where all the helicopters and jets were, and where the tanks or snipers were shooting me from... awesome stuff.

 
One quirk with Creative's software is that speaker settings don't get saved to Profile. Consequently, instead of saving 2 profiles separately with 2.0 and 5.1 speakers (while I really only have stereo speakers), I have to repeat the above steps all the time. Furthermore, speaker position calibration gets carried over to headphones, which can be rather annoying if you happen to rely on it to compensate you asymmetric speaker placement like me.
 
If anyone has any contact at Creative to whom I can write some suggestions (some minor changes to improve the functionality of the SBX Studio Pro software), please PM me. Writing them through the usual customer service channel probably wouldn't go anywhere.

 

[LucasCL]

Hey guys,
 
here's a video based on our thoughts and ideas behind the Sound Blaster X7. Do take a look!
 

 

[pack21]

Hey guys,

here's a video based on our thoughts and ideas behind the Sound Blaster X7. Do take a look!

X7 failure on consoles audio chat and this goes against the original idea of ​​the creative....and us gamers.

Why Creative dont make a partnership with Sony to have audio chat on PS4?

 

[Spamateur]

Random question: anyone else get a bit of a weird short distorted noise in the right channel of headphones when changing tracks? Or, if I have foobar2000 open and it is playing and I close the application entirely or hit the "stop" button, I get the same right channel brief noise. Sounds like a brief quiet burst of EMI.

 

[razorpakk]

   
I prefer to use OPA827 for my HD800. You can get them ready to use from BrownDog.

Is this fine? 
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OP-AMP-PRECISION-22MHZ-28V-US-MSOP-8-Part-TEXAS-INSTRUMENTS-OPA827AIDGKT-/271444904742?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3f33608b26
 
(never played with Op-Amps, so i don't know if I have to lookout for fake ones or other "hidden" specifications) 

 

[earfonia]

  Is this fine? 
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OP-AMP-PRECISION-22MHZ-28V-US-MSOP-8-Part-TEXAS-INSTRUMENTS-OPA827AIDGKT-/271444904742?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3f33608b26
 
(never played with Op-Amps, so i don't know if I have to lookout for fake ones or other "hidden" specifications) 

 
A bit expensive, I bought from Element14 / Farnell for only around $7 each. But you need adapter from SOIC8 to DIP8. If you are not used with soldering the SOIC8 to DIP8 adapter, I suggest you buy from BrownDog, already soldered to the adapter. Ready to use.
 
 

  Random question: anyone else get a bit of a weird short distorted noise in the right channel of headphones when changing tracks? Or, if I have foobar2000 open and it is playing and I close the application entirely or hit the "stop" button, I get the same right channel brief noise. Sounds like a brief quiet burst of EMI.

 
I didn't experience that on both standard and limited edition X7.
 
 

  Hey guys,
 
here's a video based on our thoughts and ideas behind the Sound Blaster X7. Do take a look!
 

 
Thanks Lucas!
Could you kindly help to answer some questions we have here from the members?
 
1. Is it confirm that Dolby Digital can only be used from SPDIF optical input, and not from USB ?  If it can be used from USB, any suggestion on what player to use? So far we all fail to turn ON the Dolby Digital through USB.
 
2. Why on 2.0 / 2.1 speaker setting, we cannot enable the 'Bass Management' to enable the subwoofer channel for 2.1 setup?
 
3. Any idea why Sound Blaster X7 LE has higher noise floor on DSP mode than the standard X7 ?
 
4. Any idea why speaker position calibration gets carried over to headphones?
 
Thank you!

 

[soulerjk]

  Just want to post it here as I saw someone asking earlier and it took me quite some time to figure this out:
 
For PC gaming with SBX Pro Studio Surround using headphones:
 
(1) Disable "Direct Mode" and enable "Surround". 
(2) Set speakers configuration to 5.1. It doesn't matter you whether you set it in Windows' control panel or in Creative's SBX Pro Studio, they will cause each other to change.
(3) Plug in your headphones. This will automatically change the headphones/speakers setting in SBX Pro Studio to "Headphones" - but Windows' setting will still stay at 5.1 (there is no headphone setting in Windows).
(4) Go into the game, set it to surround sound or 5.1 if there is such in-game setting. 
 
Steps 2 and 3 are crucial. I've tried setting speakers configuration to 2.0/2.1 before plugging in my headphones, with rest of the settings unchanged and as described above, the sound positioning is noticeably worse. I suppose the SBX Pro surround feature does take advantage of all 5 + 1 channels and maps all of them to the headphones. 
 
You can still change the speaker settings in control panel to 5.1 after plugging in the headphones, but that will cause the speaker settings in SBX Pro Studio to change to 5.1 (instead of headphones) as well. To go back to headphones mode, you have to manually change it in SBX Pro Studio, or unplug and then plug-in again your headphones...
 
I have to say, once the surround is set up correctly, the sound positioning is really awesome. I was playing Battlefield 4 last night and can easily hear where all the helicopters and jets were, and where the tanks or snipers were shooting me from... awesome stuff.

 
 

   
One quirk with Creative's software is that speaker settings don't get saved to Profile. Consequently, instead of saving 2 profiles separately with 2.0 and 5.1 speakers (while I really only have stereo speakers), I have to repeat the above steps all the time. Furthermore, speaker position calibration gets carried over to headphones, which can be rather annoying if you happen to rely on it to compensate you asymmetric speaker placement like me.
 
If anyone has any contact at Creative to whom I can write some suggestions (some minor changes to improve the functionality of the SBX Studio Pro software), please PM me. Writing them through the usual customer service channel probably wouldn't go anywhere.

 
Thanks for the tips. gonna try it later! 

and thanks earfonia for the very detailed review!