[RPGWiZaRD]

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Another thing Creative has going for them is having adjustment granularity, rather than the on/off or 1-2-3 switches that Asus Xonar cards' control panels have.

Yea but it doesn't help much if all the software processing they offer sounds very bad for starters. The reverb quality was really low, CMSS-3D sucks, Crystallizer sucks, the only thing that DIDN'T suck was the equalizer, it was actually great. In the Audigy days I remember how horrible the EQ was, so that's a big improvement at least. But yea the software features it offers were quite useless to me, it has its point with the hardware support for EAX, openAL etc but beyond that there's not much to talk about in the software way. I don't know how ASUS will fare in this regard and it doesn't have to be any better but at least you don't have to fiddle around with settings for every game so that's a good thing.
 
But Creative needs to improve its software before it tries to improve the hardware, there's more to be gained there.

 

[kn19h7]

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Been using Creative cards for many years and drivers are to be kept securily, it's the owner's responsability. Updates came in single files, so I'm not sure where you were getting those updates. Installing and configuring a Creative soundcard takes quite less than an hour, no fuss there. I'll repeat, I've never had a single issue with installing or updating drivers, this on multiple computers with significantly different hardware setups.
 
BTW, did the 44.1KHz buzzing issue with the Asus Xonar Essence STX finally got fixed or the latest drivers (official or modded) still have that issue?
 
Another thing Creative has going for them is having adjustment granularity, rather than the on/off or 1-2-3 switches that Asus Xonar cards' control panels have.

 
?? mouse click-drop virtual speakers placement etc are also available
besides that asus card support up to 7.1 virtual channel instead of 5.1 of thx studio on creative card when i was using it, and also cmss3d was giving wrong positional information when watching some movies with 5.1 audio channel which i never had this issue with dh even on the old logitech g35..

 

[Roller]

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Yea but it doesn't help much if all the software processing they offer sounds very bad for starters. The reverb quality was really low, CMSS-3D sucks, Crystallizer sucks, the only thing that DIDN'T suck was the equalizer, it was actually great. In the Audigy days I remember how horrible the EQ was, so that's a big improvement at least. But yea the software features it offers were quite useless to me, it has its point with the hardware support for EAX, openAL etc but beyond that there's not much to talk about in the software way. I don't know how ASUS will fare in this regard and it doesn't have to be any better but at least you don't have to fiddle around with settings for every game so that's a good thing.
 
But Creative needs to improve its software before it tries to improve the hardware, there's more to be gained there.

Again with the game settings? You spend 1 minute entering a legacy game on the database for the DS3D calls to be converted, and that's the end of it, no fiddling around. The difference Creative has from Asus on that specific subject is that Asus uses a static configuration that if it works, it will perform acceptably, but on many cases the default configuration won't work and will actually put out lower quality sound than if their game mode was disabled.
 
@kn19h7: Were you using headphones or stereo speakers when downmixing the surround signal? Also, why were you using CMSS3D with movies in the first place? HRTF filters are an amazing idea, though its execution is very much awful at their current state, on both manufacturers.
 
EDIT: I most definitely agree that the software needs to be improved, in both the sense of being flexible like both Audigy and Live! cards were, as well as having less UI visual appeal software, trading that for more lightweight suite apps.
 
About the on/off or switches that Asus has, I'm talking about their their modes that are basically settings presets, which at that point they should just allow the user to create custom presets.
 
Overall, I find that the software currently available on either brand is bloat and underperforming, for which I must make a note on how kX drivers for pre-X-Fi cards did interface more directly with the hardware, and they should very well be a reference for future driver development, specially if such project was used on modern hardware.

 

[kn19h7]

^^^ yup i'm only using headphones..
hrtf filters sound good for movie at least to me on my setup, nowadays i use dh2 and xear3d even on stereo source, not to mention those multi-channel ones. easily more enjoyable than pure stereo to me ==a
for music i think it'll need some tweaking to sound good though..

 

[Roller]

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^^^ yup i'm only using headphones..
hrtf filters sound good for movie at least to me on my setup, nowadays i use dh2 and xear3d even on stereo source, not to mention those multi-channel ones. easily more enjoyable than pure stereo to me ==a
for music i think it'll need some tweaking to sound good though..

That's odd, X-Fi cards do quite a good job at downmixing surround content, but then again, the fact that the positioning is already good makes me only increase soundstage through very mild reverb settings, rather than changing the whole sound with surround emulation. But then again, surround emulation has different flavors for different people, which only makes me wish for a proper non destructive feature in the future, since all current solutions degrade sound to a large extent.

 

[Bill1202]

Not the case anymore Tacoboy.  Drivers are easy to update and download and install off the web.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

I got the ASUS D2 today but I'm not quite happy with it either mostly due to the EQ wasn't good enough and there's also some slight hissing heard which I don't with Creative Audigy 2 ZS or Titanium HD even when using the ZO amp. As expected the reverb effects were lacking but then again if using dolby headphone you get some reverb so that's enough. But between CMSS-3D and Dolby Headphone I'd easily pick Dolby Headphone for gaming though but I'd only use DH-1 mode (possibly DH-2) with dolby headphone as that one has the least impact on SQ / frequency response. The GX, ie. emulated EAX wasn't always that impressive in the ASUS card, I thought most of the time it sounded best when GX was disabled and only Dolby Headphone activated. Wasn't also that impressed with music playback quality, I thought Titanium HD had noticably better audio quality between the two and it was questionable if the ASUS one did even sound as great as Audigy 2 ZS with my custom kX Audio driver config even if using Hi-Fi mode. The bass response especially wasn't that convincing. Yes it's not ST or STX but the D2 is reasonably close in price anyway. I don't plan on spending much time with this card since the EQ is very poor, maybe marginally better than Realtek onboard's EQ so can't get any great result with XB500 on this card.

 

[Bill1202]

Actually, don't laugh... I'm using Bose quiet comforts 2s right now with my new Creative Soundblaster X-fi Titanium HD and it's putting out some great sound (after you tweek the EQ a little). The titanium card sends 7.1 around your head. Great imaging, tight bass - not thumpy, crisp highs.  Amazing sound with my CD's ripped at 320.  I mostly listen to hard rock, classic rock, blues, jazz and a little bluegrass.
 
Big difference coming off of the onboard sound card on my motherboard. Creative Soundblaster has been the leader in computer sound technology since they invented sound cards back in the late 80's early 90's. I have had probably 8 soundblaster cards from way back starting with my Intel 486 pc with the original soundblaster (then on to live, autigy, Autigy 2, etc.). They all worked flawlesly with great sound.
 
I don't know if I need a headphone amp/dac right now because it sounds great but if I upgrade my headphones I may need one. Maybe when I upgrade? I'm looking at upgrading to the Denon D2000 or D5000. Not sure what yet. Maybe the Senn HD650s but not sure about the open ear design on those? 
 
 
 
 
 

 

[NamelessPFG]

 
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But between CMSS-3D and Dolby Headphone I'd easily pick Dolby Headphone for gaming though but I'd only use DH-1 mode (possibly DH-2) with dolby headphone as that one has the least impact on SQ / frequency response.

Hmmm...so you prefer Dolby Headphone as a binaural surround tech, but prefer the Titanium HD's sound quality?
 
I've got an idea-what if you put the Titanium HD's Dolby Digital Live capabilities to use and fed a Dolby Headphone DAC/DSP with it, so you still reap the benefits of the X-Fi DSP for gaming? The Xonar D2 might work for that, but that would likely mean a lot of complicated PC-side configuration. If you had an Astro Mixamp or something similar, this would be a lot easier.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Well Dolby Headphone isn't a "must-have" feature for gaming for me, it may work quite well with some games, it wouldn't hurt to have but I wouldn't pay a lot only to get DH. I think I'll continue using Audigy 2 ZS with kX Audio drivers for now and wait for future products and get the best I can get then when the time comes it'll get a relevant subject again. I'm perfectly happy with kX Audio drivers and the Surrounder+ plugin's surround implementation works quite good, there's like no SQ impact that can be heard and the result in games varies from a bit worse to even slightly better depending on game compared to Titanium HD. Now if only kX Audio drivers would still get that long awaited fix so that WaveHQ output which is new for Vista/Win 7 would work with plugins (I really need the Surrounder+ plugin as well as the EQ and possibly the reverb plugin) as this output device works in 24bit/96kHz and I'm not sure if this bypasses the 48kHz resampling but from a sound quality comparision it certainly sounds like it and have a very noticable sound quality improvement. I'd say when using the current 16bit/48kHz (resamping to 48kHz in foobar2000 unless the files already are) there's still very little audible improvement with Titanium HD even when listening to music since kX Audio drivers adds its nice surround sound to it which adds more satisfaction, it's difficult to say. For me it's only relevant comparing the optimal configured kX Audio driver settings vs optimally configured Titanium HD, I don't care how they sound like in stock vs stock configuration as I wouldn't use it like that. OK well Titanium HD actually would be used pretty much stock with only EQ applied since the rest of the features turned out to be quite useless to me. With kX Audio drivers I have greater soundstage and a slight touch of high quality reverb when listening to music which seems to make me a little more satisfied even if I can hear the Titanium HD if I disable all the processing in kX Audio drivers have a slightly "fullier" / warm sound to it as well as fantastic bass response quality (tight, controlled and certainly not lacking in presence) which is to my liking too but the soundstage / reverb difference is still also at least as satisfying with kX Audio drivers for Audigy 2 ZS and it's pretty much a tie or so. When looking at that I paid 20 EUR or so for the Audigy 2 ZS 2nd hand and bought Titanium HD for 158 EUR the decision which to keep is fairly simple to me.
 
The ASUS D2 didn't stand a chance to these 2 soundcards IMO other than more user-friendly interface (no need to bother with alchemy) but should be said it's also so much dumbed down. It feels like a much lower quality product, there were some weird "ticks" when you fire up your comp coming from the card, the noise floor is very high, it made rather loud pops when switching speaker mode while playing music, bass response quality was quite poor etc. Titanium HD could still use software upgrades but it's a much higher quality product and comparing the price of those two cards makes the Titanium HD very much worth it but it won't beat Audigy 2 ZS with kX Audio drivers in bang-for-the-buck for sure, although I don't think any products out there currently can. But yea you can put me into the Creative fanclub rather than ASUS if I had to make a pick.

 

[Scytus]

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Well Dolby Headphone isn't a "must-have" feature for gaming for me, it may work quite well with some games, it wouldn't hurt to have but I wouldn't pay a lot only to get DH. I think I'll continue using Audigy 2 ZS with kX Audio drivers for now and wait for future products and get the best I can get then when the time comes it'll get a relevant subject again. I'm perfectly happy with kX Audio drivers and the Surrounder+ plugin's surround implementation works quite good, there's like no SQ impact that can be heard and the result in games varies from a bit worse to even slightly better depending on game compared to Titanium HD. Now if only kX Audio drivers would still get that long awaited fix so that WaveHQ output which is new for Vista/Win 7 would work with plugins (I really need the Surrounder+ plugin as well as the EQ and possibly the reverb plugin) as this output device works in 24bit/96kHz and I'm not sure if this bypasses the 48kHz resampling but from a sound quality comparision it certainly sounds like it and have a very noticable sound quality improvement. I'd say when using the current 16bit/48kHz (resamping to 48kHz in foobar2000 unless the files already are) there's still very little audible improvement with Titanium HD even when listening to music since kX Audio drivers adds its nice surround sound to it which adds more satisfaction, it's difficult to say. For me it's only relevant comparing the optimal configured kX Audio driver settings vs optimally configured Titanium HD, I don't care how they sound like in stock vs stock configuration as I wouldn't use it like that. OK well Titanium HD actually would be used pretty much stock with only EQ applied since the rest of the features turned out to be quite useless to me. With kX Audio drivers I have greater soundstage and a slight touch of high quality reverb when listening to music which seems to make me a little more satisfied even if I can hear the Titanium HD if I disable all the processing in kX Audio drivers have a slightly "fullier" / warm sound to it as well as fantastic bass response quality (tight, controlled and certainly not lacking in presence) which is to my liking too but the soundstage / reverb difference is still also at least as satisfying with kX Audio drivers for Audigy 2 ZS and it's pretty much a tie or so. When looking at that I paid 20 EUR or so for the Audigy 2 ZS 2nd hand and bought Titanium HD for 158 EUR the decision which to keep is fairly simple to me.
 
The ASUS D2 didn't stand a chance to these 2 soundcards IMO other than more user-friendly interface (no need to bother with alchemy) but should be said it's also so much dumbed down. It feels like a much lower quality product, there were some weird "ticks" when you fire up your comp coming from the card, the noise floor is very high, it made rather loud pops when switching speaker mode while playing music, bass response quality was quite poor etc. Titanium HD could still use software upgrades but it's a much higher quality product and comparing the price of those two cards makes the Titanium HD very much worth it but it won't beat Audigy 2 ZS with kX Audio drivers in bang-for-the-buck for sure, although I don't think any products out there currently can. But yea you can put me into the Creative fanclub rather than ASUS if I had to make a pick.

So in terms of gaming positional audio, Titanium HD > Asus D2?

 

[Bill1202]

 
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Hmmm...so you prefer Dolby Headphone as a binaural surround tech, but prefer the Titanium HD's sound quality?
 
I've got an idea-what if you put the Titanium HD's Dolby Digital Live capabilities to use and fed a Dolby Headphone DAC/DSP with it, so you still reap the benefits of the X-Fi DSP for gaming? The Xonar D2 might work for that, but that would likely mean a lot of complicated PC-side configuration. If you had an Astro Mixamp or something similar, this would be a lot easier.

I'm a noob to all of this with headphone amps and DACs and trying to figure it all out.  The Titanium has a DAC I think and the sound volume is high and it seems powerful enough and I hear no hiss or distortion at all.  I have no idea what I'm doing and do not understand the benefits of an external amp and DAC with the equipment I have.  I can understand if I were using a laptop or coming right out of an iPod but I have plenty of clear and clean power with a built in DAC on my Titanium...  Please help me understand...  If I place an amp and dac or a combo unit in line will I benefit?  What is a DSP?  Doesn't my sound card have that built in too?
 
 

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

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So in terms of gaming positional audio, Titanium HD > Asus D2?

Don't know, it's quite even if comparing dolby headphone vs Titanium HD with hardware accelerated EAX + openal. It'll depend on game. Dolby Headphone can be used with any game though mind you. But the sound quality is much better on the Titanium HD card though if gaming performance is put aside.
 

 

[Scytus]

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Don't know, it's quite even if comparing dolby headphone vs Titanium HD with hardware accelerated EAX + openal. It'll depend on game. Dolby Headphone can be used with any game though mind you. But the sound quality is much better on the Titanium HD card though if gaming performance is put aside.
 

How does the T HD fare against the DH in the D2 in games without EAX/OpenAL support?
 

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Well it's quite game dependant I'd say. Call of Duty games, Bioshock etc the Titanium HD would still probably win while say Fallout or Elder's Scrolls Oblivion the dolby headphone would probably help more.