[Find the Door]

I've also tried the HD800S out of the X7 and it was OK. Honestly with the EQ feature I never felt like much was missing if I wanted to change the sound.

There is definitely an upgrade when you add a better amp; both my iFi Black Label and iCAN SE provided decent additional depth to the sound. "Loudness" is never an issue, I did feel like these two amps provided a little more detail, and "oomph." I don't know how else to describe it other than there just felt like there was more there. (I think this is why I don't do audio reviews.) This is without using the 3D or Xbass (Xbass is good though, I use it with the HD800S.)

But, it was not world changing for me personally; the X7 is no slouch in the DAC and amp department, honestly, especially given it has a good EQ feature.

I currently use 100 surround (SBX on), no crystalizer, no bass, flat EQ, full Dolby dynamic range.

On the PS4 do you use Dolby Digital 5.1? In a game like Battlefield for example what should you use? Headphones or home theater?

 

[illram]

On the PS4 do you use Dolby Digital 5.1? In a game like Battlefield for example what should you use? Headphones or home theater?

I have an Xbox but for PS4 it is the same: if you have SBX engaged, you must turn on Dolby Digital.

If a game has its own in game headphone surround options, uch as Battlefield, or Overwatch which has atmos, or Counterstrike which has its own heapdhone surround mix I believe, then it just depends on which sounds better to you. If you used the game's virtual surround you would turn off Dolby and SBX and just use the game's audio settings.

But, this is very subjective. You have to listen to both and basically see which presents better directional cues.

But for all other games where they do not have their own virtual surround mix, use dolby.

 

[DCB305]

FYI - Massdrop has Burson SS V5i Op Amps (link). They are $40.00 for a matched pair of singles and $45.00 for a matched pair of duals. So for $85.00 you can upgrade your X7!

 

[silverthornne]

FYI - Massdrop has Burson SS V5i Op Amps (link). They are $40.00 for a matched pair of singles and $45.00 for a matched pair of duals. So for $85.00 you can upgrade your X7!

Thanks for posting this, since I went to the drop to ask if they would work with an X7. So I should buy the matched pair of duals and a single? Where do I replace them? Total n00b to op-amps, but not a n00b with soldering and electronics so I am unlikely to ruin my X7 if I just know where to place the op-amps.

 

[Find the Door]

Thanks for posting this, since I went to the drop to ask if they would work with an X7. So I should buy the matched pair of duals and a single? Where do I replace them? Total n00b to op-amps, but not a n00b with soldering and electronics so I am unlikely to ruin my X7 if I just know where to place the op-amps.

You need to get a pair of singles and duals.

Its worthy of note that Sparkos OP amps are considered to be the best replacements. Also that typically when you installed the duals you can't really utilize your bottom cover.

I noticed a huge difference in sound separation (imaging) when I installed my Sparkos replacements.

I'd recommend that you reach out to Sparkos on Facebook and speak directly to the guy. He'll typically be accommodating with better rates and prices.

Best of luck

 

[DCB305]

Thanks for posting this, since I went to the drop to ask if they would work with an X7. So I should buy the matched pair of duals and a single? Where do I replace them? Total n00b to op-amps, but not a n00b with soldering and electronics so I am unlikely to ruin my X7 if I just know where to place the op-amps.

here's a link to another thread here on Head-Fi that has some information that should help you (Link).

Also, no soldering needed...it's as easy and straight forward a swap you will do! Here's a link that will show you where the access panel on the X7 is (X7 op-amp access)

You will need matched singles and matched dual $85.00 total for a complete swap.

As "Find the Door" mentioned the Sparkos op amps are considered superior to these, but, for me, they are just too expensive for me to take the plunge. Now if I could get the Sparkos for the same price, or even a little more, as these Burson's I would get the Sparkos! Just not willing to spend double. Geez my pockets hurt this time of year!

Find the Door - should I contact Sparkos directly?

 

[illram]

Just got an update that I'll be getting my Super X-Fi tomorrow, if Fed-Ex keeps their delivery date. So that's mildly exciting news. I'll post my impressions when it arrives and I have some time. Hopefully anyone else who ordered day 1 also got the same email!

 

[Find the Door]

Find the Door - should I contact Sparkos directly?

I would recommend it - I had an issue with a shipment and he sent me replacements no questions asked.

Very nice gentlemen

 

[Yethal]

As an owner of both v5i and Sparkos, get Sparkos. Price difference is totally worth it. Also mr Andrew Sparks is a headfier and does sometimes post in the X7 thread.

 

[silverthornne]

As an owner of both v5i and Sparkos, get Sparkos. Price difference is totally worth it. Also mr Andrew Sparks is a headfier and does sometimes post in the X7 thread.

You guys make a wonderful case in favor of Sparkos, so I have chosen to take that route. Just gonna take a while to read the relevant threads before taking the plunge. I abhor Facebook, so I doubt I will go the route of contacting them via that platform...

 

[DCB305]

As an owner of both v5i and Sparkos, get Sparkos. Price difference is totally worth it. Also mr Andrew Sparks is a headfier and does sometimes post in the X7 thread.

I checked Sparkos website and i've heard nothing but good things about him and his products, but $240.00 to replace the X7 op amps with Sparkos is a bit steep for me.

In addition I wouldn't/ couldn't ask him to discount his products for me. If they were $120.00 or $140.00 for the full set I would definitely go ahead and order the Sparkos no question.

As it stands, for $85.00 all in, I will settle for the Burson upgrade.

Thanks!

 

[Yethal]

I checked Sparkos website and i've heard nothing but good things about him and his products, but $240.00 to replace the X7 op amps with Sparkos is a bit steep for me.

In addition I wouldn't/ couldn't ask him to discount his products for me. If they were $120.00 or $140.00 for the full set I would definitely go ahead and order the Sparkos no question.

As it stands, for $85.00 all in, I will settle for the Burson upgrade.

Thanks!

You don't have to order both pairs at the same time. When I ordered mine I first ordered singles only and bought the doubles a couple of months later.

 

[tmaxx123]

You need to get a pair of singles and duals.

Its worthy of note that Sparkos OP amps are considered to be the best replacements. Also that typically when you installed the duals you can't really utilize your bottom cover.

I noticed a huge difference in sound separation (imaging) when I installed my Sparkos replacements.

I'd recommend that you reach out to Sparkos on Facebook and speak directly to the guy. He'll typically be accommodating with better rates and prices.

Best of luck

^this
I’d go with the sparkos, if you want the absolute best. Can’t recommend them enough. I got mine from his eBay store last year after messaging back and forth with the owner for a bit. Helpful guy, solid product.

 

[illram]

I gave the Super X-Fi a whirl tonight. A few not-so-brief observations:

• It is very small. About the size of a small cigarette. This is not going to be an issue sticking out of your phone.

• Setup was surprisingly easy (unless you have an iPhone. I don't think they have an iPhone app yet). Whoever Creative put on their app team for this did a good job; I have been less than impressed with numerous Creative software applications but this was well done. You take a picture of your right ear, your left ear, and your face, and select your headphones, and you are off to the races. The headphone selection is currently limited but there are a number of popular ones there; e.g. AKG K701's, DT880 and DT990's, all of Creative's headphones, Sennheiser 598 and 800, and others. There is also a generic option.

• In typical Creative head-scratching marketing-fashion, they push you into perhaps the least likely avenue that the 3D holographic effect is really going to be worth it: Music on your phone. I enjoy listening to normal, stereo sound for music on my headphones. If you want a realistic creation of two stereo speakers in a room for music on your headphones, this will definitely synthesize that for you, but I feel like you lose some audio fidelity with that. Also I was getting 10 seconds of weird audio static in everything I listened to around the beginning of every video. It would go away but it was annoying and seemed to be an issue with the Android USB audio as it happened on every app.

• And as far as finding surround content an Android phone, this is hit or miss; I had trouble finding 5.1 or 7.1 audio content on Netflix on android, for example, where I could confirm I was getting a surround feed. Multi-channel test .wav files on Chrome browser would crash. Youtube is always a bad idea for surround tests as I don't believe Youtube passes accurate channel information. BUT, even in stereo sound only, you get a very very realistic "out of your head" effect with this device. I would characterize it more as a room speaker simulation than a virtual surround sound, if that makes any sense. Sort of like the Realiser A16. I first tried it with the free Aurvana SE headphones they gave me for ordering day 1, and it was very noticeable and realistic. More so than almost any other VSS DSP I have tried thus far.

• But, forget your phone. The real use for this in my opinion is surround virtualization for movies and games. This is where the device can really show itself off as I explain below.

• To really put it through its paces, I tried it on Windows with 7.1 enabled. You can select 7.1 channels with this as a USB soundcard! Awesome. I fired up some bots in Black Ops 3. I tried it with the Aurvana SE, Audioquest Nighthawks, and Sennheiser HD800S. (The Nighthawks were the closest 3.5mm headphones I had lying around other than the Aurvana's, and I wanted to try something not on their list.) With the Aurvana's and the Nighthawks, there was definitely directionality, and as I said the 3D out of your head sound was very convincing. For closed headphones the Aurvana's did well, which is a testament to the DSP I would say more than the cans. The Nighthawks opened things up quite a bit and improved directionality even though I did not even set the app to "generic." But when I tried the HD800 (which is included in the app)..... WOW. It was incredible. Directionality was very, very convincing. Rear cues were super accurate--this was the best thing I have heard since the Out of Your Head preset and was better as far as audio fidelity. I don't know if this was because the app has a preset for the HD800 (I have an HD800S but whatever) or because the HD800S are just amazing imaging cans with a superb stage, or some combo thereof. But it was incredible and I highly, highly recommend you try this if you like DSP's for virtual surround in video games. And it got them plenty loud! It is cheaper than almost all the other options out there too.

• I cannot really speak to how good this is for just music listening yet. As I said there was a little hitch in the audio on Android that would be a deal breaker for me if I could not figure it out, but I don't really plan on using these on my phone much anyway so I don't care, really. In my hour or so of testing though, I did not really notice anything sounding "bad." The 3D holographic effect is not overly "reverby," similar to the good non-reverby quality of SBX. I would say it sounded just as good, audio quality wise, than my X7 connected to an iFi Black Label. Sounds were crisp, bass was fine, there was no distortion I could hear, there was no hiss at all and they were completely silent when nothing was playing. But as I said, this sounds more like you are surrounded by speakers in a room than a headphone simulating a game's surround field. It is just different, but I like the effect. It is very good for pinpointing directional cues.

Also, this has a mic, so no need for a mic input.

 

[Got the Shakes]

I gave the Super X-Fi a whirl tonight. A few not-so-brief observations:

• It is very small. About the size of a small cigarette. This is not going to be an issue sticking out of your phone.

• Setup was surprisingly easy (unless you have an iPhone. I don't think they have an iPhone app yet). Whoever Creative put on their app team for this did a good job; I have been less than impressed with numerous Creative software applications but this was well done. You take a picture of your right ear, your left ear, and your face, and select your headphones, and you are off to the races. The headphone selection is currently limited but there are a number of popular ones there; e.g. AKG K701's, DT880 and DT990's, all of Creative's headphones, Sennheiser 598 and 800, and others. There is also a generic option.

• In typical Creative head-scratching marketing-fashion, they push you into perhaps the least likely avenue that the 3D holographic effect is really going to be worth it: Music on your phone. I enjoy listening to normal, stereo sound for music on my headphones. If you want a realistic creation of two stereo speakers in a room for music on your headphones, this will definitely synthesize that for you, but I feel like you lose some audio fidelity with that. Also I was getting 10 seconds of weird audio static in everything I listened to around the beginning of every video. It would go away but it was annoying and seemed to be an issue with the Android USB audio as it happened on every app.

• And as far as finding surround content an Android phone, this is hit or miss; I had trouble finding 5.1 or 7.1 audio content on Netflix on android, for example, where I could confirm I was getting a surround feed. Multi-channel test .wav files on Chrome browser would crash. Youtube is always a bad idea for surround tests as I don't believe Youtube passes accurate channel information. BUT, even in stereo sound only, you get a very very realistic "out of your head" effect with this device. I would characterize it more as a room speaker simulation than a virtual surround sound, if that makes any sense. Sort of like the Realiser A16. I first tried it with the free Aurvana SE headphones they gave me for ordering day 1, and it was very noticeable and realistic. More so than almost any other VSS DSP I have tried thus far.

• But, forget your phone. The real use for this in my opinion is surround virtualization for movies and games. This is where the device can really show itself off as I explain below.

• To really put it through its paces, I tried it on Windows with 7.1 enabled. You can select 7.1 channels with this as a USB soundcard! Awesome. I fired up some bots in Black Ops 3. I tried it with the Aurvana SE, Audioquest Nighthawks, and Sennheiser HD800S. (The Nighthawks were the closest 3.5mm headphones I had lying around other than the Aurvana's, and I wanted to try something not on their list.) With the Aurvana's and the Nighthawks, there was definitely directionality, and as I said the 3D out of your head sound was very convincing. For closed headphones the Aurvana's did well, which is a testament to the DSP I would say more than the cans. The Nighthawks opened things up quite a bit and improved directionality even though I did not even set the app to "generic." But when I tried the HD800 (which is included in the app)..... WOW. It was incredible. Directionality was very, very convincing. Rear cues were super accurate--this was the best thing I have heard since the Out of Your Head preset and was better as far as audio fidelity. I don't know if this was because the app has a preset for the HD800 (I have an HD800S but whatever) or because the HD800S are just amazing imaging cans with a superb stage, or some combo thereof. But it was incredible and I highly, highly recommend you try this if you like DSP's for virtual surround in video games. And it got them plenty loud! It is cheaper than almost all the other options out there too.

• I cannot really speak to how good this is for just music listening yet. As I said there was a little hitch in the audio on Android that would be a deal breaker for me if I could not figure it out, but I don't really plan on using these on my phone much anyway so I don't care, really. In my hour or so of testing though, I did not really notice anything sounding "bad." The 3D holographic effect is not overly "reverby," similar to the good non-reverby quality of SBX. I would say it sounded just as good, audio quality wise, than my X7 connected to an iFi Black Label. Sounds were crisp, bass was fine, there was no distortion I could hear, there was no hiss at all and they were completely silent when nothing was playing. But as I said, this sounds more like you are surrounded by speakers in a room than a headphone simulating a game's surround field. It is just different, but I like the effect. It is very good for pinpointing directional cues.

Also, this has a mic, so no need for a mic input.

I’d be all over this if they had an iOS app for configuration if for nothing else but watching movies on my laptop and trying to make the wait for the Realiser A16 a little easier. He’ll give me an updated G6 with this technology and double the price and I’d bite since what I’d really want to use it for would be console gaming.