[Razoramus]

is x-fi audiophile quality or is it better to get a m-audio revo 5.1 or audiophile card? i know only the elite pro version of x-fi has better opamps and dacs than the audigy2 cards, how is the x-fi compared to the E-MU 0404 since the 0404 uses the same chip as the Audigy2? i am talking about pure sound quality, not features or channels

 

[Sycraft]

Depends on what you mean by "audiophile quality". Is the X-Fi good? Yes, best card I've ever owned in general. I dumped an Audigy 2 and Firewire 410 and replaced them both with an X-Fi. I think it sounds better than the 0404 personally.

That the 0404 has an Audigy 2 chip isn't really relivant, that's just the DSP on it. The cards have different DACs and opamps, and work differently. The Audigy 2 resamples everything to 48kHz and doesn't do a teriffic job of it, the 0404 doesn't. The X-Fi does resample eveything in two of it's modes, but does a wonderful job of it, and doesn't resample in Audio Creation mode.

I think for reproduction of sound for pleasure the X-Fi blows away pro cards because of it's CMMS feature. It does a stellar job of upmixing stereo sources to a surround system, much better than Prologic II. Likewise it does a hell of a job doing HRTF for headphones, much better than the Audigy 2.

 

[Hallucinoid]

From what i read, 0404 is better (for analog output).

I have x-fi and never listen to 0404.
However x-fi is my choice because I want 3Dsound for gaming.

 

[Razoramus]

Thanks for replying guys. I read that except for the elite pro version of x-fi, it isn't much better than audigy2 because they use the same opamps and dacs, the 0404 although uses the same chip as the audigy2 it also uses better dacs although no amp but sounds better for music than the x-fi non-elite pro versions. I don't buy into features, I want to know about pure sound quality. If it's just for sound quality and music (features aside) in 2 channel, how does x-fi compare to the revo 5.1 and 0404?

 

[Sycraft]

I don't know if it uses the same opamps and DACs, I haven't looked, however it does do a better job processing. Most people's complains about the Audigy's aren't related to DACs, it's the DSP that's the problem. Like I said, all sound is resampled to 48kHz, so if you play a CD it gets resampled. Well that resampling isn't great, it's not bad, but it's not great, it introduces an aliasing reflection that degrades sound.

The X-Fi, regardless of the make, fixes that problem. In Games and Entertainment mode does resample all sound, but does so using an extremely high quality algorithm that adds basically no distortion (resampling doesn't have to degrade sound quality, it just does if it's bad). Also it has a new Audio Creation mode where it doesn't do resampling.

Thus the major problem with Audigy 2 sound quality has been fixed.

I haven't done any blind side-by-side comparisons of the cards you want in 2-channel mode so I can't help you, but I can say that the X-Fi sounds very good in 2-channel mode.