[spike33]

Amp: M^3
Headphone: Sennheiser hd595

I've had the waveterminal u24 usb for past few months and have been very pleased with the sound. I'd describe it as warm, smooth, deep bass, and upfront. I recently bought a desktop so wanted to get an internal to save space. I was intrigued when several people said x-fi was better than emu0404, revo, audiophile, etc.. I bought x-fi xtrememusic yesterday and got it all setup using asio on foobar. Pressed play... WOW! THIS SUX! Then realized it had all those weird 'enhancements' on by default. Turned them all off... much better. Nice tight bass and airy huge soundstage, but too laid back and piercingly bright, especially in upper mids. I switched over to the u24 and whoa! Monster bass, lush mids, highs with just enough sparkle. X-fi is just not well balanced, play it normally, its too distant and boring... turn it up and ear starts to bleed. I will give it a few more days and see if anything changes.

Any other x-fi'ers got any tips to make it sound better?

 

[tofu]

i was under the impression that the cheaper x-fi basically uses the same components as an audigy2zs, except it doesn't have that terrible resampling issue this time around.

can you confirm this?

 

[johto]

Thats what i remember reading too. Only the elite version seems to have those better DAC's...

 

[happybpc]

lol. quote "Wow...this sucks..." it just seems funny how you say it.
Anyway, can you clarify and go in more detail what you think of X-Fi? I heard it sounds great but needs some tweaking. Owners of X-Fi please comment on what you think of the card

 

[spike33]

I'll be returning the x-fi later today. There is a sharp peak somewhere in the frequencies that makes my ears feel like being stabbed with a needle.

Pros:
-Good for gaming and movies
-Airy soundstage
-Fast attack, nice space between notes
-Tight bass

Cons:
-Too polite, laidback
-Too bright
-Alot of useless software
-Very unbalanced in frequencies, peaks in midbass, upper mids, and highs

I'll be looking at emu 0404 and esi juli@ next. I've heard there are spikes in 0404 frequencies. Maybe I'll go with juli@ and stick with esi house sound (u24 is made by esi). I also really like esi's unbloated drivers.

 

[johto]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spike33 I'll be looking at emu 0404 and esi juli@ next. I've heard there are spikes in 0404 frequencies. Maybe I'll go with juli@ and stick with esi house sound (u24 is made by esi). I also really like esi's unbloated drivers.

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