Creative Labs shows high-end Sound BlasterX AE-9

Discussion in 'Frontpage news' started by Hilbert Hagedoorn, Dec 11, 2018.

  1. Hilbert Hagedoorn

    Hilbert Hagedoorn Don Vito Corleone Staff Member

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    Good soundcards are a dying breed, most motherboards these days offer an audio solution that is plenty enough for the 99% of end users. However, there are always audiophiles that would like that litt...

    Creative Labs shows high-end Sound BlasterX AE-9
     
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  2. cryohellinc

    cryohellinc Ancient Guru

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    That's sweet. However, as a ZxR user, I wish they would release driver updates more often.
     
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  3. varkkon

    varkkon Member Guru

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    100% this ^^^ , I am in the same boat with my ZxR. I am sick and tired of the DTS Live or the Dolby software that keeps on cutting out after an hour or when ever it chooses to die. Same with recording it just no longer works anymore. I have planned to nuke my comp this month and re install Windows but I should not have to do this all the time because the drivers and software are broken and they never update or work on them.

    The ZxR hardware owns but the drivers and software are not good or rather does not work / is stable. If this card is 100% stable and I get at least 5.1 digital to my amp like the ZxR with all my games and it has all the dope recording and music creating features(as the ZxR) I will get it instantly.

    Been waiting for this new card, I think I am going to have to get the Sound BlasterX AE-9 since I listen to music + my amp all day while I work on game dev(plus my gaming of course). Please be good and stable!

    Is that an HDMI input/output or is that just for the external box? I wonder if this will finally have 7.1 DTS HD Master or Dolby TrueHD, probably too much to ask for since it still has those optical inputs and not HDMIs(must be just like the ZxR).

    Anyways I am pumped for this since I think our ZxR is abandoned.
     
    Last edited: Dec 11, 2018
  4. Chechar51

    Chechar51 Member

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    They still try to sell a product they wont give support for.
    Better stick to a DAC
     
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  5. SetsunaFZero

    SetsunaFZero Active Member

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    My Xfi-Titanium is 10 years old and the last Driver update was in Q1.2017 so whats the prob man?
    I recently replaced all caps on my Xfi-Ti because of aging failure.
     
  6. MK80

    MK80 Active Member

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    Asus sound cards are not received since upgrades since 2017 ... Creative already seems to have received with regularity. I do not understand your negative comment.
     
  7. RavenMaster

    RavenMaster Maha Guru

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    This will be my next sound card if it supports DTS connect / DTS-HD
     
  8. mgilbert

    mgilbert Member

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    A dedicated, external amp/DAC - something like the JDS Element - is a much better option.
     
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  9. 0blivious

    0blivious Ancient Guru

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    I had 2 X-Fi cards (Platinum and Fatal1ty). The absolute worst experiences I've ever had with PC drivers. Creative went years between drivers, and then some of them just plain would not work. Both cards died anyways. My current SoundBlaster Z isn't a whole lot better experience (I got this one for $30 used).

    They sound great when they work and are a complete nightmare when they don't. And they are not cheap.

    Creative can bite me. I will never buy one of their cards again. Not even cheap on the used market. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice....
     
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  10. DARKSF

    DARKSF Active Member

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    So you bought a 3-rd one after the first 2 an yet you scream that you ain't going to take a new one :) Yeah Ok.
    Anyway the only real problem of Creative hardware has always been it's software which after 2-3 days of playing around is always starting to run in some usable condition.This never stopped me from migrating my X-Fi Titanium card on my 3 PC-s i have changed in the past 9 years there is no mobo integrated solution that sounds even remotely close to the X-Fi. And in order for your CAPs not to die just keep the audio card at the bottom slot not on the one above the GPU where it will be baked by the GPU , CPU and PVMs it is not hard to guess that tip given the fact where the mobo manufacturers are placing their audio components.
     

  11. KBDE

    KBDE Master Guru

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    I'm still hoping AMD, Nvidia and Intel get's their sh*t together and make the HDMI outputs actually usuable as a multi-channel audio output (by adding a dummy video signal). Right now you're either looping it through the amplifier or having windows clone or extend the desktop with all it's issues that come with it. Is there a technical reason this hasn' t been implemented yet?
     
  12. rl66

    rl66 Ancient Guru

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    The problem with Creative is not too "how often" but "will it work as it is intended for"...
    Asus don't care the same way about their audio driver but it work fine with any program used in most case, while with creative labs and their proprietary you get an expensive Soundcard that sound the same as your motherboard (sometime even worse) despite all the technology.

    Since the AE there is no more quality fail on the board like in the 3D series. This is a good point and they have RGB led (i won't comment if it is good or bad point :) ).

    For a home use definitively yes.

    For home cinema use most amp take the sound from the PC (optical, analog line out, HDMI etc...) and clean it up, tune it up... For my HTPC i get a pretty good result too.

    And for really Audio purist there is over expensive solution that reach what they expect, like double mono lamp amp, with expensive DAC gold soldered everywhere for helmet only :) as an exemple...
     
  13. rl66

    rl66 Ancient Guru

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    No problem at all here with 7.1 ???
    Have you checked the Amp too?
     
  14. Fergutor

    Fergutor Member Guru

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    Always...inevitable...the exact same, always….

    Given that resons and facts of why that's not the case (at least for certain people) have been explained many times, those comments deserve a somewhat proportional answer:

    no
    .
     
  15. spectatorx

    spectatorx Guest

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    Since i purchased creative titanium years ago i've never heard integrated audio card coming any close to quality of that fairly cheap sound card and i am not audiophile at all but this card made me to know what good sound is. This what integrated sound cards offer is horrible and i could not use them at all, i would prefer to stay without sound for some time until i purchase new decent sound card.

    About creative's drivers... i've never had any problem with them so i'm confused what people are talking about. The only real sound problem i've ever had was on windows 1803 and it was caused by 1803, not drivers as it was present only with this build of windows 10 and not any build before or after this one. Of course i'm not counting creative drivers not working on beta releases of windows as, you know, beta releases but even in these cases they were working fine most of the time.
     

  16. José Fernandes

    José Fernandes Guest

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    "Good soundcards are a dying breed....."
    Yes they are, but blame the brands for stopping supporting their own products.
     
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  17. Fergutor

    Fergutor Member Guru

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    Onboard Realtek audio on motherboards that are not gaming top high-end absolutely sucks and is still the minimum and worst possible sound solution one can have fo a PC and I don't think it's enough for anyone with normal hearing, appreciation for some quality and awareness of how audio should sound (for example I know just too many people listen surround sound movies and other sources on stereo speakers without any processing to convert surround to stereo front speakers and think that's totally fine and right and correct, that's a good example of absloute unawareness and lack of any sense). Funny thing, especially for those bitching about Creative software, one way to improve the shitty onboard Realtek is with…Creative software. Even Gigabyte sells their high end motherboard with ALC1220 with "support for Sound BlasterX 720º".
     
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  18. Fergutor

    Fergutor Member Guru

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    You can make music with any audio device that works regardless of its quality (the quality you end up is the quality of the soft, the sources, the plugins, etc, not the output quality of the soundcard), so that's an invalid argument. I did music over an old ADI AD2000B that sounds like absolute crap, and that didn't promoted that absolute crappy sound to good sound because of making music with it, just as it didn't made it any usefull for games, movies or anything else.
    If we are talking about output sound quality and sound features we mean that, not what you do with that sound quality.
     
    Last edited: Dec 11, 2018
  19. tunejunky

    tunejunky Ancient Guru

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    in a perfect world, the shortest (length) circuit is always the best.
    with D/A and A/D conversion, it's still true but can be improved by removing the signal from a noisy environment (circuit boards are noisy by nature and the power regulation itself can introduce noise on the mobo).
    there's a better case to be made for an add-on card than integrated sound. but even so the mobo has come from the point where the sound card was a necessity to a luxury.
    but especially because there's a break-out box for this, this product is unnecessarily bulky and expensive, requiring at least a mATX case.
    for less money you can honestly get better or as good quality by an outboard DAC/ headphone amp.
     
  20. slyphnier

    slyphnier Guest

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    now days especially premium-mobo have soundcard as good as stand-alone-soundcard
    lets just get one example, asus ROG zenith (https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/ROG-ZENITH-EXTREME/specifications/)
    is using ESS®SABRE9018Q2C DAC/AMP
    so similar DAC compared to the new creative AE-9 that using ES9016

    http://www.esstech.com/index.php?cID=359 -> ES9016 being said ultra-model that seems better than reference ES9018, so probably creative DAC version is better, but i bet for most people they wont find the difference between 2 dac

    edit: after look on page, i found out that ES9018 and SABRE9018Q2C is kinda difference (http://www.esstech.com/index.php/en...bre-hifi-stereo-integrated-dacs/sabre9018q2c/)
    Its more for headphone rather than speaker-system... but sound-quality wise i believe it should similar

    so kinda wonder for people thinking inboard soundcard the quality still like10years back or more, most probably bought low-end mobo, because afaik even mid-level mobo also got good soundcard


    for creative like many people saying, their product actually good
    but their driver/software is bad... well i can say much for current situation
    my last time using creative soundcard is back on windows7, and its driver causing random BSOD, until i install custom/modded driver which stop making BSOD
    since then i replace it with asus xonar then latest build i just using onboard
     
    Last edited: Dec 11, 2018

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