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Topic: Creative Xtreme Fidelity? (Read 7365 times) previous topic - next topic
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Creative Xtreme Fidelity?

Well, do some of you audiophiles think it's a load of garbage? Or do you think the crystallizer is actually something worth looking at?

This article has made me less skeptical:

http://www.cooltechzone.com/index.php?opti...=1&limitstart=0

Then again, KXDriver DSPs make me quite happy, regardless of the fact that I notice generally less power in the lower mids, and less of a "snap" on snare drum hits when compared to OEM audigy2 drivers.
I've never really listened to other soundcards either.

Creative Xtreme Fidelity?

Reply #1 –
Theres been a few threads on this.  Use the search.

Though the reviews I saw claimed the crystalizer was just an EQ or some other crap labeled differently.

Creative Xtreme Fidelity?

Reply #2 –
The 'Crystalizer' is a 24Bit-Upsampler which is combined with a Dynamics Expander and an Exciter ... it might be possible to enhance your personal way of listening to music that way.

On the other hand, my guess is that audiophiles will regard this as some kind of 'satanic work' and leave it turned off ...
The name was Plex The Ripper, not Jack The Ripper

Creative Xtreme Fidelity?

Reply #3 –
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Theres been a few threads on this.  Use the search.

Though the reviews I saw claimed the crystalizer was just an EQ or some other crap labeled differently.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=329849"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


I have seen those posts. It appears that audiophiles are hating it, but I wonder on what basis are they hating it. It hasn't even been released to the public, so there's no way they have heard it before.

My main reason for posting this is the introduction of that article, which presents some interesting facts about the crystalizer.

Sometimes I just think a lot of audiophiles are trying to justify the insane costs of their equipment.
I'm a pianist myself, and tonal quality is something I am obsessed with, but when it comes to listening to recordings, I'm satisfied with what algorithms can give me.

Nobody can simulate real life, and I have never heard a recording where if I close my eyes, I can imagine I am there. I've never heard a $60,000 setup, but DSPs bring me as close to real life as I have ever been.

Creative Xtreme Fidelity?

Reply #4 –
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I have seen those posts. It appears that audiophiles are hating it, but I wonder on what basis are they hating it. It hasn't even been released to the public, so there's no way they have heard it before.

My main reason for posting this is the introduction of that article, which presents some interesting facts about the crystalizer.
What specifically did you find interesting? Whoever wrote that article hadn't heard the thing either, as several sentences near the end made clear. It seemed like a fluff piece to me. To be sure, the XFi has an impressive amount of hardware power backing it up, but quality is all about how you use it. Some parts, like the ability to do FFTs on the chip, are interesting and exciting. But IMHO the only real place to use that kind of muscle is in 3d audio simulation.

Honestly, what I found most interesting about the article is how he totally conflates the bitrates of compressed audio and pcm audio. The 128 kbps and 192 kbps that winamp displays has nothing to do with 16 bit and 24 bit pcm audio. The whole last half of page two is very confused and mostly wrong.

Also, that article was about the chip as a whole. The "Crystallizer" is not a actual piece of hardware, but rather a DSP mode that applies some effects.

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Sometimes I just think a lot of audiophiles are trying to justify the insane costs of their equipment.
Wrong. The most recommended sound cards here on HA are Envy based cards. They are all much cheaper than the announced price of even the least expensive XFi model. Most are cheaper than the old Audigy 2. In fact, the Chaintech AV710, frequently pointed to as a good card for those who will mainly be using 2 channel modes or digital output, is one of the cheapest cards on the market.

Quote
I'm a pianist myself, and tonal quality is something I am obsessed with, but when it comes to listening to recordings, I'm satisfied with what algorithms can give me.

Nobody can simulate real life, and I have never heard a recording where if I close my eyes, I can imagine I am there. I've never heard a $60,000 setup, but DSPs bring me as close to real life as I have ever been.
That's a matter of preference. Some people like processing and effects on their audio, because they feel it sounds more like live playing. Some prefer to have the audio as cleanly and transparently as possible from the cd or whatever source. There are "audiophiles" of both types.

I personally prefer the second method. I even take it a step further, I don't much like live style albums, at least for rock music. If I want to experience live music, I go out and see real live music.

Creative Xtreme Fidelity?

Reply #5 –
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I have seen those posts. It appears that audiophiles are hating it, but I wonder on what basis are they hating it. It hasn't even been released to the public, so there's no way they have heard it before.[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=329858"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


False ... the german computer magazine 'ct reviewed 3 models of the new X-Fi series and were impressed by its performance. I added a thread on that topic in the hardware section.

They also stated that the 'Crystalizer' does indeed sound good ... basically, it looks for transients in given frequency bands and adds certain harmonics ... so e.g. the kick of a bassdrum can become more 'pronounced' and more intense.

In my opinion, audiophiles really 'hate' the fact that the original signal is altered and they do also hate the fact that Creative's marketing department always claims to open pandora's audio box by releasing plain BS press statements ... and most audiophiles (not all) share the view that you cannot make an original recording any better by adding calculated harmonics ... a studio sound engineer might show a different point of view on that specific topic, though.

It is all a matter of personal taste ... the Crystalizer can be disabled and leaves a sound card that is equipped with good ADC's/DAC's, shows low ASIO latencies and high SNR's and offers bit-true recording (for creative, it is the first time btw) ... all 'n' all, the X-Fi is a decent, but somewhat overpriced (if you are not interested in the gaming features and the 64 MB of RAM) sound card ... but prices will soon drop.
The name was Plex The Ripper, not Jack The Ripper

Creative Xtreme Fidelity?

Reply #6 –
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That's a matter of preference. Some people like processing and effects on their audio, because they feel it sounds more like live playing. Some prefer to have the audio as cleanly and transparently as possible from the cd or whatever source. There are "audiophiles" of both types.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=329959"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

The real fact is, all the music we listened has been gone through mixing and editing, how close is it to original recording?
Break The Rules!!!

Creative Xtreme Fidelity?

Reply #7 –
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Wrong. The most recommended sound cards here on HA are Envy based cards. They are all much cheaper than the announced price of even the least expensive XFi model. Most are cheaper than the old Audigy 2. In fact, the Chaintech AV710, frequently pointed to as a good card for those who will mainly be using 2 channel modes or digital output, is one of the cheapest cards on the market.


Here we go again another topic pertaining to the 16 threads reguarding this one that are out there , nor will I ever add Creative cards to the list of audio hardware in the wiki, with exception of E-MU.


Quote
They also stated that the 'Crystalizer' does indeed sound good ... basically, it looks for transients in given frequency bands and adds certain harmonics ... so e.g. the kick of a bassdrum can become more 'pronounced' and more intense.


How exactly is this done on a technical level I am interested? It add's harmonic overtones into the signal? I have heard of something similiar to this, but it's really only beneficial subwoofer/bass type applications.  If I wanted a kick snare to be more pronounced I would use a compressor.




Quote
It is all a matter of personal taste ... the Crystalizer can be disabled and leaves a sound card that is equipped with good ADC's/DAC's, shows low ASIO latencies and high SNR's and offers bit-true recording (for creative, it is the first time btw) ... all 'n' all, the X-Fi is a decent, but somewhat overpriced (if you are not interested in the gaming features and the 64 MB of RAM) sound card ... but prices will soon drop.


Yeah excuse me foul language, but it only took Creative how many years to get on the fucking ball? (change the audio card section in Best Buy to Shit Blaster Galore with their consumer retail dominance) a few other companies beat them to the punch in terms of music production and that's that.  The 64MB of RAM I did find useful in some instances though, despite the fact they are probably using it to take the burden of CPU or GPU. I wonder who they will be sueing next? 

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Nobody can simulate real life, and I have never heard a recording where if I close my eyes, I can imagine I am there. I've never heard a $60,000 setup, but DSPs bring me as close to real life as I have ever been.


This what I don't get about people? They want use Wavetable Synthesizers to produce some extremely realistic timbre's yet they still complain it's "not as good as the real thing" make up your goddamn mind. I like a combination of DSP sofware/hardware and studio acoustics including recording real instruments.  An excellent recording to me from aesthetic point of view makes good use of panning and reverberation, I tend to prefer ambient miking something that they used a lot of in 80's recordings.  Dynamic range is also a very important factor. Orchestral scores are my favorite though. It might have something to do with the nature of soundstage or use of a deca-tree recording technique.
budding I.T professional

Creative Xtreme Fidelity?

Reply #8 –
hy all.
please tell me, does creative X-Fi support pci express x 1 or no?
thanx

Creative Xtreme Fidelity?

Reply #9 –
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hy all.
please tell me, does creative X-Fi support pci express x 1 or no?
thanx
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=330434"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


As far as I know, the X-Fi series is (currently) available as PCI only
The name was Plex The Ripper, not Jack The Ripper

Creative Xtreme Fidelity?

Reply #10 –
Quote
Quote
hy all.
please tell me, does creative X-Fi support pci express x 1 or no?
thanx
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=330434"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


As far as I know, the X-Fi series is (currently) available as PCI only
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=330445"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


From Guru3d:

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Steve Erickson, vice president for Creative's audio products was kind enough to answer this particular question specifically, here's his take:

    "As far as PCI Express (PCIe) is concerned, which is the next bus, what we found is that the performance of PCIe is truly bad for audio. We are seeing four times degradation on the bus for audio.

    PCIe is designed for graphics and high data transfer, but audio sends very small packets and the overhead can be very big! Moving the data across PCIe is much, much higher than PCI. So what we have to do is go back to the drawing board and work on the transport part of the chip and re-design it to add more silicon to overcome some of the problems we had with PCIe. So for us to come up with a PCIe solution is going to take a while because we have to overcome the problems we're facing with that bus."

Creative Xtreme Fidelity?

Reply #11 –
Quote
Quote
PCIe is designed for graphics and high data transfer, but audio sends very small packets and the overhead can be very big! Moving the data across PCIe is much, much higher than PCI.

[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=330452"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

It is going to be very interesting to see how designers of devices like sound cards, USB controllers and ethernet controllers overcome the challenges of PCIe. PCIe is very efficient for large, single directional transfers between the host and slave devices. This makes it ideal for graphics cards and, to a lesser extent, mass storage controllers. However, PCIe is extremely inefficient when the direction of the data flowing changes regularly or when small transfers are used. A sound card which, to ensure low latency, only transfers small amounts of data at a time and requires control packets to be returned regularly will make extremely inefficient use of the PCIe bus.

There are, of course, clever ways to overcome this problem - like judicious use of read and write combining. These are similar problems to the ones faced by designers of real-time protocols which need to run on packet based networks, so there is a lot of research going on into this area currently. PCIe is very much like a point-to-point half duplex ethernet, from the point of view of application layer protocols.

I expect that the first generation of PCIe sound cards (from all manufacturers) will suck and would steer clear of buying a PCIe sound card until they are a few generations old.

Creative Xtreme Fidelity?

Reply #12 –
Hmmm...bad news.
I have a Asus P5GD1Pro and i have only 3 pci. And 2 Pcix 1. So i tought i could buy one pcix soundcard for saving a normal pci. But it seems i have to wait.
Right now i have a BIG problem with my Audigy1 LS. It makes a "pac" everytime i push the play button. I have changed the drivers, the slots, but nothing. I have buyed my sb at the same time with two other friends. All 3 sb are making the same problem. maybe i should send the SB back to warranty.
I have asked the guys from Creative about this problem but...they are telling me to do what i have already done.
Anyway, thank you all for your answers. It seems i have to wait.
Have a nice weekend
Iulian

Creative Xtreme Fidelity?

Reply #13 –
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How exactly is this done on a technical level I am interested? It add's harmonic overtones into the signal? I have heard of something similiar to this, but it's really only beneficial subwoofer/bass type applications.  If I wanted a kick snare to be more pronounced I would use a compressor.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=330269"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

It basically is a compressor. I've got an X-fi at home, and to me the effect sounds more or less like the multi-band compressors used on radio stations. Perhaps a touch more intelligent, but the overall effect is a bit similar. I guess it can sound "good" to some people, but I would leave it turned off permanently. It's not like modern recordings need extra compression...