Creative at CES 2007 announced their new X-Fi wireless docking products. Basically you can dock your ipod or Creative Zen:M players into the dock and stream your music to your Hi-fi system. Thats all fine and dandy. However they are claiming the sound from your mp3 files will be "greater" than CD quality with the Crystilization function. I Wish creative would stop lying to consumers.
Here is a video of the Creative representative pitching the new product:
Creative CES 2007
Full Version: Creatives Outrageous claim at CES 2007...
It depends how you define "greater". If you mean more accurate to the original CD then clearly this is false. If you mean that people will like the sound better than the original CD then that is open to debate.
QUOTE (pdq @ Jan 16 2007, 11:08) 
It depends how you define "greater". If you mean more accurate to the original CD then clearly this is false. If you mean that people will like the sound better than the original CD then that is open to debate.
Well it seems creative can't make up their minds either on their own press release. First they say it plays music in "Xtreme Fidelity -Beyond CD Quality-. Then they say this explaining what X-fi Xtreme Fidelity:
QUOTE ("creative.com")
Creative's award-winning X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity is produced with X-Fi Crystalizer and X-Fi CMSS-3D technology. The X-Fi Crystalizer makes MP3s sound better than CDs by analyzing and identifying which parts of the audio stream have been truncated or damaged during compression. It then intelligently and selectively restores the highs and lows from instruments and vocals that are damaged during the compression of MP3s. X-Fi CMSS-3D creates virtual surround sound through speakers or headphones. It expands audio for superior headphone listening so music completely surrounds the listener.
But when consumers read and here this what do they think? Look at the caption from the video I posted:
QUOTE
Lara Vacante shows us what's new from Creative Labs. Their product up-converts MP3s beyond CD quality and transmits the audio wirelessly throughout your house to Creative receivers. Bye-bye to wires!
Obviously this is a calculated PR campaign knowing uneducated consumers all too well. I would have loved to talk to the clueless representative at CES, as she seems as clueless as the general public. It was painfully obvious she was reciting a script and didn't care one way or the other what the product could do.
This is not a new claim.
I feel lucky to be a member here. I'd probably be much less skeptical of these claims otherwise.
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