Bhruic wrote on May 31, 2011, 15:02:
Wow, are they really claiming that X-Fi can make an mp3 sound better than studio quality?
I don't own a X-FI soundcard, but I have experienced music on it. I am a bit of an audiophile, definitely not to the extreme, and have fiddled around with X-FI.
The X-FI "Crystalizer" is a fairly decent Equalizer. You can manipulate a range of things (obviously, as it's an equalizer) to make music sound a lot better, and I'm sure in some peoples opinions far better than studio quality.
THAT SAID, you don't need a soundcard to do this (again, obviously). A plug-in for Winamp/Windows Media Player and other players called "DFX" does, imo, the exact same thing and can vastly improve sound quality in a variety of ways.
The purpose of my post was to state that Creative can claim X-FI makes music sound a lot better, but they're leaving out that it's not the card that's doing it but the software. And saying Creative has software that can actually do something semi-decent almost makes my stomach turn. It's just that you can get similar software for far less and/or free without handing out cash for a new card.
If I were to ever buy a new soundcard, it would be from Auzentech.