Crikey, the gamer's X-Fi is pricey!

How would you spend $200+ to enhance gameplay?

  • GPU/CPU/RAM bump ("traditional" speed boost)

    Votes: 43 52.4%
  • PPU (Ageia PhysX)

    Votes: 21 25.6%
  • "APU" (Creative X-Fi)

    Votes: 6 7.3%
  • Thank you, come again! --Apu (Sorry, couldn't help it)

    Votes: 12 14.6%

  • Total voters
    82
Well I'm thinking that it will get a fair bit of support, and I'm hoping very much that it does. I figure it's only a matter of time before I break down and buy one, but I don't need the remote or the I/O bay crap. Just a card with onboard memory will do. If the sound quality is on par with the Audigy 2 ZS line, that is good enough for me. I want the 128 voices! There's nothing like playing a game, and having bullets whizzing past you, fighter planes circling overhead, tanks coming up from the rear, and all the while an artillery barrage is in effect. The more 3D sounds they can throw at you the better! I want one for the simple reason of being immersed in a game. Graphics are important, but I think the sound is just as important. :)
 
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I was playing FEAR with EAX2+HD enabled yesterday. I couldn't help but notice that immediately in the beginning of the game when I'm in the car with that leader fellow that they had applied a reverb effect. Uhhh...how many car interiors reverb? LOL.
 
swaaye said:
I was playing FEAR with EAX2+HD enabled yesterday. I couldn't help but notice that immediately in the beginning of the game when I'm in the car with that leader fellow that they had applied a reverb effect. Uhhh...how many car interiors reverb? LOL.

Definitely not good but....

" Previous versions of EAX® supported a feature called occlusion. This feature recreated the effect of sound passing through a solid object (see the other EAX® sections for a detailed description). However the basic Occlusion effect only occluded the direct sound, but not the environmental reverb associated with that sound. This reduced the effectiveness and impact of the overall effect. Environment Occlusion? improves the realism by allowing the reverb effect itself as well as the direct sound to be muffled due to occluding objects."
http://www.soundblaster.com/products/x-fi/technology/lastinfo/eax5_6.asp
 
I noticed un UT2003/4 that enabling eax with my soundstorm (driver bug?) did the same thing.
reverb where their clearly shouldn't be any.
I don't find reverb to be something desirable in an open environment.
 
It could be.. I have a Soundstorm solution one of my secondary systems, so I'll have to check it out!!
I'm not the biggest fan of EAX actually. Sounds like version 5 may actually be getting closer to what Aureal was doing a long time ago. :p
 
My only gripe with creative is thier drivers . If they put a good driver team on the hardware and did at least 1 release every 6 months i'd be much happier .


Everquest 2 with eax is just to nice to pass up.
 
radeonic2 said:
I have the 20 doller(few years ago) hd-437s and they have nice bass.. all they down to 20hz :D (test tone generator).
Not overbearing like my logitech z5300, just nice and deep, nice highs too.
I'm surprised how more detail (like flaws) you can hear in recordings with them.
Not bad for 20 bucks, I wonder how the 50+ phones sound.
Btw, I hate closed phone design, open air for life:D
All the cloned phone I've heard have poor highs and the sound stage is rather bad.
All the major name brand open air designs have all had the same wonderfull sound to my ears.
Of course I don't need to block out outside sound nor block out what I'm hearing.

i agree wholeheartedly; open cans generally offer a much more balanced sound (at least on the cheaper end we are at), but more importantly, they are far far less fatiguing on the ears. i can scarcely use my closed senns for more than an hour.
 
_xxx_ said:
Who told you such nonsense? You don't need an amp.

BD phones produce a rather natural sound, which won't give you the artificial booming bass some people like. Try before buying.

If you're looking for high-quality phones for half the price of that one above, try Sennheiser.


Sorry man. But high quality headphones do not get nearly enough power through PC sound cards or even home audio receivers than they need. Especially my Sennheiser HD580's which are 300ohm and when i ran them off a sound card, they must be cranked way up which creates distortion and very flat bass respons. Basically turns the music to mud.

http://www.sennheiser.com/sennheiser/icm_eng.nsf/root/04195#

I'm a music fanatic. I've probably got over 600 albums on CD and over 100gb of music on my PC alone. When i got my HD580s, i was really not impressed for the money they cost.

So in response, i went to a popular headphone forum: http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/ and had some discussions about audio and power required to have these headphones sound the best and the ending result was to buy an actual headphone amplifier.

I got an Antique Sound Labs MG-Head OTL tube amp. The sound difference was INSANE. Glorious midrange, deep... full bass, and excellent hi's. Yes, it cost an arm and a leg but i run an optical cable from my PC to my Harman Kardon receiver where thee amp is plugged in using outlaw audio RCA cables.

I've never looked back.

amp.jpg



Any headphone in the realm of 300ohm NEEDS external power amplification to sound right. Otherwise you'll be left with a flat, boring listening environment.
 
Yes, highend, and even some lower end headphones need an amp. If you havent listened to say, HD580s with a amp then you're really missing out on about 50% of their amazing sound quality.

You dont need to buy an insanely expensive one, generally a CMoy even will help a ton in bringing more quality to your sound.

With that said, I've had some people say that they perfer stuff they can by at Best Buy for $40 than my $400 audio setup (headphones, CMoy, sound card). I personally cant go back anymore, I enjoy proper highs, mids, and lows much more than craptastic booming bass that drives me insane.
 
My Sennheiser HD560 Ovations run off my SB Live Value without any volume or distortion problems.

I haven't tried the HD650s on the sound card, but I doubt they'd be any different.

Maybe my SB Live Value is magic? :mrgreen:

Jawed
 
Jawed said:
My Sennheiser HD560 Ovations run off my SB Live Value without any volume or distortion problems.

I haven't tried the HD650s on the sound card, but I doubt they'd be any different.

Maybe my SB Live Value is magic? :mrgreen:

Jawed

Either they're magic.... or you're really missing out on how much better they'd sound with even an inexpensive headphone amplifier.
 
Andrew: sure it'll sound better with a good amp, but it's still only something for freaks like you :) , "normal" people will be just as happy without one.

Also, most high-end phones are layed out for a bit higher levels, that's why you'll use different, better suited ones for your mp3 player or your PC.
 
Andrew said:
Either they're magic.... or you're really missing out on how much better they'd sound with even an inexpensive headphone amplifier.
I know they could sound better - I've got the HD650s being driven by a 45W per channel amplifier as a reference :devilish: But the HD650s are SO much better
icon_mrgreen.gif
in themselves that it's rather academic - and the 560 Ovations used to swap between the hi-fi and the computer, so I know what's going on.

All I'm saying is that my soundcard can drive 300ohm headphones to VERY loud without any distortion or bass problems. It's a very musical, enjoyable setup, even with the 11 or 12 year old headphones. The 560 Ovations were the top end Sennheisers back then - erm except for the Orpheus headphones :cool:

I don't see why other soundcards shouldn't be able to do the same. Unless, as I say, my SB Live Value is magic...

Jawed
 
Sound cards used to have amps, primarily to power crappy no-amp speakers. My Sound Blaster Pro had a amp built-in. Some cards used to have a speaker out and a line out (AWE32). Then everyone went line level no amp cuz it was cheaper and better overall audio quality.

I don't think it's really reasonable to expect them to put high quality amps on all of their cards since most people wouldn't benefit and it would add cost to the cards. Also they'd have to add a line-out no-amp jack cuz you sure wouldn't wanna be stuck forced to use their amp.

(see the analog volume wheel :) )
 
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poopypoo said:
i agree wholeheartedly; open cans generally offer a much more balanced sound (at least on the cheaper end we are at), but more importantly, they are far far less fatiguing on the ears. i can scarcely use my closed senns for more than an hour.
Very true also, although my ears still ring at some what high listening levels (but would like higher).
I'm unaware why I can listen to my guitar amp (30 watt but loud in small room) for a few hours at LOUD levels, but can't listen to headphones at such levels for more then a few minutes.
The closed phones I've listened sounded some what muffled, maybe when I hear a 50+ dollar pair I'll like them a bit better, but with my limited exposure thats what I've found.
The headphones that really are fatiguing are the cheap ones that come with walkmans and such, even after 5 minutes my ears hurt.
edit- sorry about long replies.
I like to talk alot things I'm interested in :eek:
 
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Andrew said:
Sorry man. But high quality headphones do not get nearly enough power through PC sound cards or even home audio receivers than they need. Especially my Sennheiser HD580's which are 300ohm and when i ran them off a sound card, they must be cranked way up which creates distortion and very flat bass respons. Basically turns the music to mud.

http://www.sennheiser.com/sennheiser/icm_eng.nsf/root/04195#

I'm a music fanatic. I've probably got over 600 albums on CD and over 100gb of music on my PC alone. When i got my HD580s, i was really not impressed for the money they cost.

So in response, i went to a popular headphone forum: http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/ and had some discussions about audio and power required to have these headphones sound the best and the ending result was to buy an actual headphone amplifier.

I got an Antique Sound Labs MG-Head OTL tube amp. The sound difference was INSANE. Glorious midrange, deep... full bass, and excellent hi's. Yes, it cost an arm and a leg but i run an optical cable from my PC to my Harman Kardon receiver where thee amp is plugged in using outlaw audio RCA cables.

I've never looked back.

[ig]http://www.kalionzes.com/randomphotos/amp.jpg[/img]


Any headphone in the realm of 300ohm NEEDS external power amplification to sound right. Otherwise you'll be left with a flat, boring listening environment.
How come headphones have such high impediance?
 
I actually believe the "sound better than the original recording" stuff.
Though, I must give, that anything with possibility to use "mute" will do that, considering what kinda crap they let out from the studios nowadays :rolleyes:
 
Rur0ni said:
*Points to Head-Fi.org*

They all talk crazy talk when it comes to audio, at a level further than I wish to venture. :)

I just read reviews and the general consensus that these particular BD have some nice bass + soundstage stuffs. And they look comfy.

I've got the 770 Pro and just love them. For me, they are the ideal headphones (in the 100-200€ price bracket, that is.) The sound is IMO perfectly balanced between accuracy and "niceness" - i.e. they have good bass and wide soundstage, but fine details are still not lost.
And they are the most comfortable headphones I've ever worn - should fit even over the most monstrous ears, and the velours (for which replacements are available BTW!) is very nice to the touch. There are not many headphones I can wear for hours without them getting uncomfortable, these are one of them.
Only caveat: If you have a very big head, things could get tight.

And regarding the amp stuff: Weeell, they DO have 2x250 Ohms Impedance, nothing to sneeze at.
My Audigy 2 ZS has no problems driving them (surprisingly, they even sound slightly better than on the headphone out of my old h/k 5.1 receiver), but both the onboard sound of my notebook and the Soundstorm/AC97 combo of my mobo have problems driving them (low max volume; weak, 'tinny' sound compared to Audigy/Receiver).
Although in the case of the notebook, the headphone out is probably just plain crap.

EDIT: Forgot to add - of course they sound best with a decent headphone amp, but IMO audigy is a good compromise.
 
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