Auzentech X-Fi What Does it Bring to Table?

[Blackstone]

I was wondering, have any of you guys done a sound quality comparison between a normal X-Fi card and one of the Auzentech cards? I use pretty heavy duty headphones and amp (Sennheiser HD600 and Pro-Ject Headbox SEII) for my GAMES with my PC and I am thinking about upgrading from an XTreme Music X-Fi card.

What does Auzentech bring to the table with respect to games?

 

[ashmelev75]

They got few sound card with nice headphone outputs and replaceable OPAMPs.
But with a total abandonment of EAX by game developers I don't know if there's any point in getting a card with X-Fi chip.

 

[Atech]

They got few sound card with nice headphone outputs and replaceable OPAMPs.
But with a total abandonment of EAX by game developers I don't know if there's any point in getting a card with X-Fi chip.

OpenAL...works on X-fi's just fine.

 

[LstBrunnenG]

That's kind of the point, OpenAL will work on anything.

 

[Nenu]

OpenAL can perform more voices when used with a soundcard that hardware accelerates.
It can also use the onboard memory on the Auzentech Prelude and X-Fi cards that have memory.

I have performed a direct sound quality comparison of a standard X-Fi and the Auzentech Prelude using analogue.
The Prelude is a lot clearer and articulate, bass sounds cleaner and deeper. The sound is richer.
I love the Prelude, gorgeous sound.
The Creative X-Fi didnt impress me in any way that stands out, it was just another sound card.

ps dont use the Crystalizer at all unless your hifi is crap and needs some compensation.
Otherwise you may spend a long time trying to get it to sound right and it isnt possible with it on as it boosts the attack on treble and only some bass frequencies, leaving other frequencies sounding too quiet.
The Crystalizer can seem impressive at first but it wears out quick.
Initially when you turn the Crystalizer off, it sounds blander but it opens up the clarity in the mid range, stops over emphasizing treble and allows you to tune all bass frequencies correctly.

 

[kumquatsrus]

wait for the bravura! lol.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1452893

 

[Atech]

OpenAL can perform more voices when used with a soundcard that hardware accelerates.
It can also use the onboard memory on the Auzentech Prelude and X-Fi cards that have memory.

I have performed a direct sound quality comparison of a standard X-Fi and the Auzentech Prelude using analogue.
The Prelude is a lot clearer and articulate, bass sounds cleaner and deeper. The sound is richer.
I love the Prelude, gorgeous sound.
The Creative X-Fi didnt impress me in any way that stands out, it was just another sound card.

ps dont use the Crystalizer at all unless your hifi is crap and needs some compensation.
Otherwise you may spend a long time trying to get it to sound right and it isnt possible with it on as it boosts the attack on treble and only some bass frequencies, leaving other frequencies sounding too quiet.
The Crystalizer can seem impressive at first but it wears out quick.
Initially when you turn the Crystalizer off, it sounds blander but it opens up the clarity in the mid range, stops over emphasizing treble and allows you to tune all bass frequencies correctly.

It's called neutral sound, the Creative cards dosn't "color" it sound with a paticulear "feel" (like using an EQ)...next thing will be what..."the golden ear"?

 

[obobski]

next thing will be what..."the golden ear"?

yeah, and how you're inferior or don't have good enough equipment (or enough money or social status or whatever else to arrive there) to actually "know", obviously we should just kill ourselves since we're inferior human beings and can't perceive these "dramatic night and day differences which are clear as day to the chosen ones"

yeah....

 

[p3sty]

I have owned both. I opamped modded my creative and recapped it to make is sound alot better.On that note my auzen sounded better out of the box and I can upgrade opamps without much hassel. I am no audiophiile by any imagination so if I could notice a big differance between the two so should you unless you have expierenced some hearing loss.

 

[UnclePauly09]

I just upgraded from an extreme music to the xfi forte. Don't be fooled, you can hear the difference, as long as your speakers/headphones are somewhat detailed and I'm pretty sure the HD600 is mid-fi or almost high-fi. The extreme music was laid back and warm sounding which was actually pleasant for music. The forte attacks you it seems kinda harsh at first but it mellows after about a week or two of listening. The forte is more detailed and has more and better bass, but again, it seems to attack you, it's very lively with the sound. Unfortunately, my forte has a lot of noise coming through the pci express bus and I may have to rma as I've tried everything. Maybe some burr brown opamps would relax the sound a little I don't know.

 

[obobski]

I just upgraded from an extreme music to the xfi forte. Don't be fooled, you can hear the difference, as long as your speakers/headphones are somewhat detailed and I'm pretty sure the HD600 is mid-fi or almost high-fi. The extreme music was laid back and warm sounding which was actually pleasant for music. The forte attacks you it seems kinda harsh at first but it mellows after about a week or two of listening. The forte is more detailed and has more and better bass, but again, it seems to attack you, it's very lively with the sound. Unfortunately, my forte has a lot of noise coming through the pci express bus and I may have to rma as I've tried everything. Maybe some burr brown opamps would relax the sound a little I don't know.

its called being able to drive a pair of headphones effectively, in other words, the difference you're hearing is the benefit of proper amplification, the EMU20k is not somehow better because Auzen has touched it, and the circuit design still uses high quality D/A's and A/D's, as well as a decent power stage (granted, you're talking about one of the crap X-Fi boards which is built on the cheap just to sell the name)


also, I would classify a $300-$400+ pair of headphones as audiophile grade, seriously, lets get out of the "HURR INTERNET AUDIOPHILE" mentality of a $150 pair of headphones being "low end", its mass hysteria and (to oh so eloquently quote PWK) bullshit.

oh, and WTF is with this board and "burr brown r teh leetest 4 al tyme KTHX LOLOLOL"
its like every other post someone just namechecks it and insists somehow by having BB stamped on the chip, it'll be the end-all for any IC
you do realize that AKM, Cirrus, TI and Maxim also exist, and produce comparable products to BB, not to mention that "Burr Brown" does not define a single product, but an entire vendor, and they produce a wide range of products, from cheap to high end

 

[DeathFromBelow]

I just upgraded from an extreme music to the xfi forte. Don't be fooled, you can hear the difference, as long as your speakers/headphones are somewhat detailed and I'm pretty sure the HD600 is mid-fi or almost high-fi.

Since the OP already has a headphone amp I don't really think the upgrade is worth it. Gaming wise the Forte has X-Ram, but that always seemed to be more of a gimmick than anything. I guess a handful of games support it.

Unfortunately, my forte has a lot of noise coming through the pci express bus and I may have to rma as I've tried everything. Maybe some burr brown opamps would relax the sound a little I don't know.

I've noticed this as well. Its not unbearable (I hardly notice it, really) but when I first open a video or run a game I can sometimes hear a faint buzz. I assumed it was because I have the Forte right under my video card.

 

[kumquatsrus]

Since the OP already has a headphone amp I don't really think the upgrade is worth it. Gaming wise the Forte has X-Ram, but that always seemed to be more of a gimmick than anything. I guess a handful of games support it.


I've noticed this as well. Its not unbearable (I hardly notice it, really) but when I first open a video or run a game I can sometimes hear a faint buzz. I assumed it was because I have the Forte right under my video card.

possibly some emf interference would be my guess

 

[obobski]

Since the OP already has a headphone amp I don't really think the upgrade is worth it. Gaming wise the Forte has X-Ram, but that always seemed to be more of a gimmick than anything. I guess a handful of games support it.
.

X-Ram is not a feature like PhysX or similar, its a hardware feature for the X-Fi, which all modern X-Fi models (At least the ones worth buying, in other words, forget the value crap) feature

guru3d and ixbt have documented a performance increase when h/w acceleration is available (meaning DirectSound, OpenAL, or ALchemy), especially if heavy effects are enabled, as the processor has some onboard memory (64MB to be exact)

X-Ram is probably one of the least gimmicky (and least talked about) feature of X-Fi, if you want to talk gimmicks, lets talk about Crystalizer

 

[43st]

Since the OP already has a headphone amp I don't really think the upgrade is worth it. Gaming wise the Forte has X-Ram, but that always seemed to be more of a gimmick than anything. I guess a handful of games support it.


I've noticed this as well. Its not unbearable (I hardly notice it, really) but when I first open a video or run a game I can sometimes hear a faint buzz. I assumed it was because I have the Forte right under my video card.

I have this with my low impedance (<100ohm) headphones on the Forte, my higher impedance headphones are fine. Just something to keep in mind.

 

[p3sty]

Try emf paper for the static over at headfi.org they said shielding your card helps withthe static"noise"

 

[DeathFromBelow]

I have this with my low impedance (<100ohm) headphones on the Forte, my higher impedance headphones are fine. Just something to keep in mind.

I bought the dang thing for the integrated headphone amp. I'm getting noise on my HD 555's, which are around 120 ohms IIRC.

Like I said, I guess its not that bad, but I've been noticing it a lot more since it was brought up. Maybe I should use this as an opportunity to upgrade to beefier headphones.

Try emf paper for the static over at headfi.org they said shielding your card helps withthe static"noise"

I'll have to try something along those lines.

 

[Nenu]

It's called neutral sound, the Creative cards dosn't "color" it sound with a paticulear "feel" (like using an EQ)...next thing will be what..."the golden ear"?

I dont understand your point, are you saying that Creative dont use op-amps and other components on their soundcards and therefore they dont colour the sound?

 

[soloz2]

I was wondering, have any of you guys done a sound quality comparison between a normal X-Fi card and one of the Auzentech cards? I use pretty heavy duty headphones and amp (Sennheiser HD600 and Pro-Ject Headbox SEII) for my GAMES with my PC and I am thinking about upgrading from an XTreme Music X-Fi card.

What does Auzentech bring to the table with respect to games?

In regards of sound quality the Auzen Prelude is quite a bit better than the sock Creative X-Fi Xtrememusic.

 

[obobski]

I bought the dang thing for the integrated headphone amp. I'm getting noise on my HD 555's, which are around 120 ohms IIRC.

Like I said, I guess its not that bad, but I've been noticing it a lot more since it was brought up. Maybe I should use this as an opportunity to upgrade to beefier headphones.



I'll have to try something along those lines.

regarding insulating the card, I've also seen foil/aluminum scrap used for this purpose, similar to what Asus, Onkyo, and Razer will ship from the factory on various boards, it apparently does make a difference if you've got some nasty component in your case thats giving you grief, or your case is just very cramped (i.e: the soundcard and videocard are basically bedmates)

nenu:
lol.

soloz2:
agreed
although the X-Fi EP measures a bit better than the Prelude, the driver issues that others (sycraft iirc had a thread about this) have had with Creative factory boards vs Auzen boards make the Prelude more appealing, also, its ~$100 cheaper, so yeah