MicroCenter - Entry-Level PCI-E Audio Price Quirk

[PGHammer]

I've run into a rather odd pricing quirk among entry-level PCIe sound cards - specifically, the refurbished Recon3D vs. the X-Fi XtremeAudio; specifically, the card WITH the DSP (the Recon3D) costs less ($22USD less before taxes).

Given the quirk (and the refurbished nature of the Recon3D), why would anyone purchase the XtremeAudio over even a refurbished Recon3D?

XtremeAudio - http://www.microcenter.com/product/310209/Sound_Blaster_X-Fi_Xtreme_Audio

Recon3D refurb - http://www.microcenter.com/product/415689/Sound_Blaster_Recon3D_Sound_Card_-_Refurbished

 

[PGHammer]

I went to MicroCenter Rockville to check on that quirk - after all, I did mention that it's priced right in line with the CPU cycle pig that is the X-Fi XtremeAudio in PCIe. Good thing I did, as the quirk turned out to be far larger than I expected. These are NOT base Recon3D sound cards, but the Fatality Professional iteration - in other words, the original PCIe midrange from Creative. They also have the same beamforming microphone (and red LED power indicator) that is standard fare with the successor - the Sound Blaster Zx. And I was not done getting surprises yet.

Usually, when replacing one sound card (or audio solution) with another, unless the replacement is HDMI audio from your GPU, you will be asked to provide a driver for your new hardware. Windows 8.1 Pro x64 picked up and auto-installed the drivers with no prompting (as a High-Definition Audio Device); leaving me only to download updates from the Creative support site. I'm familiar with most of Creative's sound cards, and have owned all their old-school ISA-bus versions except the AWE64 (however, I did buy the subset of the AWE called the Sound Blaster 32), and none of them were this easy to install and configure - in any version of Windows. The biggest surprise is that I have not uninstalled the X-Fi's drivers yet.

I will have to keep the eyeballs peeled for more of these - this is one quirk I can happily recommend.