X-Fi for Mac?

U

Uncle Jim

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 3, 2005
Messages
318
at least that's what they say...

"Experience your MP3 music beyond studio quality
* Restore the details and vibrance that your music lost during MP3 compression
* Enjoy all your music and movies in surround sound on any stereo speaker system or headphones
* Connect in seconds to your notebook, PC or Mac to create an Xtreme Fidelity sound system"

source: x-fi.com
 
Yes, and it shows the X-fi connected to what I think is a Black Macbook so it should work with Macs. :D
That does look awesome, I might get one if the price isn't too bad

Edit:
Mac Requirements
* Mac computer
* Mac OS X v10.3.4
* Available USB port

Also, the price is $80, I was expecting a price of $100 or more
 
This might be a good news, not only for Mac users, actually. $80 is pricey, but it always goes down after a while, with anything...
 
That's pretty nifty. Too bad I have other things to buy/save up for right now :D
 
I had an X-Fi card in my old PC and it really did sound good. I was actually quite impressed. I needed a sound card and figured it was just a gimmick, but when I turned on and off the X-Fi acceleration it really did sound better with it on.
 
It's bullshit just like the so called "sound enhancer" in iTunes. It introduces more noise to the signal, under the guise of improving it. Lost data cannot be recovered, as such. It's basically making educated guesses as to how the music should sound. With something as complex as audio, it's bound to make an awful lot of almost-but-not-quite-right guesses. This means it will sound like shit, basically. Of course, this is because poorly encoded MP3s sound like shit regardless of what you do with them.
 
- NintendoFan - said:
I wonder how that's going to occur? ;)
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X-Fi cards have something called a Crystallizer or something to that effect.
That's what they're talking about.
 
marketing jargon does not equal a serious reply to a serious audio question, the point is that they cant, that this is like using Bose speakers for the home vs a pair of studio monitors, yes it will 'sound' better because it's boosting certain sound ranges in the lows, mids, and highs. which is also something you can do with software and save $80.
 
SHIT IN, SHIT OUT



It's like low-quality JPEGs! Photoshop CS2 has a noise reduction filter. It does a pretty poor job at noise, but it also has a function for removing the artifacts that occur when you encode JPEGs at low quality. Can you guess what happens when you use this feature? Simple. It blurs the image. Nothing else. It will still look like shit, just more diffused shit. You might as well slap a gaussian blur on it, or turn down the resolution. It has the same effect.

Same thing with MP3s. If an MP3 is encoded at so low quality that you think it sounds bad, no amount of digital signal processing in the world can save it. The data's gone.

So, in conclusion: rather than buying this over-priced hunk of junk, you could buy a $10 CD player and hook that up to the speaker system. Better quality, lower price.
 
But its got a shiny volume knob. Even my MBP doesn't have a shiny volume knob!

Now if it only had analog multi channel out...
 
I used to have an X-Fi that I used a little bit for recording. It wasn't that bad, but I moved up to semi-pro quality m-audio cards.
 
Oh, one thing I forgot to add:

If you think your music, sounds better with the X-Fi thing, go ahead and use it. If you think the music sounds better with iTunes' "sound enhancer" turned on, leave it turned on. After all, you listen to music to enjoy the sound, nothing else. Go ahead and do whatever you think is enjoyable.

But do not, for even a split second, think that X-Fi actually restores lost data. It can't. If we look at it from a purely mathematical point of view, X-Fi actually removes even more data, or introduces more noise to the signal, or however we want to put it.
 
This isn't even an X-Fi per se - it's just the Crystallizer implemented in hardware. You can't just plug this in and expect EAX 5 acceleration.
 
illgiveumorality said:
So, Morty,
What exactly does the itunes sound enhancer do?
Click to expand...

it sounds like it boosts the higher frequency ranges and makes the music sound nasty to me...
 
felix88 said:
it sounds like it boosts the higher frequency ranges and makes the music sound nasty to me...
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Sounds about right, yeah. It boots certain frequencies to bring out, I think, vocals and speech. Oh, and it makes everything louder. Half the effect of the "sound enhancer" can be had by turning up the volume a tad.
 
Arcygenical said:
I personally like the sound enhancer :D
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Hey, can't rag on it, it's free.
I don't like it, actually, but it's hard to get your ear to recognize all the frequencies you're actually hearing with the enhancers* turned off when you've been using them for the majority of your life.
 
Cnet are retards, apparently:

There is no interpolating going on--instead, Creative sound engineers have come up with a secret formula that identifies certain instruments (such as cymbals or kick drum) and fills in the data that was originally trashed during compression.
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How in the name of high school football can there not be interpolation if it fills in gaps? That is what interpolation is, for crying out loud!
 
Black Morty Rackham said:
Cnet are retards, apparently:



How in the name of high school football can there not be interpolation if it fills in gaps? That is what interpolation is, for crying out loud!
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It's a secret formula.

They will probably patent said formula, and sue everyone who uses interpolation hence forth.
 
KaosDG said:
It's a secret formula.

They will probably patent said formula, and sue everyone who uses interpolation hence forth.
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Yeah, that'd be awesome for them, since everybody uses interpolation for everything. ;) Hell, even your post could be considered interpolation. Or perhaps it was more of extrapolation, but we shouldn't let pesky details get in the way of suing everybody.
 
I always wanted to enhance the sound quality of MP3's but i don't think its worth $80 especially when they say its not portable. I want something that i can either hook up to my iPod or put in my iPod that will enhance sound quality. Does anyone know of any software that might be out there that will improve sound qualtiy on iPod's and MP3 players?
 
Falcon said:
I always wanted to enhance the sound quality of MP3's but i don't think its worth $80 especially when they say its not portable. I want something that i can either hook up to my iPod or put in my iPod that will enhance sound quality. Does anyone know of any software that might be out there that will improve sound qualtiy on iPod's and MP3 players?
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No such thing exists, unfortunately. You'll have to re-encode it at a higher bitrate or in a more efficient format.
 
YES YES YES YES YES!!! Finally!~!! X-Fi via USB. I've been waiting ages for this! Thanks!! OMG I'm sooo happY!!!!!
 
Falcon said:
How would you go about re-encoding it at a higher bitrate?
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It's quite simple. First you take your crappy MP3s and delete them. Then you go fetch the original CDs or whatever. Then you re-encode them in iTunes as 192kbps AAC with variable bitrate turned on. Awesome!
 
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