Sound Blaster Z or Titanium HD

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rene mauricio

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If one were to buy a new sound card today, which of the two (Sound Blaster Z / Titanium HD) would be best if you game, watch movies and listen to music on the PC? Using Google has provided ZERO useful results either because the Titanium HD is too old and everyone lost interest or that the Sound Blaster Z is too new and people are playing the "wait and see" game.

So much FUD going around that I do not know what to make of it all. For example; I think GURU3D has a long post about the Z wherein some people claim that the Z and Recon 3D do not support OpenAL. Some say that neither card supports true hardware EAX 5, but instead pass it along via software (like the Creative USB dongles). For the most part the seem to agree that the Titanium HD was the last card which supports ASIO - which is a bit of a disappointment. To further complicate things you have the Recon 3D - is it really as bad as everyone makes it out to be?

:confused:

If it matters, I will be using my paired up headphones with whichever card I end up getting; Audio-Technica's ATH-M50
 
The only card in the Z-Series that is worth it over a Titanium HD IMO is the ZxR. That has a dac with superior SNR to the X-Fi Titanium HD dac and should sound quite good.

The lack of ASIO is disappointing, but there have been a lot of improvements since then in Directsound as well as stuff like WASAPI.
 
I wonder if that is why the price of the HD is still (over all) higher than that of the Z. I really wish more enthusiast websites would do a review of the Z having come off both the HD and the 3D. For that matter I wish Creative would have that 30% off sale again that made the Z ~$80.

:mad:

The impressions I have collected thus far are that the Z has superior gaming features while the HD, even without a built-in AMP, has better music and movie playback. Is that accurate? If so then for someone like me it is still going to be a toss up between the two. At this point it might just come down to TruStudio Pro vs. SBX Pro.
 
TroyX said:
wrong and wrong.

both the Z and Zxr share the same hardware, difference is the Audio Control Module (ACM) which incorporates a built-in microphone array and mic/headphone I/O connections, plus a knob on the ACM to adjust the headphone levels that comes with the Zxr model.
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Please see my correction to this in the other thread that you also stated this incorrectly.

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1039458388&postcount=46
 
Why not Asus you ask? The only card they have that interests me even a little is the Xonar Essence STX. The problems that kept me away are

  • Poor Driver support
  • Horrid, if not downright non-exsistant, customer support
  • Most would say that CMS3D is better than Dolby Headphone
  • Most would say that the Titanium HD is about the same as the STX, but costs $80 less
  • Most would say that GX is not nearly as good as EAX

I will be the very first to admit that Creative also has shitty driver support as well as a wasteland for a support forum. I ended up flipping a coin and ended up buying a new Ti HD. I am hoping that sometime in the next 3 weeks I can score a sweet deal on a Z and be able to test them both side by side (since I cant find any site that has done this) and keep the better one of the two.

I am very fortunate that the M50's do not require an AMP. Such a feature means next to nothing to me.
 
I never thought I would see the day someone would choose Creative over ANY company where driver support was a factor.
 
Nor did I :p

I had a Titanium Fatal1ty Pro and was hoping they would provide proper Windows 8 support. Yes the card is older than dirt but then they promised to release drivers a few weeks ago. That date came and went and, in a blind rage, swore off Creative and sold my Fatal1ty.

Determined to never go back to them I decided to give external USB DACs a shot. I purchased the FiiO E10 and was severely disappointed. At first I was pleased at its simple plug-and-play installation but then started having problems within minutes. Despite on the FiiO site saying that it supports ASIO, I came to find that it does NOT. You have to use the boo-boo ASIO4ALL crap. Output by way of WASAPI was just as horrid with short pauses during FLAC playback after hours of use. While I am no expert on such things I would say that the USB 2.0 bus is simply not realistic for my expectations.

Given my nightmarish experiences in the past with ASUS' customer support and laughable RMA department; I refuse to get a Pheobus or STX. With ASUS not being an option the only thing left to do is to put my proverbial tail in between my legs and admit I was a little hasty with my new build. Since it is a new build I may as well get a card that is better than what I had before, right?

So yeah... that is my story about how driver support got the best of me. :eek:
 
AFAIK the soundblasters are no longer holding any edge gaming wise to the other options which often provide a better sound quality.

MS did gamers a huge disfavor by gimping under MPAA/RIAA to remove the Directsound support. So no hardware acceleration in games.
 
B00nie said:
AFAIK the soundblasters are no longer holding any edge gaming wise to the other options which often provide a better sound quality.

MS did gamers a huge disfavor by gimping under MPAA/RIAA to remove the Directsound support. So no hardware acceleration in games.
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Disabling access to hardware acceleration was a stability concern. Kernal-mode drivers can BSOD and MS was tired of being blamed for Creative's et al. shitty audio drivers crashing the system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Audio_Architecture

Anecdotal I know, but I agree with them, most of the BSOD's I had during the Win98-WinXP era were audio driver problems.

Really the issue here is if creative hadn't been so restrictive with licensing OpenAL (open-washing at its finest) it might have succeeded DirectSound as the popular audio API. No one wants to write games for an audio API that only works well with one vendors hardware. Creative blew a chance to be the stewards of the new open, common audio API, similar to Khornos with OpenGL, but with an advantage OpenGL didn't have over Direct3D in that OpenAL was better than DirectSound.
 
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B00nie said:
AFAIK the soundblasters are no longer holding any edge gaming wise to the other options which often provide a better sound quality.
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Which options are you referring too?

In my limited research, some DAC/AMP combo may offer better sound quality but they lack features such as positional audio which make them little more than music/movie listening devices. They also lack options for true hardware level APIs. Do not get me wrong, WASAPI is fine and all... but I would much rather prefer pure ASIO or OpenAL.

If you meant better sound cards; it is my understanding that if you are serious about music/movies more so than gaming then your only two real options would be the Titanium HD or the Essence STX (ZxR at the time of this post is not out yet). If you prefer gaming over music/movies then your two top choices would be the any of the Sound Blaster Z cards or the Pheobus.

For my personal taste (and I feel I am not alone in this) the lesser of two evils is the Creative cards. Asus makes some killer products but its a damn shame they do not actively support them nor know how to service them properly should they fail. Add to that the fact that most people agree that Dolby Headphone is a crappy knock off of CMSS3D and the other options all of a sudden do not look as appealing. If you do know of better hardware I would hope that you share it with us as I would be very interested in trying alternatives out.


devman said:
No one wants to write games for an audio API that only works well with one vendors hardware.
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I wouldn't say that. I am sure if Creative threw money at some of these developers to include OpenAL then it might inspire others to take it up in the future. Hell, it could even be used as a major selling point - PR department willing. Think NVIDIA and it's PhysX.
 
rene mauricio said:
For my personal taste (and I feel I am not alone in this) the lesser of two evils is the Creative cards. Asus makes some killer products but its a damn shame they do not actively support them nor know how to service them properly should they fail. Add to that the fact that most people agree that Dolby Headphone is a crappy knock off of CMSS3D and the other options all of a sudden do not look as appealing. If you do know of better hardware I would hope that you share it with us as I would be very interested in trying alternatives out.
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Please feel free to correct me here if I'm off here, but I think CMSS3D is only better when the game is using OpenAL, which is a dead standard at this point, and why CMSS3D is not on the Z series. Instead Z series has SBX Surround which is built off of THX TruStudio Surround, which is an HRTF just the same as Dolby Headphone is. So basically since most games software mix sound now, we have a battle of HRTF implementations.

That all being said. I think the Z still occupies a pretty sweet spot in the market right now, and I'm considering buying one myself.
 
I would not be the one to ask as the only game that I currently own that supports OpenAL (by way of Alchemy) would be World of Warcraft. What I can tell you is that the HD supports both TruStudio Surround and CMSS3D. Flipping between the two provides a minor noticeable difference in favor of CMSS3D when talking about titles such as Metro, Left 4 Dead and Batman.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=363626
http://www.head-fi.org/t/637456/trustudio-pro-surround-sound-vs-cmss-3d#post_8888966
http://www.head-fi.org/t/591811/do-you-use-cmss-3d-or-dolby-headphone-for-gaming

What really stinks is that no review site that I know of has done a direct comparison between the Zs, Pheobus, Ti HD and the STX - a "sound card shootout 2012" if you will.

I am not sure why Creative ditched all of its features in favor of the THX options but perhaps it has something to do with the new Sound Core3D being unable to do ASIO? My thinking is that you had to switch to Gamer Mode if you wanted CMSS, Entertainment if you wanted the THX stuff and Creation mode for ASIO. It would seem they simply got rid of the stuff the new sound chip can not support. At least that is what I recall reading prior to the release of the Z. It could also be they wanted to streamline it all.
 
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B00nie said:
AFAIK the soundblasters are no longer holding any edge gaming wise to the other options which often provide a better sound quality.

MS did gamers a huge disfavor by gimping under MPAA/RIAA to remove the Directsound support. So no hardware acceleration in games.
Click to expand...

When did you start needing to license OpenAL from anyone? Is it not an open standard?
 
Allisons Dad said:
I never thought I would see the day someone would choose Creative over ANY company where driver support was a factor.
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that is kind of funny now, aint it? ;)

the zxr looks like a candidate for my 24/7 box that's hooked up to a decent sound system... hmmm.. and I could finally get rid of that griffen power mate that only works about 30% of the time.... hmmm
 
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B00nie said:
AFAIK the soundblasters are no longer holding any edge gaming wise to the other options which often provide a better sound quality.
Click to expand...

Which one is better than the ZxR?

http://www.creative.com/soundblaster/z/zxr/

Even most dedicated DACs don't come close to the SNR that card offers.

rene mauricio said:
I would not be the one to ask as the only game that I currently own that supports OpenAL (by way of Alchemy) would be World of Warcraft.
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Unfortunately even with Alchemy enabled and Hardware audio enabled in-game, you have to run WoW in XP Compatibility mode in order for it to report to Alchemy/Directsound that it has hardware sound channels available. You can't run 64-bit programs in XP Compatibility mode. That means at this point that you essentially have to choose between running the 64-bit client or using Hardware Audio via Alchemy, and IMO the benefits of the 64-bit client outweigh the Hardware Audio. I wish this wasn't the case :(
 
GotNoRice said:
Which one is better than the ZxR?

http://www.creative.com/soundblaster/z/zxr/

Even most dedicated DACs don't come close to the SNR that card offers.
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SNR is not the end-all indicator of quality, all it tell you is how noisy a system is not how good the sound is....which a well designed system isn't noisy. In fact CD audio is standardized at around 75(ish) dB SNR, and the 120dB numbers adverted by Creative and Asus are overkill.
 
Picking a Sound card doesnt seem that easy.

As i want a Sound card that has 7.1 analogue audio outputs, PCI-E, good software support, used for gaming and movies.

what i have read so far people mostly recommend to purchase the Asus D2X
 
rene mauricio said:
Why not Asus you ask? The only card they have that interests me even a little is the Xonar Essence STX. The problems that kept me away are

  • Poor Driver support
  • Horrid, if not downright non-exsistant, customer support
Click to expand...

  • Compared to creative, thats a laugh.

    [*]Most would say that CMS3D is better than Dolby Headphone
    Click to expand...

    I wouldnt'
  • Most would say that the Titanium HD is about the same as the STX, but costs $80 less
    [*]Most would say that GX is not nearly as good as EAX
    Click to expand...

    GX is an Asus' EAX emulation. Thankfully no one uses open al or EAX anymore. In the games that don't I can say for sure that Dolby headphone sounds better to me.
 
Hi people,

A new year begins and I have some good news to announce!

Here's what I have for the release dates for the ZxR:

1) Europe: mid-Jan 2013

2) USA: mid-Jan 2013

3) Asia: early Jan 2013

Note: These are shipment dates, so do factor in a couple extra days for shipment, customs, retail etc.

You may also sign up for our mailer to keep up-to-date on this product.

Once again, my apologies for the delay. I would not post anything here if I didn't have the full information available.

Cheers!
Colin
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Release information on the ZxR posted today by Creative. - Source

I have a Audioengine A2 on the way, and plan on getting the ZxR if the reviews are positive.
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
Compared to creative, thats a laugh.
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You are entitled to your opinions. Still... I feel bad for you if you think ASUS is better than Creative on all points. :(


ASUS vs. Creative - You tell me which has better support / online first party representation.

1 . 2 . 3 . 4 - Most would say CMSS3D is better

GX is just that; emulation. Sure it has EAX 1 and 2 but if you do not use/need EAX 3, 4 or 5 then good for you. Consider yourself lucky because if you did you would get broken versions of it.


Hopefully you are not just talking out of your ass but instead have owned ASUS products in the past as I have. I have owned enough to know that they are great - so long as they work as intended out of the box. If you get defective items (which I have had) then you get the full ugly side of ASUS. When it comes to sound cards I have had to learn the hard way that if you want the best PC sound for both gaming and music/movies then you will have to swallow your pride and stick with Creative. There is absolutely no reason (for me) to go with a different route just to end up with poor(er) driver support and non existent customer service.

If you like ASUS then good on you. I respectfully disagree, however.
 
rene mauricio said:
You are entitled to your opinions. Still... I feel bad for you if you think ASUS is better than Creative on all points. :(


ASUS vs. Creative - You tell me which has better support / online first party representation.

1 . 2 . 3 . 4 - Most would say CMSS3D is better

GX is just that; emulation. Sure it has EAX 1 and 2 but if you do not use/need EAX 3, 4 or 5 then good for you. Consider yourself lucky because if you did you would get broken versions of it.


Hopefully you are not just talking out of your ass but instead have owned ASUS products in the past as I have. I have owned enough to know that they are great - so long as they work as intended out of the box. If you get defective items (which I have had) then you get the full ugly side of ASUS. When it comes to sound cards I have had to learn the hard way that if you want the best PC sound for both gaming and music/movies then you will have to swallow your pride and stick with Creative. There is absolutely no reason (for me) to go with a different route just to end up with poor(er) driver support and non existent customer service.

If you like ASUS then good on you. I respectfully disagree, however.
Click to expand...


Discussions with regard to CMSS3d seem to be moot as it appears to be a dead tech. Even in the head-fi thread you linked (link #3) in post 3 of that thread the poster says something similar to what I said earlier. Without openAL/DirectSound3d CMSS3d is just another HRTF like Dolby Headphone, which is probably why Creative is ditching it and going with SBX Surround (which is could just be rebranded THX TruStudio Pro Surround). Without a binaural sound processing from OpenAL the whole thing just becomes a battle of who has a better HRTF algorithm for downmixing 5.1/7.1.
 
devman said:
Discussions with regard to CMSS3d seem to be moot as it appears to be a dead tech. Even in the head-fi thread you linked (link #3) in post 3 of that thread the poster says something similar to what I said earlier. Without openAL/DirectSound3d CMSS3d is just another HRTF like Dolby Headphone, which is probably why Creative is ditching it and going with SBX Surround (which is could just be rebranded THX TruStudio Pro Surround). Without a binaural sound processing from OpenAL the whole thing just becomes a battle of who has a better HRTF algorithm for downmixing 5.1/7.1.
Click to expand...

Exactly and in those games I think that Dolby headphone sounds far better.

Rene mauricio seems to be missing the fact that developers choose not to use open al and eax due to creative's support. Here is one of the last developers using open al explaining why it won't be used in their upcoming titles (ARMA3).

rene mauricio said:
ASUS vs. Creative - You tell me which has better support / online first party representation.
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Have you ever tried getting support on Creative's forums? I have and its useless. Its actually less useless than their actual customer support that knows nothing about their products. FYI according to every creative customer support agent that I've talked to CMSS and THX don't downmix a 5.1 signal. :rolleyes: They don't know shit about their own products. I later found out that the issue that I had was resolved by Daniel K. Sadly he doesn't have a driver for the Titanium HD.

Here is a quote from Creative's faq on their forums.

The purpose of the Forum is still intended only as a way for users to get answers from other users.
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So I would have better luck asking for support here.

Also unlike with Creative I've never needed support for my Xonar, ever. It just works.

I forgot to mention my xtremegamer that kept dropping out. I thought that the card was dieing. Turns out that was a driver issue that they took forever to address. Thats when I bought my Xonar DX.

Creative has done more to kill pc audio by sueing and companies like A3D and putting them out of business. While also shoving their proprietary trash down our throats that they don't support. Fuck creative and I hope that they go under. I had honestly thought that they gave up on pc audio tbh. Thats what it seemed like with the Recon 3d.
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
Have you ever tried getting support on Creative's forums? I have and its useless. Its actually less useless than their actual customer support that knows nothing about their products. FYI according to every creative customer support agent that I've talked to CMSS and THX don't downmix a 5.1 signal. :rolleyes: They don't know shit about their own products. I later found out that the issue that I had was resolved by Daniel K. Sadly he doesn't have a driver for the Titanium HD.

Here is a quote from Creative's faq on their forums.



So I would have better luck asking for support here.

Also unlike with Creative I've never needed support for my Xonar, ever. It just works.

I forgot to mention my xtremegamer that kept dropping out. I thought that the card was dieing. Turns out that was a driver issue that they took forever to address. Thats when I bought my Xonar DX.

Creative has done more to kill pc audio by sueing and companies like A3D and putting them out of business. While also shoving their proprietary trash down our throats that they don't support. Fuck creative and I hope that they go under. I had honestly thought that they gave up on pc audio tbh. Thats what it seemed like with the Recon 3d.
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I have had better luck getting support on Creative's forums than ASUS - but more importantly, I haven't even NEEDED it for their most recent card - and that is running on Windows 8. ASUS has ONE guy that sometimes answers questions named Raja. The amount of customer traffic is also pretty much non-existent in their ASUS Xonar Phoebus forum because most people have just given up with this card. The drivers have been stuck in Beta for 6 months and don't even work without you having to move your sound card to a different PCI slot so the driver can recognize that a new firmware load is available for the card.

I bought the ASUS Xonar Phoebus after listening to the ASUS fanbois say how much Creative sucks and ASUS is so much better. I found the opposite to be true - and it wasn't even a close comparison. ASUS SW is horrid. Their documentation is just plain wrong on such critical areas as what ports you should connect your speakers to, and their customer support is like screaming into a canyon... all you hear is your echo back. The part that is better is the HW, but without decent SW to drive it, it is useless as well.

I will give you one point, the Recon 3d was a joke. I actually own one still and switched to the ASUS Xonar Phoebus from it. The Recon3D was easier to use, but sounded like crap - mainly because of all the noise the cable to the front panel picked up since it wasn't properly shielded and it was also way overpriced for pretty much having one chip on the card. My current card is the Creative SoundBlaster Zx (which I think they released because they got raked over the coals from user and professional feedback on the Recon3D and went back to the drawing board).
 
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Still waiting on that damn ZXR to upgrade from my X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro, I love this card but drivers are a hit n miss.
 
I forgot about the Xonar Phoebus. I've heard nothing but bad things about that card. I know how you feel I had really bad luck with the Titanium HD.

All that I know is that I was told by four different Creative tech support agents that I wasn't supposed to use a 5.1 signal with CMSS3d. They don't even know how their software works. That left a really bad taste in my mouth. Especially since I had to get rid of the creative card that I had before it due to different issues.

My STX has been treating me very well.

which I think they released because they got raked over the coals from user and professional feedback on the Recon3D and went back to the drawing board
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That and poor sales I'm sure.
 
You're basically paying $50 for the headphone hub / microphone base / volume control, so the card and add-on card really only sit at $200. It's still a pretty penny, and I wish I'd had the chance to order without the hub. I expect the price to drop - hopefully in the next 90 days, so I can get the difference back.
 
AshleyG said:
You're basically paying $50 for the headphone hub / microphone base / volume control, so the card and add-on card really only sit at $200. It's still a pretty penny, and I wish I'd had the chance to order without the hub. I expect the price to drop - hopefully in the next 90 days, so I can get the difference back.
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Dont forget the better DAC that this one comes with, i think it uses Burr Brown Dac. The other two dont. So, for $249 is not that bad for a high end sound card.
 
TroyX said:
Dont forget the better DAC that this one comes with, i think it uses Burr Brown Dac. The other two dont. So, for $249 is not that bad for a high end sound card.
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Thats a lot more than previous high end sound cards like the Titanium HD (which uses the same dac) and the Xonar STX.
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
Thats a lot more than previous high end sound cards like the Titanium HD (which uses the same dac) and the Xonar STX.
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there are different DAC models of Burr Brown, so we cant say they are using the same ones, i believe ZxR is using the latest model.

have you looked at the ZxR Board with those gold caps compared to Titanium HD and Xonar STX, there is no comparison.

also, i also have found out that the ZxR is using a studio-grade qualiy 600ohm headphone amp..

i think the $249 price tag is right where it should be.

here is the pic of ZxR: http://images.search.yahoo.com/imag...b=13nh5ofh9&sigi=12bn1pl3e&.crumb=yMO87Aae4yf

here is the pic of Titanium HD: http://images.search.yahoo.com/imag...b=12q6cn0dh&sigi=118h2s1ne&.crumb=yMO87Aae4yf


here is the pic of Xonar STX which does have gold caps but i find the ZxR board more impressive: http://images.search.yahoo.com/imag...b=12vd34nk6&sigi=121ed3ao6&.crumb=yMO87Aae4yf
 
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TroyX said:
there are different DAC models of Burr Brown, so we cant say they are the same ones.
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I'm pretty sure that we can.

have you looked at the ZxR Board with those gold caps compared to Titanium HD and Xonar STX, there is no comparison.
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Yeah because thats what really makes the difference. :rolleyes: Its not like the stx or titanium hd use low quality caps.

also, i also have found out that the ZxR is using a studio-grade qualiy 600ohm headphone amp..
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Just like my $160 STX?
 
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