| | |  | Pro Audio | Home » » » Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD Sound Card | | | | | | | Description: | | Audiophile Performance, Convenient Connectivity, USB Simplicity USB Sound Blaster X-Fi HD is an audiophile-grade sound system with premium connectivity for your Notebook or PC. The front panel includes a conveniently located 1/4" microphone input and 1/4" headphone jack with a studio quality headphone amp and volume control. The rear panel features optical I/O, gold-plated stereo RCA I/O plus an integrated phono preamp for direct recording of your vinyl collection from your turntable. The bundled Media Toolbox software lets you record, convert, enhance and organize your digital music files easily while THX TruStudio Pro technology brings you the same great audio experience found in live performances, films, and recording studios.  | Audiophile-grade components deliver unsurpassed USB audio quality with a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 114dB. |  | Unique THX TruStudio Pro technology enhances all of your music, movies and games for maximum enjoyment regardless of your source material.
Note: "THX TruStudio Pro" was previously known as "THX TruStudio PC". |  | Phono preamp with RIAA EQ allows direct connection of your turntable to conveniently convert your vinyl to CDs or MP3s. |  | High quality headphone amp supports studio-quality headphones (e.g. <=330Ohms). |  | Gold-plated connectivity for maximum signal quality, easily accessible front-mounted headphone and microphone jacks with convenient volume control. |  | Creative Media Toolbox software allows you to record, playback, cleanup and organize your digital music files easily. |
| | | Product Details: | | | Product Length:
| 8.98 inches | | Product Width:
| 6.26 inches | | Product Height:
| 2.36 inches | | Product Weight:
| 0.15 pounds | | Package Length:
| 9.0 inches | | Package Width:
| 6.3 inches | | Package Height:
| 2.4 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.1 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 73 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 73 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
47 of 49 found the following review helpful:
Great sub $100 DAC, can be a pain to set-up thoughDec 26, 2010
By Spralwers
There are not many reviews for this product, so I am going to go ahead and write a fairly in-depth one.
Like other reviewers, I only got this because it is a high quality DAC (digital to analog converter) in the $100 price range. I am not ready to shell $300+ on a DAC yet. I may use the recording feature in the future to rip video game music, taking advantage of the SPDIF in port. When I do I will update this review.
The reason why I picked this DAC over other ones within the price range (like the Nuforce headphone amps) was because of the SPDIF in port. I did not want a DAC for just my computer. I wanted one that I could hook up my game consoles and TV to as well. Sound quality is huge to me; I find sound quality to be more important than picture quality. A good picture looks nice, but great sound is really what makes you feel like you are there. That is where I thought this DAC would really come in handy.
Now on to the actual review, since I have made clear why I bought this item.
This DAC is high quality. It sounds better than the Realtek HD Audio on my motherboard, it sounds better than my Insignia 32'' LCD, it sounds better than using analog output from my game consoles, and it sounds better than my Hanns G 21'' monitor (yes, that actually has a headphone out port that I can hook to speakers). Like all other reviewers who favor this item, I can hear all the more subtle parts of my music. If you have good speakers (I am using a pair of Alesis M1 Active 520s) and/or headphones, then you will hear the difference. After all, what is the point of having a high quality DAC if your playback equipment is not built to accurately reproduce music? In case you are not someone too familiar with sound systems, I can not stress this enough: Make sure you have good equipment before buying a DAC!
For music playback, this DAC is easy to set-up - simple plug and play (I'm using Windows 7, 32 bit). Just plug your device into the USB port, wait for the generic drivers to install, and you are done! Even with the generic drivers, you can output 24 bit/96 KHz on both optical out and line out ports. The line out ports are the standard, stereo RCA out ports. In addition, it has a 1/4 out jack for devices that use TRS cables. However, by using the generic drivers, you do not have an EQ. In that case, just use the EQ of your music player. There is a neat little feature that allows you to boost a certain bass frequency by a certain amount (such as 50, 75, 200 Hz up to levels like 3dB, 6dB, 12dB) in the windows console, and I found that to be incredibly useful for making my speakers output more bass, as I do not have a subwoofer.
Using the SPDIF in however, is much trickier and that is where I took off a star. As of writing this review, there is no documentation on making use of it, at all. I would know because I spent at least 3 hours searching through the manual and the creative knowledge base and I did not find anything. If you want this device to decode digital signals from some sort of entertainment device other than a computer (like a PS3), follow these steps:
-First off, before we begin, know that this does NOT decode dolby and DTS surround formats. For instance, if you are watching a DVD/Blu-Ray, make sure that you are NOT outputting the Dolby/DTS surround formats. It only decodes two channel, stereo, PCM.
-Replace the generic windows drivers of the soundcard with Creative's drivers by installing the drivers located in the installation CD.
-From the same CD, install Creative Entertainment Console and Creative Audio Control Panel.
-In Creative Entertainment Console, go to Mixer, and under playback, uncross SPDIF in. This passes anything that comes through the SPDIF in port to whatever speakers/headphones you have connected to your DAC.
-Make sure that under the recording tab in the windows console (when you right click the speaker icon and click on recording devices), you do not have, "Listen to this device," checked off for SPDIF in. There will be weird delay issues if you have "listen to this device" checked off in the windows console and SPDIF in enabled under the mixer tab in the Creative Entertainment Console.
-While you are under the recording tab in the windows console (when you right click the speaker icon and click on recording devices), make sure you have SPDIF in set as the default recording device. This tells WINDOWS to accept the input coming in from SPDIF in instead of the other inputs: Line in, Phono in, and Microphone.
-In the windows console, make sure you have the sample rates for SPDIF in and Speaker be the same.
Another reason why I took off a star is because, as of writing this review, you can not download the drivers for this device from the website. This soundcard was designed with netbooks in mind, and guess what? Netbooks do not have CD drives! If you are planning on using this device for a computer without a CD drive, make sure you have access to a computer with a CD drive so you can rip the installation files. Stuff like this is why Creative support has such a bad rep.
In conclusion, great DAC. Simple plug and play if you are using it for a computer, but can be a huge pain to set up for other devices. I will update this review when I use the recording features. Even though I have not fully tested this product's features, I thought it would be helpful to at least say that it works, and works well, for music playback since this device does not have many reviews.
Update 8/6/2011:
I've used this to record video game music with the RCA line in ports, and I've connected my guitar and bass guitar to the 1/4'' microphone input and recorded myself playing. Perfect. No issues here whatsoever.
I also want to add that if you want to be able to record music that's playing directly on your computer (say you want to rip audio from youtube), this device has the "What U Hear/Stereo Mix" option. Just know that you need to install creative's software to activate this feature.
15 of 15 found the following review helpful:
 Another LevelDec 10, 2010
By Gene B.
In this brief review, I am only going to comment on the sound quality of this device. I do not have the intention of using any of its other features (recording, software conversion, etc). With that being said, wow, this thing is a bargain! I mainly bought it to pair with my AKG 172/702 headphones and laptop, but I am also using it with my Swans M200mkIII speakers. All of those items already sounded great in themselves, but once I paired them with this dac(AKM4396VF btw), the boost in quality was a tad unbelievable. Some of the more popular expressions uttered when one upgrades a component in their audio chain are that you can hear things you never knew were there and that you would need to re-audition your music library...and those extend down to this dac. In fact, it's so good, I'd almost retire my DAC1 (whoops, thought it was April) . I have not tried the THX sound shaping algorithms yet, and I don't really plan to, but it is a nice bonus that they at least are the company behind them and not some generic technology. The headphone amp is indeed of good quality, but the higher ohm cans will still want some more power to sound their best(like my 702s).
All in all, I am extemely impressed with this product. I bought it on a whim as a "try out" purchase(couldn't pass up the price), and it will now be staying in my system. The only gripe I have with it is that unlike its desktop specific brother (titanium), I can't upgrade/replace the op-amps. That drawback won't really be one to most of the people who shop this unit though. At this price (whatever price Amazon has it at when you read this), it deserves some serious consideration by the home audio enthusiast on a budget.
Just so everyone understands, I am not trying to allude that this dac is on par with the upper echelon, but it does sound way better than it has any right to given its price/s.
15 of 18 found the following review helpful:
 Good for movies, games and casual music listening.Feb 22, 2011
By Yano
This is an awesome sound card enclosing pretty realistic balance of highs and lows and soothing mids.
I'm a demanding audiophile and I have to say this has beat many of my $500+ headphone amps. I have been recently using a tube amp and a opamp (OPA627, those serious listeners, you know what the OPA627 provides...) THE TRUTH IS, I can go on listening with these amps with my Shure SE535 for maybe 15-20 minutes and I get a headache. I am amazed at how detailed and stunning the sound from this X-Fi HD external DAC/AMP is, in some stylistic sense, it outperforms my other much pricier amps.
The X-Fi HD does have a dedicated headphone AMP on board, and I have to say the sound is crystal yet vivid. I can listen with this thing for hours, music or movies. But when I hook up my other amps to the output of this X-Fi DAC/AMP, the headache comes back after 15-20 minutes at about the same volume.
Honestly, with a 600ohm rated OPA627 dual chip amp rigged up with this, analytical listening may be a little more suited, but the experience may not be pleasing when listening casually. It is like being on a roller coaster for a LONG time...
So for music and movie lovers, this X-Fi HD external DAC/AMP is really a great deal with no drawbacks I can think of unless you are using a 330ohm+ rated set. The noise ratio is better than my $1000+ AMP (you need good cables too).
I took one star off for the lack of hardware EQ support (Nor default Software EQ). You need to setup third party EQ.
Another star off for the line-in's uselessness. Phono-in pre-amp makes it almost impossible to hook up a non-phono device to this DAC correctly. The sound reproduced is pretty unpleasant.
8 of 9 found the following review helpful:
The Heavenly ChoirNov 07, 2011
By Mrs. Butterworths
I grew up with vinyl and then cassettes and 8-tracks, but compared to vinyl, cassettes and 8-tracks were the MP3 equivalent for the '70's & 80's, suffering from the same lack of decent bass, top end and a compressed soundstage as MP3s do today.
When CDs came out I was overjoyed, at least at first. Then came the tragic day in 1994 when a friend of mine called from his recording studio and asked me to bring over my turntable (ancient Pioneer direct drive with a bit more rumble than I'd like) with the Sumiko Blue Point cartridge along with my CD and Vinyl Deutsche Grammophon recording of "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (for the unenlightened that's the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey). We would listen to the vinyl version compared to the CD version, with the CD version played back on a Kenwood CD player with it's built-in D/A converters and then routed through a California Labs outboard D/A. So two different ways to hear the CD. Could the vinyl keep up?
We got comfortable in the control room seated in the sweet spot between the monitors: first up, the bare nekkid Kenwood.
The organ note started and it sounded perfect, like a good solid 32' pipe should sound- you feel it and hear it...but clean, not like the garbage can rattling and shaking heard on the street from the cars of assorted misanthropes drifting about the neighborhood.
Next up the California Labs and...maybe a little better, slightly more top end and perhaps the bass had a bit more oomph but nothing to say OMG! SPEND THAT $1500 right now! On the other hand it was nice to hear my buddy say that he was a little surprised since bits is bits. Then we blamed it on the better D/A converters and moved on.
Finally, the vinyl, the needle drops and the heavens opened up. At the point on the record where the music starts there's a split second of just the room before the organ note and in that split second the walls of the recording studio went away...and when the horns started they were in a concert hall, not packed between two monitor speakers as they were coming from the CDs.
We were astounded. Since that day I've listened to my CDs since they're more convenient, but I've always wanted to be able to record my vinyl into a high bit/sample rate format.
Now I can. The RIAA equalization is splendid. I did find that the software included with the X-FI DOES NOT RECORD at the highest bit rate...it says it does but when the file is opened (or right click and properties), it's only 16 bit, not 24.
Get (for windows at least) Audacity and use that freeware program to record at 96KHz and 24 bit depth.
Awesome! Yeah, 24 bit is wasted on vinyl with it's paltry 60-75dB headroom, but for sure the 96KHz isn't, there's stuff out there beyond the 20KHz brickwall of CDs..and who's to say that's not where the "room" lives?
At any rate, this little box rox.
9 of 11 found the following review helpful:
Great for digital music playbackNov 13, 2010
By J. Martinez
I purchased this for digital music playback from my computer and am only rating it in this one area since that's my primary use. The DAC for music playback in this box must be pretty good because sound quality for music playback is fantastic. I am not using typical cheap computer speakers but Definitive Technology Mythos Gem speakers and a Harman Kardon receiver. I am hearing things I hadn't heard before in the music. If you want something for music playback from your computer through nice speakers this will do the job. I also liked all the connection options.
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