| | |  | Pro Audio | Home » » » Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD PCIe Sound Card powered by THX TruStudio Pro | | | | | | | Description: | | The audiophile's choice - featuring THX TruStudio Pro audio technology The Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD provides the highest quality audio playback of any other sound card Creative has ever introduced. This sound card includes THX TruStudio Pro audio technology, bringing together two of the most respected names in sound quality to provide an unparalleled audio experience on the PC. The Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD features audiophile-grade components for high-quality playback of music, games and movies, including 122db SNR Digital-to-Analog Converters (DACs), the highest signal-to-noise ratio sound card ever produced by Creative. Replaceable OP-amps provide the flexibility to further customize your audio experience through different sound coloration. If you are serious about how your PC sounds, this is the ultimate Sound Blaster experience.  | Featuring High-Fidelity audio performance with the Digital-Analog (D/A), Analog-Digital (A/D) converters, together with a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 122dB with 0.001% (THD) distortion, the Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD is the ideal choice for the demanding audiophile. |  | The Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD features high quality components offering audiophile-grade performance, designed to eliminate noise, while dramatically improving sound field dynamics in the high and mid tones. |  | Enjoy pristine audio in private anywhere with the superlative headphone output featuring an amazing 115dB, 24-bit/96kHz support in High-Definition (HD) quality sound for original playback. |  | For the discerning music listener, you can personalize your listening experience with the swappable OP-amp sockets on the sound card to tailor sound to the way you want it. |  | The ground-breaking THX TruStudio Pro sound effects will transform your experience into a true High-Definition (HD) multimedia emotional journey. |  | Hardware-powered 3D positional audio and EAX 5.0 effects provide stunning audio realism over both headphones and speakers without affecting your frame-rates. |  | ASIO recording support with latency as low as one millisecond and minimal CPU load for precise audio recordings. |  | Dolby Digital and DTS encoding enable a simple one-step single-cable connection to home entertainment systems with included optical cables, for compelling surround sound. |  | In order to achieve the ultimate Sound Blaster performance, the Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD has been optimized to work on PCs with Windows Vista or Windows 7 only. |
| | | Product Details: | | | Product Length:
| 12.05 inches | | Product Width:
| 2.4 inches | | Product Height:
| 8.66 inches | | Product Weight:
| 1.8 pounds | | Package Length:
| 12.1 inches | | Package Width:
| 8.9 inches | | Package Height:
| 2.6 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.8 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 69 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 69 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 20 found the following review helpful:
 Forget about built-in PC sound.Nov 24, 2010
By Z. Rousedower
Just got this a few hours ago and am loving it. I've only tested it with the Westone 3 earphones. The bass is incredible as is the rest of the soundstage. Finally my pc sounds better than my iAudio 7 player! Before I was always astonished that the built-in sound on Acer PCs and Clevo laptops were not as good as the iAudio. The installation of the SB card was easy once I figured how to get the damn expansion slot panel off from the back of my Acer. The SB card is not positioned perfectly in the back but it is plugged in to the short PCIe slot and works. I made sure to remove the existing drivers before using the setup disk to install the drivers and software without a hitch on my Windows 7 64-bit system. In the future I will get some long RCA cables (maybe toslink as well)and connect them to my Pioneer receiver.
**11/30/10**
Just got a 35ft dual plug M/M RCA cable and hooked up the line outs to a Pioneer Elite receiver. Turns out you have to unplug the headphone plug directly at the headphone jack (on the SB card) in order for the line out jacks to output a signal. That was a bummer. Nonetheless, the sound coming from the 5.1 speaker setup is finally room shaking.
**12/11/10**
Finally got a 35 ft Toslink cable with a Toslink Mini Adapter to connect to the "optical in" of the Titanium HD card. This will allow me to switch between the faraway A/V receiver and my nearby earphones without having to unplug anything in the back. So I am no longer using the dual RCA plugs. Sound is automatically encoded with Dolby Digital Live but one can change to DTS Connect as well. My receiver shows that it is receiving a Dolby Digital signal! Note that the only way to control the digital sound volume is through whatever program you are using for music (e.g. Grooveshark, Youtube, Foobar, VLC Player, etc.) or the receiver remote/front panel. Neither the Windows7 nor the Creative Console volume control will adjust the digital output (but it can be muted with these). Actually if I use the THX TruStudio section I can boost the volume by using the "Smart Volume" control but I cannot lower it below the default volume I had the receiver on. Also, while the digital signal is being output to the receiver the analog signal is also output to the earphones unless I mute it.
So far I am digging this setup!
-I recommend Foobar with the WASAPI component for listening to your lossless music collection.
Right now I am listening to KPBS-FM RADIO classical music. Very nice!
***1/7/11***
I have been using the sound card with a pair of Sennheiser HD800 headphones and they make a great pair. For reference I am using 21.8 feet of total cord length to connect to the Titanium XFI HD. The card has no problem driving the HD800s (300 ohm nominal impedence).
26 of 29 found the following review helpful:
The best SoundBlaster card to date / Better alternativesFeb 13, 2011
By G. Ifland
After reading several positive web reviews of this card, I decided to purchase it and see how it compares to my current ASUS Xonar Essence ST Headphone 7.1-Channel Audio Card for Audiophiles. (It should be noted that the Xonar Essence ST is a PCI card that I believe is out of production, but still available for purchase. It has been replaced by the ASUS Xonar Essence STX Virtual 7.1 Channels PCI Express Interface 124 dB SNR / Headphone AMP Card which, like the Titanium HD, is PCI-E based.) Both cards are advertised as geared towards "audiophiles" and manufactured with high-end components. They are designed to primarily support headphones and/or analog stereo 2.0/2.1 speakers. They do not come standard with analog outputs for 5.1/7.1 speakers, but do support multi-channel digital output via optical TOSLINK. The Xonar Essence ST also supports digital output via a coaxial connection and an optional Xonar HDav Multi-ch Extension card to provide analog output supporting up to 7.1 channels is available. Both cards include built-in headphone amps, but the one in the Xonar Essence ST/STX is more robust. The SoundBlaster Titanium HD employs the venerable X-Fi chipset and supports all versions of creative's EAX feature - if you do a lot of PC gaming, this card may be your best option. The Xonar Essence ST does provide good surround sound support via Dolby ProLogic IIx and limited EAX support via DirectSound 3D game extensions.
This is purely a subjective review - it is based soley on my personal impressions as received through my ears - your preferences/impressions may be different. I primarily listen to music and play the occasional game, so I'm most concerned with high quality sound. My speakers are Klipsch ProMedia 2.1. Both cards installed easily and I experienced no issues with installing the related software/drivers. For the Titanium HD, I left everything at its default setting in the Entertainment module - no equalization, environmental or tone adjustments. Let me start by saying the Titanium HD is the best-sounding SoundBlaster card ever made. For music, the highs were crisp, mid-range just slightly muffled, the bass very solid, but not overpowering and the positioning stellar. I could easily discerne each instrument. The overall soundstage was very good. For gaming, you simply cannot beat SoundBlaster for EAX and positional audio in the games that support it. With the Xonar Essence ST, for music - the highs were slightly better, the mid-range better, the bass excellent and positioning equally good. The overall soundstage of the Xonar Essence ST was simply better to my ears. (Please note: for a head to head comparison, you need to select the "Hi-Fi" DSP Mode in the Xonar software which clears all effects to make the analog output quality as high as possible.) For gaming, using the "GX" or "Game" DSP Modes provided excellent positional audio, though not quite to the level of the SoundBlaster card.
Overall, I prefer my existing ASUS Xonar Essence ST (and the SoundBlaster will be returned). For music, it outperforms the SoundBlaster Titanium HD - granted, not by a lot. The H6 Multi-Channel Extension Card is also a plus for the Xonar Essence ST. For gaming, I have to give the edge to the SoundBlaster Titanium HD - that said, there are cheaper SoundBlaster cards designed specifically for gaming. In summary, you won't be disappointed with either card. If you are a frequent gamer and use headphones or 2.0/2.1 analog speakers, get the Soundblaster. If you are in to music and an occasional gamer, I highly recommend the ASUS Xonar Essence ST/STX.
14 of 15 found the following review helpful:
High quality DAC for music playbackNov 20, 2010
By J. Martinez
This card is one of the best to play back your digital music from your computer through a receiver and nice speakers. Headphone listening is also well executed. This is by far the best sound card Creative has ever made for music playback. The DAC (Digital to Analog converter) on this card is high quality and is the same DAC (Burr-Brown PCM1794) used in some very expensive and high end CD players (Cary Audio Design CD 306 and Halcro EC800). Be sure to use the analog RCA outputs to see the benefit. Of course this is good for games too but music playback is where this card really shines. If you just play games then the previous versions of X-fi cards should be enough for you. If high quality music playback is important to you get this card. Creative obviously needed to up the ante to create something that people would want to buy if they already own an X-fi card and they did it here.
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
For an internal PCIe card, it is as good as it getsAug 19, 2011
By C. Wang
"C"
Just got this card from Amazon on sale for $138. I have many other soundcards, a mix of internal and external, professional and consumer. I have heard others having trouble installing this card, but no problems here. Some of my friends also purchased Creative cards and had a lot of trouble with installation, but it turned out that they were not following installation instructions. As long as you disable the MB sound device via BIOS and uninstall all other sound device drivers before installing this card, this card installs pretty easily without any problems.
The interesting "XiFi" processing is also found on some Auzentech cards (which I have owned in the past). It is actually quite pleasant, and it dynamically emphasize transient response of certain higher frequency material, giving recordings a bit of air, bite, and presence, but not harsh or overly artificial (like the old DBX processors). For those who are familiar with recording, it actually sounds a bit like the BBE Sonic Maximizer processing algorithm ,without the phase corrective processing. It is surprisingly useful for not only computer generated instruments (common in most modern day produced pop music), but also older recordings of acoustic instruments such as strings. Now I turn it on all the time to about 80%.
Some reviews here mentioned that this card does not have the feature to record "what you hear", or at least that one needs to pay for additional software for this feature. This is absolutely NOT true. However, it is peculiar that after installing the card and all the bundled software package, you will see that recording "what you hear" is "unavailable" when you are looking at in the sound device manager. You can ONLY record "what you hear" if you launch the Creative Consule, and choose the "Music Creation Mode". Under this panel, this soundcard actually gives you the option to record from various sources, from "Mic" to "Line" to "What you hear", offering numerous formats at various resolutions. The amp for the recording feature is very high quality, low noise, and super sensitive, so the recording level only needts to be at 35% to 40% in most cases before the signal overloads. There are also many other useful softwares included, but most can be replaced by better alternatives...
I would not recommend setting this soundcard in the default "Entertainment" mode, as THX eq is known to attenuate high frequency response. For the best sound, I would recommend ONLY the "Music Creation" mode.
The sound is close to many of the outboard USB pro recording interfaces I have owned (E-MU from the same company as Creative, PreSonus, M-Audio, Native Instruments, Denon, Lexicon, etc): very clean, very dynamic with almost no audible compression.
I think this was just the best product of its kind you can get at this price margin, hands down. I would buy again when I build my next desktop!
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Upgraded from the superb X-Fi audio -- and it still blew my mindNov 03, 2011
By Lim Wei Ren Kevin
90% of all revewers here upgraded from onboard audio to the Titanium HD and were amazed.
While that's all well and good, truth be told, even the very old Soundblaster Live! series would've impresed when compared to onboard audio.
I had an X-Fi Audio sound card and didn't possibly think this to be a 'big' upgrade, considering it was still an X-Fi series card.
Boy was I proven wrong! The jump up in sound quality, clarity and seperation is astounding. Even on my pretty low priced, Harmon Kardon Soundsticks II, the sound (quality) actually rivals audiophile systems costing 4-digit sums of money (and of course, wipes the floor with any "Home Theatre In a Box" set).
If you love music, but don't wish to spend thousands on DACs, audiophile quality speakers/subwoofers, and the likes, go for the Titanium HD and a quality 2.1 speaker system (I'd recommend the Harmon Kardon Soundsticks III, given how great the Soundsticks II are for me) and you'll be happy for a long time.
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