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Creative Sound Blaster ZX PCIe Gaming Sound Card
01 / 06
Creative Sound Blaster ZX PCIe Gaming Sound Card
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Product Description
Decked out in red with glowing LED lighting, the Creative Sound Blaster ZX looks great, but sounds even better. With a 116dB SNR, it offers up to 35 times better audio than a standard motherboard Read More
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keyboard_arrow_downA community member
Nov 13, 2017
I would advise against buying Creative Labs anything. In the past they implemented artificial obsolescence on their cards through software support and drivers and then sued programmers when they provided unofficial drivers for those cards. Up to you really, I know am not coming close to their stuff ever.
A community member
Feb 23, 2018
Am not disputing hardware, I am criticizing toxic behavior from the company making it. The fact community won doesn't justify their behavior. It's important to remember they actively tried to prevent people from using their cards on newer system in order to force a new purchase. They failed, but that is only thank to people who actually stood up to them. In the end you are free to use whatever you want, I merely gave my opinion and advice.
OleDaneBoy
77
Nov 17, 2017
It would be better to just purchase the sound card, the volume knob stand with extra connections degrades the sound drastically. I immediately noticed the difference from plugging straight into the card and moving to the standalone volume knob. I have seen other reviews mention the problem as well and it unusable.
Also for this price you'd be much better off purchasing a USB Dac/Amp like the Fiio E10K, which is actually cheaper and will give cleaner sound. Don't believe the marketing of 'Surround Sound' when it comes to sound cards or headphones. Headphones by design have two drivers, one in each ear. The 'Surround Sound' is done with software which can really change the signature of the sound for worse. Better to have a good pair of headphones or speakers, a good Dac and Amp, and let the game or movie create the surround sound. Going from this sound card to the E10K then eventually the O2/ODac with a good pair of headphones I noticed a big improvement. Trust me, even without any 'Surround Sound' products the game creates the sounds appearing to come from all around you, and it will sound better with a good setup than with the best 'Surround Sound' software filter.
Also for this price you'd be much better off purchasing a USB Dac/Amp like the Fiio E10K, which is actually cheaper and will give cleaner sound. Don't believe the marketing of 'Surround Sound' when it comes to sound cards or headphones. Headphones by design have two drivers, one in each ear. The 'Surround Sound' is done with software which can really change the signature of the sound for worse. Better to have a good pair of headphones or speakers, a good Dac and Amp, and let the game or movie create the surround sound. Going from this sound card to the E10K then eventually the O2/ODac with a good pair of headphones I noticed a big improvement. Trust me, even without any 'Surround Sound' products the game creates the sounds appearing to come from all around you, and it will sound better with a good setup than with the best 'Surround Sound' software filter.
OleDaneBoy
77
Dec 22, 2017
I've had this card and moved on the Dac/Amp combos I mentioned. My comment was not skepticism but my own experience as well as the majority of Headphone and Speaker enthusiasts. It is much better to have a good Dac/Amp than to have software augmenting the sound.
When gaming there was no loss of 'Surround Sound' and in fact the games sounded much better when not running through the software. My main point was that Headphones by default have only two main drivers, left and right, but you still get sound that comes from all points around you as the game's audio takes care of positional audio without one of these sound cards running software.
For music there is no competition, a good Dac/Amp will beat any sound card every time. And yes these are just my opinions, but as stated before also the opinion of every Hi-Fi enthusiast.
EDIT: Also I currently still have this sound card installed and have done many A/B testing with it and my E10K and O2/Odac Rev B. Gaming, movies, and ESPECIALLY music all sound much better on the Dac/Amps.
When gaming there was no loss of 'Surround Sound' and in fact the games sounded much better when not running through the software. My main point was that Headphones by default have only two main drivers, left and right, but you still get sound that comes from all points around you as the game's audio takes care of positional audio without one of these sound cards running software.
For music there is no competition, a good Dac/Amp will beat any sound card every time. And yes these are just my opinions, but as stated before also the opinion of every Hi-Fi enthusiast.
EDIT: Also I currently still have this sound card installed and have done many A/B testing with it and my E10K and O2/Odac Rev B. Gaming, movies, and ESPECIALLY music all sound much better on the Dac/Amps.
PirateIce
232
Jan 12, 2018
OleDaneBoyDigitalRonyn most likely has not delved deeper than the marketing material he was given, be fair to him ;)
And... straight from creative marketing material: "SBX Surround consists of two core technology components – Upmix and Virtualizer."
Software HRTF uses the position calculated by the game to create an accurate sense of its location. Creative SBX has to take the channels as presented from the software and upmix and virtualize either 2 channel or multi channel audio to create a fake headphone surround effect than can only track the positions of these channels, whereas the software can represent a sound at any angle.
Clearly, we do not want or need SBX surround when gaming HRTF is still available, still free, and still better... and can often handle more than 128 sounds.
Software HRTF uses the position calculated by the game to create an accurate sense of its location. Creative SBX has to take the channels as presented from the software and upmix and virtualize either 2 channel or multi channel audio to create a fake headphone surround effect than can only track the positions of these channels, whereas the software can represent a sound at any angle.
Clearly, we do not want or need SBX surround when gaming HRTF is still available, still free, and still better... and can often handle more than 128 sounds.
liteon163
Aug 23, 2017
I have a SoundBlaster Z, which is the base card in this drop. The hardware is spectacular. The drivers, not so much. Every time I update my video card driver I have to reinstall the sound card driver because the HDMI part of the video card driver messes with the sound card driver. I then have to disable the video card's sound through device manager to ensure the sound card continues working as it should, otherwise the sound card driver has difficulty recognizing the sound card hardware's presence.
liteon163
Dec 18, 2017
I have disabled HDMI sound. It helps a bit. The biggest improvement in stability comes when I connect headphones only when I use them instead of always keeping them hooked up.
SilentGhost
27
Feb 16, 2018
liteon163This is a constant issue with video drivers, and not one that I've found a solution to. It's happened with onboard audio, several USB DACs, and my X-Fi Titanium through SPDIF to a DAC/Amp.
And I blame Windows, not the GPU drivers, and not the sound drivers. Output device designation is a Windows function and there doesn't seem to be a way to lock it off of DP/HDMI outputs on monitors (I have three!) if you never want to use them.
And I blame Windows, not the GPU drivers, and not the sound drivers. Output device designation is a Windows function and there doesn't seem to be a way to lock it off of DP/HDMI outputs on monitors (I have three!) if you never want to use them.
SkipPp
278
Jan 22, 2018
ASUS Xonar Essence used to be a far more expensive solution. They are great, but you pay for it. On the upside they are PCI-e. So many cound cards are still PCI, which makes buying a motherboard tricky (same thing with caputure cards and similar).
LQDForce
538
May 10, 2018
Toaster8tacoI'm running a SB-Z soundcard on the latest Win10 (April 2018, 1803). installed the old-and-seemingly-outdated creative drivers and everything works as intended - full functionality, zero issues.
DPC latency is well within the limit, ASIO works just as good, even Kernel Streaming /WASAPI works without latency or hiccups.
Clean install is not a bad word though. I genuinely believe (that with Windows*) you should perform a clean install with any internal hardware change.
I'm confident you'll get this working properly in no time.
Clean install is not a bad word though. I genuinely believe (that with Windows*) you should perform a clean install with any internal hardware change.
I'm confident you'll get this working properly in no time.
Coldnemessis
2
Dec 18, 2017
Have this card almost since release. It just works. Never had fail me and you can actually hear the diferrence even if your using a pricy motherboard with some fancy onboard audio option.
Questors
26
Dec 19, 2017
ColdnemessisSaw the drop and wanted to leave a positive comment. I enjoy the ZX completely. It was/is a big jump for me over the onboard audio.
mkenyon
5
Feb 16, 2018
I've had the ZxR for a long time, almost since it was released. I loved it so much that I continued to go with mATX boards/cases because I wanted a space for my ZxR. The surround voodoo with stereo headset is seriously game changing. Best used with a really open headset like the AKG 7xx that has great sound stage.
However, pretty much every windows 10 update has been breaking the drivers, rendering it almost useless lately. It's a shame.
However, pretty much every windows 10 update has been breaking the drivers, rendering it almost useless lately. It's a shame.
DigitalRonyn
558
Creative Labs
Feb 28, 2018
mkenyonMS is making a lot of changes to the audio sub-system and we're actively working with them to resolve these items as quickly as we can. We're on it and aware believe me!
mkenyon
5
Feb 28, 2018
DigitalRonynAwesome. I still have the card in my system and I eagerly await it working again. I love the product and definitely do not want to replace it.
SuperSavior6
4
Feb 16, 2018
Props to homie repin creative, you holding your own against these spoiled mass drop know it alls. Someone get my son a raise
Thujan
629
Aug 23, 2017
I placed my soundblaster Z in front of my r9 290 video card that was being water cooled, Long story short: The soundblaster Z can overheat and start acting funky. It kept messing up my 5.1 system during gaming sessions when my video card got hot. Moving it far away fixed the issue, creative wouldn't help me at all and I figured it out myself.
Thujan
629
Aug 23, 2017
The heat from the video card, caused it to switch up the rear, front center and sub woofer signals.
SilentGhost
27
Feb 16, 2018
ThujanFairly certain that I saw this with a Soundblaster Z. It was in front (top x1 slot) of a large video card in the only slot available, and the sound would bounce between output channels when using headphones. No amount of software troubleshooting resolved the issue, so I returned the card.
Colm4g
18
Feb 17, 2018
How well do they work for the HD6XX for gaming? I don’t necessarily need the best sound, they always sound fantastic but they suck at gaming cause u cant really tell what’s up and down etc. Any ideas? Would be great, thanks.
PirateIce
232
Jun 29, 2018
well the confusing part was the mentioning of other hardware but not clear how you are using it, as in did you retire the SBZx, or what amp do you pair it with. Mentioning any other gear you use as reference would help too, thanks for responding.
PirateIce
232
Jul 4, 2018
PirateIceseems confirmed shill still to me. It's a SB recommendation, how often are they not?
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