Breathing new life into an "old" soundcard. Creative X-Fi Titanium HD

GotNoRice

[H]F Junkie
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Jul 11, 2001
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Here I have my trusty old X-Fi Titanium HD. I've owned it for about a decade now. It has been a great card for me that entire time. For a long time, I used it in my main computer. A couple of years ago I swapped from using the X-Fi Titanium HD in my main computer to using a regular X-Fi Titanium (feeding an external DAC via SPDIF). I then moved the X-Fi Titanium HD into the computer that serves as the main source for my dedicated music stereo system, so that I could continue to make use of the excellent DAC that the X-Fi Titanium HD has.

My Music system consists of:
Refurbished Phenom X4 9750 Computer (used as dedicated music source, playing Foobar2000 and streaming music)
X-Fi Titanium HD
Yamaha C-80 Preamp
Yamaha M-2 amplifier (~240wpc) powering JBL 4412 Studio Monitors
2x Yamaha P2200/P2201 amps (~700wpc bridged) powering JBL L100T Speakers (crossovers upgraded to L100t3 spec)
2x Yamaha P2200/P2201 amps (~700wpc bridged) powering JBL L150 Speakers
Yamaha P3500 Amp (~500wpc) powering 2x 15" Dayton UM15-22 Ultimax Subwoofers in sealed cabinets.
Beyerdynamic DT770-Pro 80 Ohm (for headphone testing, plugged into the Preamp)

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The X-Fi Titanium HD has been fantastic in stock form. The card includes two pairs of socketed opamps. One pair of single opamps that are used as a buffer, and one pair of dual opamps that are used in the I/V stage. To get to them, the cover on the card has to be removed. There are three screws on the bottom that hold the plastic shell on and then 4 screws on the back that hold the metal shield on.

XFi_2.jpg


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The screws that hold the front of the metal cover on also double as the screws that hold the rear bracket on. Without the cover, there is nothing for those screws to screw into. If I continue to use it without the cover, I will need to get some small nuts so that the screws have something to screw into. For now, I simply used two tiny zip-ties to hold the rear bracket on. It was snug.

The stock Opamps are two JRC 2114D dual Opamps in the I/V stage and two LME49710 single Opamps in the buffer section. My attempts at Opamp rolling so far have been limited and/or unsuccessful. The LME49710 single opamps in the buffer section are basically the single opamp version of the LME49720 / LM4562 dual opamp, which has always been one of my favorites. For that reason I've had little desire to swap them out. Also, almost all of the Opamps in my "opamp collection" are dual opamps, not single opamps. The I/V stage uses dual Opamps, but I had bad results when swapping in my favorite dual Opamps such as the LM4562 or the OP627 (two single OP627 opamps on an adapter board to create a dual opamp). It always sounded like something was missing from the midrange when using anything besides the stock JRC 2114D Opamps. I just chalked it up to being something in the design that the JRC 2114D was particularly well suited for and basically gave up on those Opamps.

Given how well this card has served me, I decided to try taking the Opamp upgrade to the next level. I decided to try some Opamps from Burson Audio. https://www.bursonaudio.com/products/supreme-sound-opamp-v6/ They make discrete opamps that can sound quite nice compared to more traditional Opamps. Given my strange experience with the I/V stage Opamps, trying to swap out the buffer opamps first seemed like the safe bet. I got a set of V6 Vivid single Opamps. The process of installing them was pretty simple.

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They are very tall opamps, and also fairly wide. The Opamps include an optional small riser which is necessary to be able to plug in the Opamp without it contacting surrounding components. That makes them even taller. This makes the card too wide to use the neighboring PCIe slot, and even puts the components very close to the PCIe slot one further over, but it does not touch. Here is an angle shot for a better perspective:

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Putting the Burson V6 Vivid Opamps in the buffer section yielded very good results. I've always liked Opamps such as the stock LME49710 Opamps because of their texture but they can be a bit on the harsh side. Other opamps such as the OPA627 tend to be much more smooth, but almost too smooth, lacking texture. The Burson V6 Vivid Opamps seemed to be able to strike that perfect balance of having great texture but also remaining smooth to the point of not being harsh. Although it was definitely an improvement, the result was not really night and day. The stock opamps were already very good. The improvement from using the Burson V6 Vivid single Opamps in the buffer section was subtle, but ultimately I was happy with the result.

That left me wondering about the JRC 2114D dual opamps. I had sort of written-off the idea of swapping them out, but then I thought about the fact that I also have two Burson V6 Opamps in my Maverick Audio Tubemagic D2 Dac (which is what I use with my main computer via optical output from a regular X-Fi Titanium). In this case, they are two Burson V6 Classic dual Opamps. The differences between the V6 Vivid and V6 Classic Opamps are detailed in the picture below.

V6-S4.jpg


In practice, the Classic has a bit more of a midrange focus compared to the Vivids. When I used the V6 Classics in my Tubemagic D2 Dac, I was very impressed with the midrange. I was not eager to take them out of my external DAC but I really wanted to see if they could actually work well in the I/V stage of the X-Fi Titanium HD, unlike all of the other dual opamps that I had tried.

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That was one very snug fit. Like with the buffer Opamps, I had to use the riser in order to get it up above the other components on the card. They are slightly too wide, forcing them to be installed at a very slight angle. Thankfully, with the riser, it wasn't a functional problem. If they were even a tiny bit wider however, it would not have worked without a much more involved workaround.

XFi_7.jpg


The result really came as a big surprise to me. The difference was huge. Like I mentioned before, I thought the improvement when I swapped the buffer opamps was subtle, but swapping these I/V stage Opamps on the other hand really was a night and day difference. I was so impressed with the result that I now have serious doubts about putting these back into my external DAC. I think they found a new perminant home on this card.

The most noticeable chance was in the midrange, from the vocal frequencies down to the midbass. Vocals were much more energetic while the texture of the midbass was absolutely fantastic. I listened to quite a few songs with this configuration. After what I thought was an hour or so, I looked at the clock and 4 hours had gone by. It's been a while since I really got sucked into the music like that. At that point, I switched my amp off and plugged my DT770-Pro headphones into my preamp for headphone testing. The results were equally impressive.

I am very satisfied with this upgrade. I will not be able to put the metal cover back on, but it doesn't seem to matter, as I am not getting any background interference with it off. The internal layout of the PC I'm using for this is very sparse, with no major components near the soundcard, and only using integrated video. That probably helps. I hope to continue using this card for many more years to come.

Note about drivers: One thing that might seem odd about upgrading a card so old is driver support. Creative has had some issues with drivers in the distant past but my experience with their drivers over the last decade has been fantastic. The latest driver for the X-Fi Titanium HD was released in 2019 and works great with Windows 10 20H2. The last driver was released after changes in Windows 10 version 1903 broke the older drivers. Despite the fact that many of the X-Fi cards date all the way back to 2005, Creative still released an entire new set of X-Fi drivers and got everything working great again. The fact that they still release drivers for cards that are ~15 years old when other companies like Nvidia abandon cards after ~8 years is pretty impressive, and quite frankly what I consider an example of good driver support. Who knows how long into the future they will continue to release new drivers (and/or how quick Microsoft will break the old ones again), but in a worst case scenario I could get away with running an older OS version on my music computer since that computer only has one purpose in life. In various computers, I'm running an X-Fi Titanium HD card, 2x X-Fi Titanium cards, 2x X-Fi XtremeGamer cards, and an X-Fi XtremeMusic card. For now they are all still going strong in their respective computers.
 
It's most likely that they release drivers because their hardware hasn't changed since 2005 in reality. There's not so much development happening in audio gear. They just invent fancy new names and create some bells and whisltes around the basic hardware to fool people into buying 'new' products.
 
still running the Bursons? I have a x-fi titanium hd w/ original box and debating on throwing it up on ebay but searching opamp rolling the titanium hd on google lead me here. haha
 
It's most likely that they release drivers because their hardware hasn't changed since 2005 in reality. There's not so much development happening in audio gear. They just invent fancy new names and create some bells and whisltes around the basic hardware to fool people into buying 'new' products.
As far as sound cards go, yes. We haven't seen anything truly new in well more than a decade. In regard to onboard audio, we recently saw them being connected to USB internally. The Realtek ALC4080/ALC4082 are built that way. I'm not sure that it makes a difference in anyway, but it is a new way to do things onboard. That being said, people have been using external USB DACs for years. USB based audio is far from new. However, its new for integrated audio.
 
still running the Bursons? I have a x-fi titanium hd w/ original box and debating on throwing it up on ebay but searching opamp rolling the titanium hd on google lead me here. haha

Yup, sure am. The card is still working very well for me. It's still the main DAC for my primary 2-channel music system. I recently replaced the old HP system that it was installed in, and built a new computer for the setup, but still retained the good old X-Fi Titanium HD with the Bursons. Everything working great, even with the latest version of Windows 11. I dread the day when some kind of actual incompatibility due to age or drivers crops up (Windows 12?), but given the single-purpose role of the computer that it's installed in, I could probably get away with staying on an older version of Windows if I had to. I really don't plan to replace it any time in the near future. Funny thing is, it's still one of the newest components in my system, by far. Some of my amps are approaching 50 years old (4 of them made in 1976).

In regard to onboard audio, we recently saw them being connected to USB internally. The Realtek ALC4080/ALC4082 are built that way. I'm not sure that it makes a difference in anyway, but it is a new way to do things onboard. That being said, people have been using external USB DACs for years. USB based audio is far from new. However, its new for integrated audio.

Makes sense I suppose. No need to have your integrated audio taking up valuable PCIe lanes.
 
I am pretty sure the main reason external (USB) DACs have gained so much traction, is how terrible the inside of a pc case is from a noise / interference perspective.

Much better to get the audio outside of the case with much less RF issues than inside? Also easier to convince people to drop $$$ on a shine metal box that looks neat in your instragram than a sound card inside your case?
 
I am pretty sure the main reason external (USB) DACs have gained so much traction, is how terrible the inside of a pc case is from a noise / interference perspective.

Much better to get the audio outside of the case with much less RF issues than inside?

Generally speaking, yes. A PC can be a pretty electrically noisy environment. However, just because having the DAC located inside the PC is more likely to create noise issues doesn't mean it's a guarantee. It all comes down to the layout and the components used. It's the reason why I moved the Titanium HD out of my Gaming PC years ago. I just couldn't get rid of the background noise. But the dedicated PC that I built for my stereo has a very sparse internal layout with no other major components located anywhere near the soundcard, and there is no background noise. So in that PC, it's not an issue. At the time that I was having the noise issue in my gaming PC, I was using 3x GTX680 in 3-way SLI and a very old power supply. It's unknown if I would even have the same issue in my current gaming PC with my single 4080 and much newer Superflower 850w PSU. I have other PCs, and have worked on plenty of other PCs that still use soundcards where it's not a problem.

It's also worth noting that using an external DAC doesn't automatically mean using USB. There is nothing wrong with using a traditional digital connection. Optical S/PDIF even has advantages in the sense that, unlike USB, it's not physically possible for electrical noise to travel over an optical cable that does not conduct electricity. Using an external DAC via USB usually gives you only a bare-bones audio interface. When I moved the X-Fi Titanium HD out of my gaming computer, I replaced it with a regular X-Fi Titanium which has all of the same features, minus the nice DAC. So I can still use CMSS-3D, ASIO, etc, and then send that via optical S/PDIF to my external DAC.

When it comes to noise due to using a soundcard inside a PC, it's not exactly rocket-science. If it's a problem, you'll hear it. On my PC, it was so bad that the background noise would actually change pitch as I moved my mouse and did other things with my computer. If you are listening via headphones, with no music or other content playing, and can't hear anything, then you are fine.
 
There is noise and there is noise inside a PC. A PC can be as noisy electronically as it likes...but if the noise isnt in the 10Hz to 24kHz range I wouldnt have thought it would make much difference.

I see reviews of hi-fi mains filters that are meant to do amazing things to the power signal and at best they filter...but only stuff 200kHz and above or at worst purely duplicate the incoming signal through $4000 worth of bunk.

Now awaitng the resident 'goldens ears' to arrive and say "I can tell the difference of noise 5 times up the human hearing range and hear one bit error in a entire CD!" :LOL:
 
There is noise and there is noise inside a PC. A PC can be as noisy electronically as it likes...but if the noise isnt in the 10Hz to 24kHz range I wouldnt have thought it would make much difference.

I see reviews of hi-fi mains filters that are meant to do amazing things to the power signal and at best they filter...but only stuff 200kHz and above or at worst purely duplicate the incoming signal through $4000 worth of bunk.

Now awaitng the resident 'goldens ears' to arrive and say "I can tell the difference of noise 5 times up the human hearing range and hear one bit error in a entire CD!" :LOL:
Noise is a weird (aka obnoxious) thing to work with. If i put my phone too close to my dac it starts to buzz every few seconds when the phone pings cell towers or right before i get a text lol. While this rf is WAY above audio range, it is likely inducing eddy currents that are screwing with the audio circuit which now comes back as audible garbage.
 
There is noise and there is noise inside a PC. A PC can be as noisy electronically as it likes...but if the noise isnt in the 10Hz to 24kHz range I wouldnt have thought it would make much difference.

The interference / rf "noise" doesn't have to be in the audible range. It just depends what impact it has on the components on the card.
 
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