Creative brings '3D' sound to headphones after US$100m R&D

Yea I feel this is the right path to take for Creative at this point in time. Before they've been stuck up to selling their own soundcard with proprietary chips only featured on those but now they appearently move towards selling those chips to 3rd party manufacturers which will probably result in explosion of new gaming headphones with built in Super X-Fi chips and probably also gaming soundcards/external DACs etc to the market which is good. I remain doubtful that ASUS would incorporate Creative technologies in their products but yea there's probably quite a few others though that is likely up for it.

Hopefully the new 3D Audio processing is great this time, while SBX surround is like "decent" at best to provide enhanced surround it still comes with too much colorisation of the original signal for my tastes.

Anyway this should be a good thing for consumers and I believe Creative as well so should be a win-win situation.

I'm really looking forward to this, first product, a dongle, seems to be more towards portable use but hopefully there comes a product soon enough targeted for PC use too.
 
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Seems very impressive by those comments that appear to be pretty genuine, can't wait to try out this chip but I will wait for a soundcard alternative rather than the headphone dongle.
 
Creative Marketing said:
CUSTOM X-FI ULTRA SOC
To realize this technology, a custom SOC (system-on-chip) was designed. This culminated in the Superthreaded Floating Point X-Fi UltraDSP SOC, packing 5 times more computing and digital signal processing power than Creative’s most powerful Sound Blaster chip while consuming less than half the power. This SOC is highly integrated with megabytes of fast memory so it can decode and process 8 channels of high resolution 24 bit 96KHz audio simultaneously and play them through its integrated audiophile quality DACs, exceeding 100dB SNR (signal to noise ratio) of dynamic range.
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megabytes of fast memory

I'm sold.

Though I would be interested if they made an app that does it on desktop systems. You know, to 'try'.
 
does it have super led's and bling?

hope its not on that level of junk.

will it only work on their headphones?
 
Read the article. It is headphone only. There will be several companies using their tech. Probably going to be a built in option on gaming headphones for example.
 
sorry I was saying was this creative only or would they license it to others?

Knowing the world now,,, 2 weeks and we will have chinese crap clones on the market.

they need shops to microphone your head LOL
 
Didn't they specify they'd sell the chip for others to use this time around, they have started to sell tech rather than products these days. So yea I'd imagine they'll live of license fees from now. I wouldn't mind personally see a 3rd party manufacturer to release a soundcard with it but we'll see, that's probably that one thing I still think Creative releases itself at least.

ASUS soundcard with Super X-Fi would be pretty funny but they have used built-in Creative chips in their motherboards though so not totally impossible.
 
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when I looked at the dolby setup I was impressed. They never said what the dolby system was plugged into.
Neither did they mention the headset.
As far as I know there is no usb output for sound on tv, stereo.
So I can't compare it to the much more expensive Realizer A16 which has a lot of imputs.

I assume this is only for pc and I could use it but a lot of movie people won't be able to.

$150 I signed up, I want one.
 
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sparks said:
I assume this is only for pc and I could use it but a lot of movie people won't be able to.
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You could use it for movies on the PC, streaming to a TV even. It's still just processing application sound for a designated set of cans.
 
cnet says they ware working on headsets with this built in and selling it to other makers. This could be great
 
While I expect lots of gaming headset companies to jump on it with enthusiasm, I still hope we see some soundcard option so I can use whichever favorite headphone of mine with the tech. The bundle seems too barebone for my tastes, only a button for on/off toggle with probably a very basic DAC. (but then again that could count as a pro too with the controversional Creative driver software support)

Interesting times as far as surround sound over headphone goes with Audeze Mobius and Creative putting out interesting products like this. Seems this is the future we're heading in, there's a clear race to try provide the most convincing surround sound experience over a pair of stereo headphone. Basic surround sound algorithms isn't cutting it anylonger.

Do you think VR is perhaps a big driving factor?
 
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Hell, we have Dolby Atmos on W10 and Razer Surround for free on 10/7 atm, yet most users don't use either.


This may be the best 3D audio ever, but Creative will have to market the heck out of this to spread it. Most people don't really care about 3D audio, and the ones that do don't exactly research the best options out there. IIRC most non-Razer "gaming" headsets still use Dolby Headphone, which sounds absolutely awful to me.
 
brucethemoose said:
Hell, we have Dolby Atmos on W10 and Razer Surround for free on 10/7 atm, yet most users don't use either.


This may be the best 3D audio ever, but Creative will have to market the heck out of this to spread it. Most people don't really care about 3D audio, and the ones that do don't exactly research the best options out there. IIRC most non-Razer "gaming" headsets still use Dolby Headphone, which sounds absolutely awful to me.
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Well I don't use Dolby Atmos or Razer Surround either as vanilla 5.1 speakers setting do a better job IMO. :p If the tech is working good it will market itself, all the various surround sound algorithms so far have been either too much impacting on sound quality or not providing convincing enough surround sound so people left with a "meh" experience. Even the pretty expensive with a pretty decent working surround sound, Sennheiser GSX 1000 unit has gained some ground from YouTube reviewers alone (but that's the only thing it does great though and very overpriced if talking DAC performance for music listening).

Things like this quickly finds it way to Twitch streamers and pro gaming scene too which also provide good marketing with minimal spend as ppl watch what kind of equipment those use, especially the more popular it gets. I wonder how much sales boost HyperX Cloud headsets gained from e-sports pro gaming scene, such a common sight still for a $80'ish headset.
 
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Do we really need a supposedly true 3D experience? I mean I just use a pair of Beyer T1s hooked up to an O2 DAC/AMP, and I get pretty damn good positional hearing from the combo... with like absolutely no tweaking of any sort.
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
Do we really need a supposedly true 3D experience? I mean I just use a pair of Beyer T1s hooked up to an O2 DAC/AMP, and I get pretty damn good positional hearing from the combo... with like absolutely no tweaking of any sort.
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Yes. You would probably be blown away once you realize how much better it can be.
 
I doubt that. In the first place, anything this chip would be included in would likely be a crappy pair of gaming headphones that doesn't sound anywhere remotely close to the quality of my headphones.

I'm still confused about the way this works, anyway. IIRC you use phase differences and whatnot in signals to create supposed directional sound. He says that putting more drivers isn't creating "true" 3D sound, but that this thing will. So what does it do, modulate phase and signal properties in such a way that, with two drivers, it creates a more realistic 3D sound based on your ear canals? Or does it still require more and more drivers (which are likely to be trash quality) packed in to the headphones? Will it work as a standalone DAC that I can plug into my amp?
 
It will work with any pair of stereo headphones. Then it's up to Creative what kind of products that will be out, initially there will be a small dongle/DAC with a simple on/off button and some included software where you can probably perform the calibration (as in take picture of your ears and somehow this app tells the chip in how to process the sound for more accurate positioning for your ears which Creative says is about 85% accurate compared to using microphones which was used at the CES 2018 demo to record the way the sound bounces in the ears).

At least gaming headphone manufacturers have been interested in the product so I'd assume it's likely we also see built-in into headphone itself but I'd be suprised if it also wasn't released part of a new soundcard (USB external one or PCI-E based). Just have to wait and see.
 
Since having a dedicated 5.1 system is out of the picture in an apartment, I’m very interested and can’t wait for this to come out.
 
the problem I have with headphones, and I have tried a bunch, is weight and heat. Damn I have had headphones that cause my ears to sweat after 20 minutes, and others that a cooler but weigh a ton.

no weight, cool and with this built in, what more could I want LOL
NO MIC .....AHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhh
 
sparks said:
the problem I have with headphones, and I have tried a bunch, is weight and heat. Damn I have had headphones that cause my ears to sweat after 20 minutes, and others that a cooler but weigh a ton.

no weight, cool and with this built in, what more could I want LOL
NO MIC .....AHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhh
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Not all headphones are built to crush your spinal column, or give you heat rash. For example, I tried the Sennheiser 800 HD and after a while I forgot they were there and tried to walk away with them on my head.
 
Yeah, try some "open back" headphones. They're generally a lot more comfortable and cooler.

And they have a much better sound stage.

Also there are solutions like mod mic that allow you to use nicer headphones instead of gaiming headsets.
 
Looking forward to this! Currently using SBX with a nice set of open back headphones. If they nail the implementation i'm sold!
 
Originally said July or August of this year. So we have 10 days to see if that was accurate...
 
Yeah. I know. I am hopeful but there is no way it matches up. I can't afford the senn 800s ATM. Much less the a16. I should return to prostitution.
 
No news on this headphone dongle with Super X-Fi chip built-in? At least I can't find much
 
It has an integrated DAC with s/n sadly near 100dB.
I hoped for at least 110dB, preferably much higher.

Even if another DAC chip can be used, it looks like the processing dynamic range wont allow best use of it.
Still, its a positive step forward.
 
mjz_5 said:
I can’t really find any solid information about this product
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There doesn't appear to be a product yet.

And I still don't understand why there needs to be- this could be software.

Nenu said:
It has an integrated DAC with s/n sadly near 100dB.
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Their press material states 'exceeds 100dB'; do you have a reference for something different, or is that what you're referring to?
 
Cnet seems to love the demo at CES. I wonder if Kyle knows anyone who has tried the demo. Kyle?

I’m getting super excited for this and it seems like we are all gonna get punked. Even creatives USA website about this product seems a little shady.
 
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IdiotInCharge said:
Their press material states 'exceeds 100dB'; do you have a reference for something different, or is that what you're referring to?
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Yes, it wont exceed it by much otherwise they would push the point.
 
I know PC World has spoken highly of of the demo for this as well. That said, I will be cautiously optimistic.

About damn time for some change to the status quo though
 
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