My Creative sound blaster Z arrived today

R

reaper12

2[H]4U
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
2,798
Well, totally got a surprise today when DHL arrived with my new creative Z sound card.

Installed it earlier today and have been testing it in games and with music. It's really good so far.

ANy questions, just ask, will write more about it later.
 
reaper12 said:
Well, totally got a surprise today when DHL arrived with my new creative Z sound card.

Installed it earlier today and have been testing it in games and with music. It's really good so far.

ANy questions, just ask, will write more about it later.
Click to expand...

Does it have the ability to use both a microphone AND a line input? I have a Sound Blaster Audigy SE and it pisses me off that I have both jacks, but only the ability to switch between them! Definitely a step down from my 2004 Audigy 2 ZS. If it does, I might swing this one, as my old Roland modules like to be used. ;)
 
Did you got the top version - ZxR?
I don't know which card you had before, but how does it compare to Titanium HD, or top end Xonar?
 
jbltecnicspro said:
Does it have the ability to use both a microphone AND a line input? I have a Sound Blaster Audigy SE and it pisses me off that I have both jacks, but only the ability to switch between them! Definitely a step down from my 2004 Audigy 2 ZS. If it does, I might swing this one, as my old Roland modules like to be used. ;)
Click to expand...

Sorry, don't think this is going to be the card for you. I only got the Z version, and the mic and line input are on the one jack. It does have an optical input.
 
oooh interesting. do you have any other sources to compare it to? Titanium HD, STX, external dac, etc. etc.?
 
MorgothPl said:
Did you got the top version - ZxR?
I don't know which card you had before, but how does it compare to Titanium HD, or top end Xonar?
Click to expand...

The Zxr isn't going to be out until December, I only got the Z version. I had no interest in waiting because I wouldn't have any use for the daughter board or the audiocontrol module. And I definitely don't have any need for swappable op-amps.

I know there is more to sound than just the DAC, but, it should compare pretty favourably to both the titanium HD and the Asus essence ST or STX because both the Zxr and the titanium HD use the same DAC. Oh yeah the headphone amp is the same one that is used in the Asus ST/STX.

Now the Z uses a different DAC, but, people say that both DAC's are nearly identical in performance and sound quality. So I can't imagine there is any difference in SQ between the Z and the Zxr.

All I know is the sound is amazing, for everything from music to gaming. I have had a big grin on my face all day, because I bought the card without reviews and didnt know what it would be like.

Oh my last card was an Asus Xonar DG. The Z is streets ahead.
 
Porter_ said:
oooh interesting. do you have any other sources to compare it to? Titanium HD, STX, external dac, etc. etc.?
Click to expand...

Compared it to Asus Xonar DG, Creative Xi Fi Fatality, Realtek onboard audio and to a Pioneer SCLX-81 receiver.
 
I dont think the plain "Z" can compare to the Tit HD. I bought it for one of my computers to replace the reg plain titanium card. And its so much better. Has mic and line in together and a headphone always stays at 5.1 not resetting all the time lol. For me its better then the Titanium not the HD one you have.

So many dont like change. No matter what it reads like sounds like they will still say.. my old blah blah is so much better. If your happy thats all that matters. Me.. I buy it and if I dont like it I return it. I never go by just what a few people say.
 
very nice, thanks for the initial impressions.

i assume a review from Earl is coming down the pike for this series.
 
Zeblade said:
I dont think the plain "Z" can compare to the Tit HD. I bought it for one of my computers to replace the reg plain titanium card. And its so much better. Has mic and line in together and a headphone always stays at 5.1 not resetting all the time lol. For me its better then the Titanium not the HD one you have.

So many dont like change. No matter what it reads like sounds like they will still say.. my old blah blah is so much better. If your happy thats all that matters. Me.. I buy it and if I dont like it I return it. I never go by just what a few people say.
Click to expand...

Well the dac in the both the titanium HD and the Zxr are the same, not sure why they used a different dac in the Z because it's supposed to sound the same. Whereas the dac in the Z is a definite step up from the dac in the titanium.

lol again this is just what I read. But you seem to have confirmed that at least, that it does sound better than the titanium.

I agree with your last sentence too :) I bought it, but I won't be returning it, the sound is really good.
 
Porter_ said:
very nice, thanks for the initial impressions.

i assume a review from Earl is coming down the pike for this series.
Click to expand...

Not sure you will notice a difference in overall audio quality but if you game a lot I think you might see a difference there. Having tried dolby headphone, cmss3d and thx trustudio pro (yeah I even bought the license from creative!! :rolleyes:) I can tell you that the positional audio and sound quality is much improved. This is over headphones BTW.
 
reaper12 said:
Not sure you will notice a difference in overall audio quality but if you game a lot I think you might see a difference there. Having tried dolby headphone, cmss3d and thx trustudio pro (yeah I even bought the license from creative!! :rolleyes:) I can tell you that the positional audio and sound quality is much improved. This is over headphones BTW.
Click to expand...

i appreciate the input, but i'm only interested for the sake of curiosity. i'm not considering upgrading to the Z series.
 
Reaper - i'm very interested in this soundcard. I want a soundcard with a good heaphone amp (600 ohm, like this one). i'm particularly interested in the gaming (FPS) surround virtualization / downmixing to 2.0 stereo for my studio headphones, specifically the 3d positioning. you indicated that it compares well to the Essence's Dolby Headphone and Ti-HD's CMSS-3d....

question: what is the headphone surround virtualization called on the Z? does the Z accept a multi-channel source from the game/computer and downmix it to virtual surround ? is this easy to do within Creative's software? i've heard that the Xonar Phoebus' software doesn't allow you to easily make the card accept a multi-channel source and output it to 2.0 virtualized headphone surround (people have to 'trick' the card by plugging the headphones in after the game is started, otherwise, the card will only accept 2.0 stereo data and process surround effects on top of that).
 
Well, I don't know if this helps, in my control panel I have the speakers set to 5.1, in games I have the audio to set to 5.1 as well. And I just switch to headphones in gamesI presume that's what you are talking about? OR how would I test this? And I can do it and check it out for you and let you know.
 
to be clear - i'm only interested in knowing if the Z card will accept (easily) 5.1 surround coming from both the game and from windows, process it, apply 3d virtual surround and then send it out of the headphone jack in the back.

if you have an FPS game (BF3, COD), the 'best' settings would be:
in game audio setting: 5.1/7.1
Windows operating system audio settings control panel: 5.1/7.1
Soundblaster Z settings for output: Headphone

the above should (by my own understanding), provide you with the best virtualized
surround, when using a good set of stereo headphones since the Z card accepts the
largest amount of sound data and then processes it through SBX Pro Studio/Sound Core

by comparison, if you were to switch the in-game audio menu settings to 'headphone',
this would feasibly reduce the output to 2.0 and the Z card would be receiving much less
audio information to 'virtualize'. you'd probably notice a decline in the quality of the
3d positioning when playing an FPS.


in the Soundblaster Z menu settings, are their headphone options to 'accept' surround data (either 7.1 or 5.1)? i know that you definitely want the Z card to be ouputting in stereo as the headphones are 2 channel.
 
Well as I said my ingame and windows settings are set to 5.1, I only switch to heapdhone mode on the Z control panel.

The positional audio is really accurate, I mean I can tell when people are above or below me, standing behind a wall or if they are far away or close by. It's supposed to be an improvement on the recon 3D. I havent heard the recon 3d, but I know it's one thing that most people agree on, for gaming it is an awesome card for positional audio, just the audio quality was a total let down.
 
hi wiskeyshot
i dont have the z card, nor a recon3d one, but from what i understand:
as you can see in this pdf in page 6: http://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/view/Document/download/resource_document/22802

if you enable the sbx prostudio, it will convert the 3d sound ingame to your stereo headphones, and you wont hear from 5 directions or 7 directions, you will hear 360 degrees of sound that is decrypted by brain, it's like in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmL-YRxC6Y8&hd=1
and it doesn't matter what quality of headphones you plug in, but the better quality, the more you can recognize where the sound comes from. i am using x-fi xtrememusic and sennheiser PC 360 headset.
 
From the specs, it looks like Z seems like a typical mid-range sound card. What I wanna hear about is the Zxr's
 
The Zx seems to have nichicon fg fine-gold audio capacitors. But I'm not sure if they are worth the extra £30
 
no, the extra money is more about the ACM
2756_1.1345408075.jpg
 
Any reason why you got this card over an Asus Xonar

i thought creative has been going down the tubes for some years now in terms of competitive products ?
 
MrGuvernment said:
Any reason why you got this card over an Asus Xonar

i thought creative has been going down the tubes for some years now in terms of competitive products ?
Click to expand...

ASUS and Creative each have cards that compete well at various price points. quality of components are comparable, and quality of drivers vary depending on who you ask. there's nightmare stories and high-praise for both ASUS and Creative drivers depending on where you look. so i just said a whole lot of nothing, but my stance is you can't go wrong with either (assuming you know which duds to skip like Recon3D etc.)
 
Good to know, i stopped using creative back in the mid XP years when their driver went to crap and their false advertising on product specs kept popping up.
 
Porter_ said:
ASUS and Creative each have cards that compete well at various price points. quality of components are comparable, and quality of drivers vary depending on who you ask. there's nightmare stories and high-praise for both ASUS and Creative drivers depending on where you look. so i just said a whole lot of nothing, but my stance is you can't go wrong with either (assuming you know which duds to skip like Recon3D etc.)
Click to expand...

Great summary of things :)
 
reaper12 said:
Let me know what you think.
Click to expand...

Will do. The PFE012 exposes every little flaw and has amazing separation, so I should be able to tell if its good or bad within few minutes. I'll also compare it to the old X-Fi XtremeMusic (2006 edition) and Sansa Clip Zip for good measure.
 
Last edited:
Nielo TM said:
Will do. The PFE012 exposes every little flaw and has amazing separation, so I should be able to tell if its good or bad within few minutes. I'll also compare it to the old X-Fi XtremeMusic (2006 edition) and Sansa Clip Zip for good measure.
Click to expand...

Thank you, I am hoping that you find the card as good as I do. Because if you find it crap than I think I need to get my ears examined :D
 
Same here. I hate returning stuff.

btw I've just properly compared the Sansa Clip Zip to RealTek ALC892 cos I haven't used on-board for 8 years and the 20 quid Sansa put the RealTek to shame. Ok... the Sansa has a build in headphone amp but still. After this, I can't take anyone who states on-board is good enough seriously. RealTek still has a long way to go before it becomes acceptable.
 
Last edited:
The Clip Zip's awesome and far above average when it comes to portable audio.
 
Exactly and it's bloody cheap too. IMO there's no valid reason for the RealTek to sound significantly inferior.

PS: I think the Sansa occupies the second place ATM. It lost to the new Sony reference level DMP, which costs more than 10 times compared to the cheapest Clip Zip. For that amount you can buy the 4GB Sansa, 64GB MicroSDXC, and PFE112 and stil have £100 left over.
 
Last edited:
SBZ arrived today and so far I'm very impressed with it. Sound quality is simply fantastic. Built quality is also superb, but the card is filled with G-Luxon caps. I'm not sure how they compare to nichicon's fg fine-gold audio capacitors found on the Zx or if they even worth the money (it might be cheaper to recap). From reading various forums, G-Luxon caps aren't audio grade. I mainly use my in-ear for critical listing so I'm not sure how they effect me.

2012-11-14T14-27-51_0.jpg
 
Last edited:
I didn't take a look at the inside of mine. To be honest I just wanted to hear how it sounded and to me it sounds amazing. lol I guess what I am saying is that I don't really care what is on the inside as long as the sound quality is great :)

When you play it with some more get back to us and let us know how you finding it.
 
Same. I can't be asked to recap tbh. Besides Creative soundcards normally last over a decade.

So far it managed to beat the Sansa, but that's expected. Gonna do some more testing later. I won't be playing any games on it tho.
 
WhiskeyShot said:
to be clear - i'm only interested in knowing if the Z card will accept (easily) 5.1 surround coming from both the game and from windows, process it, apply 3d virtual surround and then send it out of the headphone jack in the back.

if you have an FPS game (BF3, COD), the 'best' settings would be:
in game audio setting: 5.1/7.1
Windows operating system audio settings control panel: 5.1/7.1
Soundblaster Z settings for output: Headphone

the above should (by my own understanding), provide you with the best virtualized
surround, when using a good set of stereo headphones since the Z card accepts the
largest amount of sound data and then processes it through SBX Pro Studio/Sound Core

by comparison, if you were to switch the in-game audio menu settings to 'headphone',
this would feasibly reduce the output to 2.0 and the Z card would be receiving much less
audio information to 'virtualize'. you'd probably notice a decline in the quality of the
3d positioning when playing an FPS.


in the Soundblaster Z menu settings, are their headphone options to 'accept' surround data (either 7.1 or 5.1)? i know that you definitely want the Z card to be ouputting in stereo as the headphones are 2 channel.
Click to expand...

This post is total bullshit.

If you want the most accurate positional audio...

a) Find a game that has a decent audio engine.
b) Find some headphones that have a decent soundstage.
c) Swith everything to "stereo headphones".

Thats it, no need for stupid CMSS3D or Dolby Headphone that mess with the sound quality and give nothing good.
 
The problem is most modern games are console ports and lack quality audio engine. I'm only aware of one game with decent audio engine and that's BF3.
 
Nielo TM said:
The problem is most modern games are console ports and lack quality audio engine. I'm only aware of one game with decent audio engine and that's BF3.
Click to expand...

It's not. Positional audio does only work when you playing in very small servers and close to no vehicles. Try to play in a 64 player map and you will see that you don't even have your own footsteps.

PS: sure, the sounds are high-quality... but competivity-wise, the engine is crap.

PSS: and still, when you have high-end audio gear you are looking for high-fidelity... and using positional audio crap defines the purpose on the first place without giving you any advantage whatsoever.
 
prava said:
This post is total bullshit.

If you want the most accurate positional audio...

a) Find a game that has a decent audio engine.
b) Find some headphones that have a decent soundstage.
c) Swith everything to "stereo headphones".

Thats it, no need for stupid CMSS3D or Dolby Headphone that mess with the sound quality and give nothing good.
Click to expand...

while i agree with your sentiment about CMSS-3D sounding like garbage and doing nothing to improve sound, calling his post 'bullshit' is a bit aggressive and unwarranted. lots of people find virtual surround to be accurate and an improvement for positional cues. you're an audiophile, you know that people hear differently.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top