Recon3D Fatality Professional/Champion Reviews??

EPOQ

[H]ard|Gawd
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Just curious if anyone is using the Recon3d cards yet. I have been looking for reviews and unable to find much about the card despite the Fatality Professional version being out for around a month or so. Not even through Tom's Hardware or some of the bigger sites. I'm planning on upgrading from my ALC892 onboard sound, mostly headphone gaming and listening to music with my Sennheiser HD558's, and I'm trying to compare apples to apples with the Recon3d and Asus Xonar Essence STX. I can find reviews all day long about the Asus card but I'd like to see someone compare it to the new Recon3d or at least give a full review of the Recon3d to help me make my decision.
 
i am using one for two weeks now.

didnt lose a second of sound while gaming, voice chat, and playing music at the same time.

drivers have been nothing but perfect so far.

compared to my previous sound cards, i would ask you to imagine windows vista being five times worse than what it was and then compared it to windows 7, the difference was that big on my computer.

the build in headphone amp is also great, you got to be carefull though, at just 40% volume my headphones can be heard from outside of my house, so unless you have high impedence headphones be carefull with the volume.

the only downside is that it doesnt support 7.1 so stay away from this is if you invested alot of money in 7.1 speaker setup.

so if you want a sound card for that is perfect for gaming, music, voice chat, skype, etc i dont think there is anything better than Recon out there.
 
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Good to hear, man. Just curious, what sound cards have you used previously to compare the Recon with? The headphone amp is what I'm most interested in, and thus it is down between the Recon Fatality Pro and the Asus Xonar Essence STX, both have headphone amps, no clue which to jump on.
 
I'm not sure those two cards (the Recon and the Essence) are even in the same class. The Essence is pretty much the card for headphones. Specs on the Recon, from what I've been able to find, are more on par with the Xonar DG/D1/DX and the Auzentech Bravura - more mid-range.

Edit: Unless the Recon Fatality Pro is significantly different from the baseline Recon3d, that is.
 
I'm not sure those two cards (the Recon and the Essence) are even in the same class. The Essence is pretty much the card for headphones. Specs on the Recon, from what I've been able to find, are more on par with the Xonar DG/D1/DX and the Auzentech Bravura - more mid-range.

Edit: Unless the Recon Fatality Pro is significantly different from the baseline Recon3d, that is.

After seeing the control panel for the Recon3D Professional, I'm actually pretty impressed with how it looks. For gaming purposes I'm thinking it will do what I want it to do, so I am going to buy one tomorrow and see how it goes. I know I'll definitely be posting my own review, since thus far there are NOT many out there. Unfortunately the only thing I'll be able to compare it to with my current headphone setup is the onboard ALC892.
 
After seeing the control panel for the Recon3D Professional, I'm actually pretty impressed with how it looks. For gaming purposes I'm thinking it will do what I want it to do, so I am going to buy one tomorrow and see how it goes. I know I'll definitely be posting my own review, since thus far there are NOT many out there. Unfortunately the only thing I'll be able to compare it to with my current headphone setup is the onboard ALC892.

how could i forget about the control panel, its the best ive seen from any sound card.

auto detection is flawless, it detected my setup perfectly, from 2.0, 2.1, 5.1, headphone, and a headset.

to answer your previous question, ive nearly tried every sound blaster before this one, HT and Asus cards.

HT was great and great for music only, but not a gaming nor voice chat sound card.

Asus was more stable in games but for voice chat and recording it was just as bad as HT.
 
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I'm guessing it wouldn't be a big jump from the Titanium HD though?


THX Surround(Recon3D) is much better than the previous XFi 3DMSS(TitaniumHD) in everything i threw at it, games, music, voice chat, recording, etc.

Recon3d is based on whole new hardware setup, you should read it about it, its a brand new sound processor, and it has 4 dsp's instead of one like from previous sound cards.


like i said in my previous post, this is overall the best sound card ive owned.
 
how could i forget about the control panel, its the best ive seen from any sound card.

auto detection is flawless, it detected my setup perfectly, from 2.0, 2.1, 5.1, headphone, and a headset.

to answer your previous question, ive nearly tried every sound blaster before this one, HT and Asus cards.

HT was great and great for music only, but not a gaming nor voice chat sound card.

Asus was more stable in games but for voice chat and recording it was just as bad as HT.

Awesome. I pretty much had made up my mind but this definitely solidifies everything. Ordering as soon as my direct deposit goes through at midnight! I didn't think I could get this excited about a sound card, of all things. Ha.
 
Awesome. I pretty much had made up my mind but this definitely solidifies everything. Ordering as soon as my direct deposit goes through at midnight! I didn't think I could get this excited about a sound card, of all things. Ha.

where did you find it in stock? i heard its hard to find the Champion version.
 
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THX Surround(Recon3D) is much better than the previous XFi 3DMSS(TitaniumHD) in everything i threw at it, games, music, voice chat, recording, etc.

Recon3d is based on whole new hardware setup, you should read it about it, its a brand new sound processor, and it has 4 dsp's instead of one like from previous sound cards.


like i said in my previous post, this is overall the best sound card ive owned.

I guess I'll save up for that during January/February :) Not sure which version I'd want though...
 
I guess I'll save up for that during January/February :) Not sure which version I'd want though...


there will be 4 models i believe by february-march.

i was going to get the $149 version because it comes shielded and with a microphone but it wasnt in stock so i bought the $99 model, it doesnt have a cover and i was worried over EMI/EMF but i havent heard anything abnormal since i bought it.

thats the only differenence between the two $99 model and $149 model.

the other two are different though, not sure of the benefits yet.
 
I'm really interested in the "beam-forming" mic that comes with the Fatal1ty editions. It looks like it clips to the bottom of your monitor and has noise-cancellation that allows you to use the mic with speaker without horrible feedback. Does it really transmit your voice clearly with speakers rockin all around it?

The dedicated headphone port w/amp also has me seriously looking at this card. If all of the features work properly, this card seems like the perfect setup for me.
 
Have the Fatality Pro editions being shiupped to me after New Year (they are in stock in one of Polish shops, but they don't ship between Christmas and New Year, so I'll put my thoughts next week :)

After having laid my hands on the USB Recon3D version, which was damn amazing (on my Creatvie gaming headset), I hope for same quality of audio on the PCIe card.

Went for pro, as I don't need the front panel from champion, and pay for it much, much more :)
 
where did you find it in stock? i heard its hard to find the Champion version.

I didn't go with the Champion version, didn't need the frontplate. The Professional version is in stock at TigerDirect.
 
Didn't know this only did 5.1 sound; bummer.

If it has the feature that feedback prevention feature (mic with speakers on) then that's definitely a good selling point.
 
Didn't know this only did 5.1 sound; bummer.

If it has the feature that feedback prevention feature (mic with speakers on) then that's definitely a good selling point.

there will be Recon3d that does 7.1, but it doesnt come out untill late January.
 
Have a link that confirms this? I'd love to see one that's on par with the Titanium HD but also does 7.1/5.1 analog.

i think i might of made a mistake, i got an email from Creative earlier, all Recond 3d sound cards that are coming out right now will only support up to 5.1 until Creative comes out with Recon 3d Titanium like brand later on in 2012.
 
I got the recon3d fatality professional. I use speakers and figured out how to get it to do 4.1. It only supports dolby digital live and not dts connect. After I got DD live working. I saw no option to set the base balance and treble balance. It felt like a downgrade over my x-fi titanium card.

So going to return the recon3d next week.
 
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THX Surround(Recon3D) is much better than the previous XFi 3DMSS(TitaniumHD) in everything i threw at it, games, music, voice chat, recording, etc.

Recon3d is based on whole new hardware setup, you should read it about it, its a brand new sound processor, and it has 4 dsp's instead of one like from previous sound cards.


like i said in my previous post, this is overall the best sound card ive owned.

The Titanium HD also has THX Tru studio support btw. Every one of those thx options that you have on the recon 3d can also be done on the titanium hd.

I'll be honest the more that I do read about the Recon 3d the less impressed that I am. The only thing that it seems to have going for it is the headphone amp which I don't need at the moment but still a nice touch.

I saw this on vr-zone.

Sadly our Japanese is more than lacking, but our gist of the article on Impress PC Watch seems to suggest that anyone that has an X-Fi card should hang on to it, as the Sound Core3D is not a step up. Apparently for voice chat/calls the Sound Core3D is the better choice, but in terms of audio quality and for gaming it can't keep up with the older X-Fi based cards. It's not hard to see why when you take into consideration that we're talking about a far simpler chip here judging it solely on its size and packaging. Considering the pricing – at least in Singapore – is identical between the new Sound Core3D cards and their older X-Fi siblings, we know what we'd get.

Here is the rest of the article.
 
I got the recon3d fatality professional. I use speakers and figured out how to get it to do 4.1. It only supports dolby digital live and not dts connect. After I got DD live working. I saw no option to set the base balance and treble balance. It felt like a downgrade over my x-fi titanium card.

So going to return the recon3d next week.

base? you mean bass?

anyway, i dont believe your story.

the bass and treble balance will be in the SB control panel.

but it was a nice try to bring down a product you dont even own.

It's not hard to see why when you take into consideration that we're talking about a far simpler chip here judging it solely on its size and packaging


they are commenting on Recon 3d based on size and packaging, hahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahaha, rofl.

if you read the entire story, he didnt try this sound card yet, ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

in another words, that source believes that 90nm cpu or graphic cards are better than 22/28nm cpu/video cards, ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lmao at the comments on that link you posted, they are laughing at that moron, rofl.
 
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Yes, that is vrzone commenting on a Japanese review since creative wasn't confident enough in their product to hand out review samples to places like [H]. This isn't like the EAX days anyways. That little chip does very little for you. That is true you can't judge the card solely on the core3d chip. What is important is the DACs and op amps and what not. It seems like it has some nice voice chat options which to be honest I don't care about. Based on everything that I've read the only real advantage over the titanium hd is headphone amp but the titanium hd has some advantages of its own.
 
base? you mean bass?

anyway, i dont believe your story.

the bass and treble balance will be in the SB control panel.

but it was a nice try to bring down a product you dont even own.




they are commenting on Recon 3d based on size and packaging, hahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahaha, rofl.

if you read the entire story, he didnt try this sound card yet, ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

in another words, that source believes that 90nm cpu or graphic cards are better than 22/28nm cpu/video cards, ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lmao at the comments on that link you posted, they are laughing at that moron, rofl.

Ok smart one tell me where it is. Yeah bass is that I meant. I looked for an hour didn't see any tone settings like we have on the x-fi cards. For a card thats suppose to be built on new tech, it felt like a step backwards.
 
Ok smart one tell me where it is. Yeah bass is that I meant. I looked for an hour didn't see any tone settings like we have on the x-fi cards. For a card thats suppose to be built on new tech, it felt like a step backwards.

i tried every configuration there is and i was able to set bass and treble in the control panel.

Check your speakers instead.
 
What does speakers have to do with it. I couldn't find a setting called bass/treble. Actually there was no default control panel. I had to install it from the CD.

There is a mixer that has a ton of sliders, but they dont actually say bass/treble.
 
What does speakers have to do with it. I couldn't find a setting called bass/treble. Actually there was no default control panel. I had to install it from the CD.

There is a mixer that has a ton of sliders, but they dont actually say bass/treble.

you can conrol bass and treble thru equalizer.
 
Could you upload some screenshots of the control panel? I haven't seen anything other than a pic of the thx section.
 
http://support.creative.com/kb/ShowArticle.aspx?sid=99203

This has screen shots looking at the equalizer I see nothing labeled bass and treble. I played around with some of them, but had zero idea what i was changing. Bass is a pretty importing setting that you just can't ignore.

Also been reading that this card wasn't meant to replace the x-fi titanium. May explain why its missing things like DTS connect and 7.1.
 
http://support.creative.com/kb/ShowArticle.aspx?sid=99203

This has screen shots looking at the equalizer I see nothing labeled bass and treble. I played around with some of them, but had zero idea what i was changing. Bass is a pretty importing setting that you just can't ignore.

Also been reading that this card wasn't meant to replace the x-fi titanium. May explain why its missing things like DTS connect and 7.1.

Well bass is just lower frequency sounds so if you want more bass you would just need to bump up the lower frequency sliders at or below 125hz. Tremble is just the frequencies at the higher end of the spectrum. Those sliders in the eq will actually do exactly what you are looking for.
 
Thanks, I would of never known that in the past creative always had a bass slider. For now still going to return it something just doesn't feel right with this product and what I read about it.
 
looking at the diagram from creative,there clearly is a slider marked BASS-in the TX Trustudio Pro section.
Is it greyed out on tours or missing totally?.
 
looking at the diagram from creative,there clearly is a slider marked BASS-in the TX Trustudio Pro section.
Is it greyed out on tours or missing totally?.

Thats for the THX, not everyone is going to want to use that all of the time especially for music.
 
The Recon3d seems to be aiming for a (lower) target market than the Essence STX.

The 102db SNR of this card puts it at the level of an onboard chip these days. The recon3d has the DAC built into the chip, the same way that a Realtek chip would. Looking at the (lack of) components on the PCB makes it seem as if Creative was trying to make a cheap card with higher profiit margins.

The Essence STX with its SNR of 110db (through headphone amp) and 124db through the line out are aimed closer to an audiophile market.

Time will tell whether Creative has another line planned to replace their high end card (Titanium HD) or whether they are abandoning the market segment.
 
The Recon3d seems to be aiming for a (lower) target market than the Essence STX.

The 102db SNR of this card puts it at the level of an onboard chip these days. The recon3d has the DAC built into the chip, the same way that a Realtek chip would. Looking at the (lack of) components on the PCB makes it seem as if Creative was trying to make a cheap card with higher profiit margins.

The Essence STX with its SNR of 110db (through headphone amp) and 124db through the line out are aimed closer to an audiophile market.

Time will tell whether Creative has another line planned to replace their high end card (Titanium HD) or whether they are abandoning the market segment.

dont let the lack of components on the PCB fool you these days. All that matters on the Recon3d is that nice looking processor in the middle of the sound card.

As tech gets better things get smaller and smaller, we all know the size of the first computer, we cant say now that it was the most powerfull computer because of the big size, can we?

Do i care that its PCB is not filled like with the ancient sound cards? my answer is NO.

And the fact that you are comparing this sound card to onboard due to db is instant failure on your side, you are so god damn wrong about it that i cant begin to describe your epic failure.

Even my old $20 dollar sound blaster was able to destroy my onboard sound from a $300 dollar mobo, the onboard sound was even able to do 192/24bit and it still failed at everything, lol, bu bu bu bu bu onboard and db, rofl.

I have owned nearly every other creative sound card, including Titanium HD and the new Recon3d that i bought two weeks ago delivers better sound quality in games.
 
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dont let the lack of components on the PCB fool you these days. All that matters on the Recon3d is that nice looking processor in the middle of the sound card.

Thats necessarily true. You still need a good dac, op-amps, caps, etc. I'm not bashing the Recon 3d, I'll reserve judgment until I see some real reviews but I still say the fact that they have been so reluctant to hand out review units to reviewers doesn't speak well for their confidence about these cards. There is just no way that the recon 3d compares to the STX, especially with music.

You mention that you think that this card sounds better. How? What sounds better? What settings were you using on the titanium hd? Were you using CMSS-3D? What were you listening with? etc.
 
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Mine will be here tomorrow. I will definitely be posting a review on the sound comparison between my ALC892 on my $200 Z68 Gigabyte mobo.
 
You guys do know that the Recon3D is simply a replacement for the XtremeAudio card, right? It's not a full hardware accelerated X-fi. And it can't do asio. It's a downgrade if you have an X-fi Titanium.
 
All I know is that for $150, if it doesn't sound noticeably better in all ways over my onboard audio, I will smash it with a sledgehammer and send it directly to Creative.
 
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