Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Sound Card Review @ [H]

After returning the Recon3d Fatality back to Bestbuy and getting an Asus Phoebus in its place all I can say is Wow! There is like 100 percent improvement in sound quality. Even my 4.1 sound is working properly. Before like in MassEffect 3, which sounds incredible now, the Recon3d screwed up the sound channels and couldn't do 4.1 like the Phoebus. Not only that the card needs an external 6 pin pci-e power connector. I have never owned an audio card that needs external power! Wow!
 
davidm71 said:
After returning the Recon3d Fatality back to Bestbuy and getting an Asus Phoebus in its place all I can say is Wow! There is like 100 percent improvement in sound quality. Even my 4.1 sound is working properly. Before like in MassEffect 3, which sounds incredible now, the Recon3d screwed up the sound channels and couldn't do 4.1 like the Phoebus. Not only that the card needs an external 6 pin pci-e power connector. I have never owned an audio card that needs external power! Wow!
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there is so much bull waste in your post.
 
You need to adjust the volume with the Sound Blaster Recon in the control pannel for it to work. I have it at like 67% for the side surround speakers. Too loud it gets muddied together.
 
Phoebus doesn't work with Battlefield one the most advanced PC games out there =)
 
I am currently running with onboard audio with my P9X79 WS (Realtek® ALC898). At the time I built my system, I figured I would give onboard audio a try since I have read that the quality has improved quite a bit.

That said, I am currently eying up a sound card as I have had some issues with headphone volume not really being where I feel it should be. I've been checking out the Recon3D Fatal1ty. Newegg has it on sale today for $109 compared to $99 for the base model. I am not a major audiophile and would only be using headphones. Based on this, could anyone who has the Recond3D base or Fatal1ty comment on their experiences if you happened to have gone from onboard audio to this? Would it be worth the extra $100? Again, I would mostly be gaming - with a tiny bit of movie watching from time to time.
 
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the difference is very noticeable and you will get about 3 times as much volume to work with. if we would just make the volume go higher on the onboard audio then I could live with it as long as I used the THXStudio software. after all that THX stuff is the only thing thats really doing anything for games and movies anyway. the Recon card itself is almost worthless other than the amp.
 
have not used creative for years since MS stripped a lot of the sound functionality out of Vista and 7....
 
kohl said:
I am currently running with onboard audio with my P9X79 WS (Realtek® ALC898). At the time I built my system, I figured I would give onboard audio a try since I have read that the quality has improved quite a bit.

That said, I am currently eying up a sound card as I have had some issues with headphone volume not really being where I feel it should be. I've been checking out the Recon3D Fatal1ty. Newegg has it on sale today for $109 compared to $99 for the base model. I am not a major audiophile and would only be using headphones. Based on this, could anyone who has the Recond3D base or Fatal1ty comment on their experiences if you happened to have gone from onboard audio to this? Would it be worth the extra $100? Again, I would mostly be gaming - with a tiny bit of movie watching from time to time.
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Recon3d is a great sound card for gaming, i bought a base recon3d when it first came out and drivers have been perfect so far. I do not have any issues at all, no crashes, popping, hissing, etc.

as for the movies? it does a decent job, but nothing ground breaking.

3d positioning in games with this card is better than all the previous cards ive owned, including Titanium HD.
 
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Sprkslfly said:
$50 for a metal plate and some led's??? really?

I've been fed up with Creative for awhile now. But this just shows how ego-tripped they really are. Not to mention how stupid they think the public is.

There's too many excellent alternative chipsets out there for them to have the ego they do (and most of their competitors fore-go price-gouging!!).

I was *ecstatic* with Crystal chips (CS4630), and when combined with a driver team that actually knows what the hell they're doing (Turtle Beach). Got started in a love affair with them the instant my ears picked up the first Santa Cruz. :)

Then re-awoke when I found the Xonar series (Cirrus Logic chips). Nice options, reasonably priced, and a competent driver team -unlike creative.
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Completely disagree. The Xonar cards have absolutely horrible drivers. This isn't my review but is quite spot on:
http://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=82983&p=1131230#p1131302

I had tons of crashes with Xonar XD when not used in software mode. Even 3dmark2003 crashed by simply enabling it. And in ME2 the music vanished with hardware on. Of course for older games the EAX sounds absolute horrid.
 
Kaleid said:
The Xonar cards have absolutely horrible drivers.
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I love the driver, its simple and strait forward, and dose what it needs to do.

I had tons of crashes with Xonar XD when not used in software mode. Even 3dmark2003 crashed by simply enabling it. And in ME2 the music vanished with hardware on. Of course for older games the EAX sounds absolute horrid.
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Own 2 Xonar XD's (for a PC and HTPC, and both connected to a DD amp. over S/PDIF) for over 4 years now, and had zero crashes in all that time related to the soundcard, on the other hand i had noting but trouble with SB cards before, so as the saying go's, "your mileage may vary"

This isn't my review but is quite spot on:
http://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=82983&p=1131230#p1131302
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Now this is my own review, and my experience it totally the opposite.
 
Ok, I might as well admit this up front: I "PC game" on my 3D TV (3D Vision) in the living room and use an Xpad (ducking).

Normally I get 5.1 via Nvida=>HDMI=>Pioneer VSX1021 however not all versions of the Nvida driver set see my VSX so that limits me to which driver set I can use. When it works I have 2/2.1/5.1/7.1 configuration output options under Win7. While Win7 will only light up the front speakers on the VSX (the display shows you what speakers are in use), I have yet to run a game that does not light up all 5.1 that I have configured. When Nvida does NOT recognize my HTR the only output option I have is <sic> Stereo.

After admittedly TO LITTLE research I came home with a Recon3D pro thinking that I could simply stream 5.1 via an optical cable and not worry about the Nvida drivers. Lucky there was a lone PCIe X1 slot accessible - a few minutes with a screw driver and I figured I was all set. Wrong. While the SB drivers did not crash my system (a marked improvement over prior products), I was never able to get even a "peep" out of the optical output.

After much reading it appears that the LAST generation SB card had a $4.95 software add on which provided DDL/DTS functionality. There is no DTS option(s) in SB's configuration program and the DDL option warns you that it can only be used for DD sources and when turned on will shut the digital output off from Games/Applications and Win7.

So after burning $100 and a few hours on this SB card I broke down and yanked the worthless card out of my system then rolled back my Nvida drivers to a version that recognizes my VSX1021 and I'm back to 5.1 heaven again.

Considering I really want to use the latest Nvida drives (Borderlands2) I'm still in the market for a Audio card and can't decide between a DSX card or go hog wild on a HT/OMEGA eClaro card. Do ANY of these cards do the stream processing on board? (not using your CPU to encode?)

I don't care about head phones and any analog outputs are useless to me. I'd like to have similar/same functionality with an optical cable as I do when the HDMI/Nvida solution is working.

All I know for sure is that the Recon3D Pro won't do what I need done.
 
I seriously believe that all the latest cards are steps down from the Xi-fi Elite Pro. Full bug-free 7.1/DTS/THX/DD support from all input/outputs, & absolutely magnificent sound regardless if the source is games, movies, or music.

It seems like they were really trying to release an unbeatable card, and after they released it, somebody had an epiphany and mentioned "Um.. did we just fuck ourselves out of business? If they buy this, why would they ever buy again?"
 
I don't even use a sound card any more except the one in my GTX-670 ,I have it hooked to my AV reciever since I use my HDTV for everthing ,my monitor my TV ,netflix and just use my headphone jack on my reciever.It sounds good enough for me,altho my my Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium sounded good ,the sound comeing from my GTX-670 and going though my AV reciever sounds just as good to me with my headphones on.
 
I have this sound card, AWESOME sound on my 5.1 speaker system :). But having a hard time configuring it with Skype + gaming headset, both not working in games, with both Skype on, and the game on with the headphones.

With my head phones do I plug in both the headphones and mic to the rear of the sound card ? use both outputs on the sound card ? One for the mic, and one for the headset ?

Maybe I don't have Windows setup properly to do both Skype and headphones in games at the same time ?
 
If you use Win Vista or 7, you can plug in your headset in there, en select that Skype has to use that one, works perfect for me.
 
player-x said:
If you use Win Vista or 7, you can plug in your headset in there, en select that Skype has to use that one, works perfect for me.
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Running Windows 8 Pro. But when I first tried it was only using the default Windows drivers it found for the sound card. Since then, I installed the beta Windows 8 drivers for the card, which now has the full SB Control Panel, wasn't there the first time. Haven't tried since I installed the Control Panel. The headphones themselves work perfect with the sound card and gaming, sounds perfect.

It was getting Skype to work while also hearing the game in the headphones originally was not working. Maybe I need to change a setting in Skype ? Or in the Windows media app ?

Do I need to plug in both the headphones, and also the headphone mic to the sound card panel ?
 
Sorry my girlfriend was bugging me wile typing, and klickt on post to quick. :D

Use your sound card for normal sound, and use the onboard soundcard for Skype.

you can plug in your headset in the onboard, en select that Skype has to use that one, works perfect for me, also eliminates echo over the mic.

Tho it took me some time to figure it out, as the setting in 7 it self ware little confusing, hoop its easier in W8, but with some trail and error you should get it to work. :p
 
Ok, so plug in the headphones to the rear of Recon 3D sound panel ? And plug in the headphone mic into the rear of the on board motherboard mic, not the Recon 3D mic input ?
 
No you plug your headsets and microphone in the onboard audio connectors.

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And leave your speakers in your sound card, sins Vista you can select a different audio device for things like Skype.

You do it in Windows 7, true the Sound options in the Control Panel.

Or it's via the Skype settings, just have a look. ;)
 
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