Chalenge,
I've searched for the posting where you were telling all about the new Creative SB Z series of sound cards & couldn't find it but you did peak my interest as you may have noted in my last post on that thread.......................
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Well I'm posting this to say...................
You were RIGHT!!!!!!!!
I checked up on this series both in Newegg & on Creative's web site & noted that these have been out for some time now but I had never noticed them. But once I read up on these I just had to get 1 & try it out. I have to admit that I am NOT the audiophile that you are & so I didn't go for the ZXR, even though those TI Burr-Brown DAC's & TI amp were very hard to pass up (the 1st gen top of the line Asus Xonar sc had Burr-Brown DAC's in it), but I couldn't get past the $217.99 price tag as I had gotten burned on Creative products since the SB Live! series of sound cards (mostly due to the very bloated driver & software packs that made these cards a pain) & had swore them off. I used the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card until I went to Vista from XP & started using the Asus Xonar series sound cards. When I got this Asus RIVG ROG mobo I went w/ the onboard Asus Supreme FX III sound (supposed to be an onboard vers of SB X-FI Fatality series). So I focused on the SB Z & Zx packages instead as the card build quality was essentially the same except for the DAC & amp choice.
So I settled for the SB Zx package instead & I got it on sale as well ($117.99 instead of the regular $149.99) off Newegg. Caught the sale at the last minute cause as soon as I completed my purchase the price went back up...........................
Package came in Thursday & I went thru the process of installing this card Friday evening after I got off work. I used the drivers & software that came w/ the card & I was very pleasantly surprised at how much Creative had cleaned this up (only had the drivers & software to operate the card & nothing else). All installed flawlessly (deleted all drivers & software to the onboard Supreme FX III sound chip then went in BIOS & disabled the sound chipset then installed the SB Zx discrete card then installing the drivers & software...making reboots when necessary so Windows would properly realign itself). As usual when you install a package like this it takes a while to set up & dial in on the sound profile that you want (most of Friday late night & early Saturday morning....wife's out of town so I made the most if it
) but once I got it all set up the sound output from this card just blew the Asus onboard sound away! There is just no comparison to be made.........................
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I now realize just how much I was missing. This got even better when I used Creative's new AutoUpdate software (set to not auto update) & updated the drivers to the latest vers. I like this from Creative as now you can CHOOSE to load all the stuff if you WANT it! An example of the difference in drivers was noted in the bass crossover freq settings as the prior driver vers I had to set the crossover freq setting up to 313Hz to clean up the output to my liking from my subwoofer but after the driver update I could lower this setting back down to 148Hz & have clean output.....that's a lot of difference & the bass output was.....just.....BEAUTIFUL!!!!!
I use the ACM that came w/ this card for the mics only (it looks GOOD sitting in front of my monitor) as I have my Sennheiser PC 350 headset plugged in the front jacks on my CM Storm Scout case thru the HD front jack connector off the sound card & use the software to switch between the headphones & my 13 yr old Klipsch THX 2.1 speaker set. Man that Merlin engine never sounded so good!
This card has now brought me back to being a fan of Creative SB series again & will pretty much be the card I will use going forward in my gaming box builds.
But if I ever build me a HTPC it will CERTAINLY have to have the SB ZXR sound card in it!
