Product Description

Why settle for basic, built-in sound? Your music and movies deserve Xtreme Fidelity. Simply connect the Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 sound card to your PC or notebook and turn your downloaded music into your own personal concert. Watch DVDs or downloaded videos with full cinematic surround sound. Plus experience 3D audio and EAX effects in your games. It's a better blast! USB 2.0 or 1.1 connectivity to PC Ports - Microphone in (1/8 mini jack); Stereo Line in (1/8 mini jack); Headphone out (1/8 mini jack); Left/Right Speaker out (2x RCA jacks); Rear-Left/Rear-Right out (1/8 mini jack); Center/Subwoofer out (1/8 mini jack); Optical out (TOSLINK) Cinematic surround sound from DVD movies - Watch your DVDs in cinematic surround sound with PowerDVD software featuring DTS and Dolby Digital EX decoding (free download with purchase). Plus send Dolby pass-thru audio directly to your home theater receiver using the optical output Includes USB Sound Blaster X-FI Surround 5.1 sound card; USB Cable; Installation CD; Quick Start leaflet; Stereo RCA to 1/8? jack adapter

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #899 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Creative Labs
• Model: 70SB10900000
• Dimensions: 6.30" h x 2.40" w x 8.90" l, 3.00 pounds

Features

• X-Fi Crystalizer technology restores the detail and vibrance to your compressed music and movies. All the highs and lows are intelligently enhanced so you¿ll hear everything in crystal clarity.
• Slip on your headphones and X-Fi CMSS-3D technology moves the sound away from your ears and into the space around you. You¿ll feel like you¿ re sitting with your favorite band or in the best seat in the movie theater.
• Expand your stereo music and movies into surround sound with X-Fi CMSS-3D technology. Voices are centered in front of you. Ambient sound appears all around you... just like a live performance.
• Realistic sound effects in games Bullets whiz past your head. Explosions shake the room. Take your games to the next level with EAX ADVANCED HD sound effects.
• Cinematic surround sound from DVD movies Watch your DVDs in cinematic surround sound with PowerDVD software featuring DTS and Dolby Digital -EX decoding (free download with purchase).

Customer Reviews

great surround sound for a reasonable price
The sound quality is amazing. Music that I didn't really like earlier sounds sharp and clear and the bass is great. Good for parties. And really transforms the experience for gamers, particularly FPS games or war-based games. The only problem I found is that the USB cable to connect to the computer is too short. Overall, a great buy.

Not so great. . .
I bought this as a replacement for an older external sound card, thinking it would be a step up. I was sadly mistaken- the quality of sound was less than the SB 24 Live! external, and it seems to have a mind of its own about whether or not it wants to play through all four satellite speakers. No matter what settings I used, it persistently played almost everything as stereo through the front speakers only. After fighting it for a couple of days and spending a lot of time on CL's support site, I gave up and sent it back.

When Monitoring the Microphone, There is a Delay
If you want to use this device strictly to listen to music through your digital entertainment center's speakers using the optical digital connection, you will be quite pleased.

If, however, you want to listen through the earphone output on the device, you will hear all sorts of pops and cracks.

Also if you want to use the device to record music on your computer hard drive and need to listen to the monitor, the monitor switch is hidden in the device volume panel (it is a recent software upgrade), in the Mixer function window. There is a small box to the right of the field that says Mic-in/Line-in. Click that box. However, you will notice a horrible delay between what you say and what you hear back through the monitor. This is an absolutely unacceptable engineering flaw.

I've communicated with Creative about the problem, and their attitude is "so sad, too bad, get a refund."

To summarize, this is great for simply listening to music through your stereo. It is horrible for listening through headphones or when using the microphone/line-in monitor.