X-Fi: Hi-Fi For Custom Systems

High-fidelity audio is being brought to the world of custom systems by Creative Technology’s latest Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum sound cards. The cards use a new 24-bit Crystalizer and a Creative Multi-Speaker Surround 3D (CMSS-3D) technology that surpasses all competing cards in clarity and quality.

With CMSS-3D, X-Fi cards can remaster and remix normal and compressed 16-bit audio in real time, which translates to small distortions and a high level of accuracy that most digital-analog converters built into high-end audio home appliances cannot match. At 109db signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), X-Fi cards produce clear and pure tones with astonishing fidelity.

The cards are THX certified and now support ASIO 2.0 at 16-bit/44.1KHz up to 24-bit/96KHz and vastly surpass older Audigy cards in raw processing by a factor of several thousand MIPS. The CRN Test Center extensively tested the X-Fi Platinum sound card using a 5.1 Dolby surround PC speaker system, and even at a multichannel playback recorded at 96KHz, the engineers found no delays or experienced any distortions.

White-box builders that specialize in entertainment and gaming systems will see little reason to bundle PCs with competing sound cards. Here’s a good reason: For gaming systems, X-Fi Elite Pro cards ship with 64 MB on-board X-RAM, which delivers a 20 percent to 40 percent gain in audio performance. With this much X-RAM, gaming systems will sound realistic, allowing games to ramp up performance without compromising sound quality. This sound card produces 116dB SNR.

The X-Fi architecture is not bound to a PC system, providing high-precision audio signals even when playing at a 192KHz sample rate high-end formats such as AC3, DTS and DVD-audio. X-Fi cards arrive with multiple preset entertainment modes that optimize music and movie playback and enhance gaming and audio creation.

PRODUCT SNAPSHOT
> Name: Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum
> Price: $199.99
> Distributors/Integrators: ASI, D&H, Ingram Micro, SED, Synnex, Tech Data
> Company: Creative Technology
Milpitas, Calif.
(408) 428-6600
www.creative.com