Creative Sound BlasterX AE-9 : First look and impressions

[vogelspinnen]

Hello everyone,

 

I am new to the forum and PC building in general, but have always been an audiophile since I started modifying cars in 2005. Now when I say "audiophile", I am not a critical listener, nor do I have a listening room where everything is pitch perfect and I listen to only the highest quality music. I just really enjoy good music, good effects when I am gaming or watching movies. As such, I tend to spend way too much on audio equipment.

 

My current plan is to build a sound system that does everything. Audiophile-quality playback for music and an immersive 5.1 surround experience for games and movies. The reason I chose to go the soundcard route is because good DACs seem to cater mostly for the 2.1 crowd, except the ridiculously expensive ones. 5.1 DACs tend to have just passable-quality audio. AV receivers can do both well, but plonking a huge, chonky thing onto my desk is the last thing on my mind. The Creative Sound BlasterX AE-9 ticked all the boxes, while being able to fit in my PC case, that's a win on all fronts! It also boasts some really impressive hardware and specs, and could really be the end to all my problems.

 

Recent circumstances resulted in me given the opportunity to obtain one of these babies earlier than usual, and I can say Creative really has some top-notch service, That is already a huge plus in my book. I decided to post some photos I took and also my impressions, but please bear in mind I am not a full-on audio equipment reviewer and neither do I know a lot about hardware. I am just an average guy like most of you out there who really loves listening to good audio, so I might sound like I have no idea what I'm talking about. If you guys have any tests you want me to run or specific things you want me to take a closer look at I'll try to accomodate, but I probably will not touch the sound card once it's in my PC (in about an hour from now!) until I my Burson opamps arrive. Enough rambling, photo time!

 

 

Well, it's a box. Nothing much to say here except I am literally bursting with excitement.

 

 

Soundcard is on top, wrapped in an anti-static wrap, and breakout box is below, product is well packaged. Not too sure if the breakout box is needed for the card to work, I will mostly be using just speakers so it isn't that important to me but the volume knob is nice to have, especially since the Dynaudio speakers are quite annoying to change the volume on.

 

 

So here we have it! The AE-9 feels very solidly built and finished, even before testing it, it just feels like a quality product all around. Design is clean and modern, and I especially love the EMI shield design. Not only does the cutaway allow easy swapping of opamps, I am expecting we will be able to install larger opamps like the Burson V6 and still be able to use the EMI shield. That's really thoughtful, and I love how they pay attention to little details and not just throw in the option to roll opamps and call it a day. The breakout box is surprisingly light, but still feels solidly built. The volume knob is just a pleasure to use. Turns easily and smoothly, while clicking firmly as you go through the steps. Like I said, little details!

 

 

RCA cables are well-made too, and Creative includes both an RCA-to-3.5mm female and RCA-to-3.5mm male. A TOSLINK optical cable is also provided. The breakout box uses what seems to be a mini version of a HDMI cable..

 

 

 

 

Terminals are all gold-plated, not necessary in my opinion, but little details like this makes me feel like Creative is sparing no expense at making this what will probably the best soundcard ever.

 

 

The finish on the EMI shield is beautiful, sadly I will not see much of it because it'll be on the bottom.

 

 

Overall, my expectations are really high now. The AE-9 is a well-built card with no expense spared for quality hardware, and definitely none spared in putting it together as well. Even just fiddling with it is impressing me beyond expectations, but at the end of the day, it's all about the SOUND right? I am going to do some cable management now and plan my speaker placement and I will post more pictures and impressions once I actually get it running. See you!

[RejZoR]

What soundcard did you have before? I'm currently on AE-5 and I'm wondering what will the sound be like... Also nice to see chinch to jack cable is included as I have a jack-jack cable to my speakers.

[vogelspinnen]

2 hours ago, RejZoR said:

What soundcard did you have before? I'm currently on AE-5 and I'm wondering what will the sound be like... Also nice to see chinch to jack cable is included as I have a jack-jack cable to my speakers.

So far I've only personally had onboard audio. It wasn't terrible, as my mobo is the Aorus Z390 Ultra. Then after that I was on the Audioengine HD3s, which had their own DAC which is LOADS better. I have just finished setting up my AE-9, so far it's the best-sounding of the lot. I'm gonna clear up the place and do some fine-tuning before I report back!

[alicskysareblue]

Im planning on getting an ae5 it really isn't great I mean its fine but I listen to a lot of music and I really want good sound

oh and shiit stack is more expensive then  an ae5

[vogelspinnen]

Installed the AE-9 at last! Installation is pretty simple, just remove plug it into any of your PCIE slots.

 

 

Creative has designed the backplate pretty nicely, this looks much better than the green PCB I've seen on other friend's soundcards. I would have liked if they had a completely add-on backplate so you do not see any of the PCB, but I guess this isn't a bad look either.

 

 

The SoundBlaster logo and AE-9 logo lights up in a cool white. I was hoping for RGB lighting, but strangely Creative has opted not to use them. I was worried it would clash badly with my orange lighting theme, but it looked surprisingly good. It was a very nice subtle effect, and the white brings an element of maturity and seriousness to my build. So no real complains there!

 

 

Power is provided via a 6-pin PCIE cable, I had already bought an orange one in preparation for the build. It's nice that there are no proprietary cables, unlike the ribbon cable on the ZxR which to me is very ugly.

 

 

Breakout box looks nice too, with its subtle white lighting, it looks very minimalistic and modern. The option to turn off the light is available, but I'll keep it on thank you very much.

 

All in all the soundcard fit in very nicely in my build. In fact I love how it looks!

[vogelspinnen]

5 hours ago, alicskysareblue said:

Im planning on getting an ae5 it really isn't great I mean its fine but I listen to a lot of music and I really want good sound

oh and shiit stack is more expensive then  an ae5

The AE-5 is a pretty good soundcard too, I don't really think the difference is SNR is going to be even noticeable. The AE-9 has stuff like the breakout box, swappable opamps and RCA outputs which made me choose it over the AE-5, but if none of these matter to you I'll say go for the AE-5, you get the bonus of having RGB lighting too lol.

 

I used to hear so much about why soundcards are inferior to DACs because it's in the PC so it's subject to EMI, but after hearing a couple of friend's setups, I'll say that problem is non-existent with today's technology.

[rice guru]

7 minutes ago, vogelspinnen said:

I used to hear so much about why soundcards are inferior to DACs because it's in the PC so it's subject to EMI, but after hearing a couple of friend's setups, I'll say that problem is non-existent with today's technology.

honestly it's pretty true all we need now is for them to measure just as good. but external DAcs have also gotten much cheaper over the years and I would be surprised if a internal soundcard made by asus or creative. would measure just as good as some $100 chi fi  dacs or like a khadas tone board. but then again a dac is a dac. an amps and the drivers themselves are more important and I still can't justify the price of the AE 9.   

[rice guru]

5 hours ago, alicskysareblue said:

Im planning on getting an ae5 it really isn't great I mean its fine but I listen to a lot of music and I really want good sound

oh and shiit stack is more expensive then  an ae5

an ODAC/SDAC is only $150 on massdrop . but you don't need to spend that much on a good dac and amp. the best upgrade you  really have on any audio setup are the drivers   ( headphone or speaker) and the amp .

[vogelspinnen]

You are absolutely spot on! The most important part is the drivers. In my opinion, the best DACs/soundcards/amps and whatnot are those that just do what they are supposed to do well. That means whatever goes in (source) is what comes out (output). No coloration, no drops in quality, no change in sound. Pure, unfiltered audio. If I wanted to change it I would use an equalizer.

 

Cheap products tend to make the audio sound digitalised/flatter/tinny and other strange effects, so yes you will still need to invest in a decent one. What I love about the AE-9 though is that it does it so well while sitting in my PC. Clean, beautiful audio, with lots of nifty features I will talk more about later. And I can do it all from one app, which is nice.

 

I'll say at the end of the day it boils down to what you need. In my case, I find the AE-9's price very justifiable for what I need it to do.

 

 

 

[vogelspinnen]

Installed the software and tinkered around on it for a while. It seemed pretty simple enough to use.

 

 

Software is pretty lightweight, nice. I had bloated apps. This will probably not even make a dent on today's software.

 

 

First thing I did was turn off SBX, kept the equalizer off and increased audio quality to max. Bass direction is basically a crossover, which allows you to set crossover settings. I am running active speakers which already have crossovers, so I opted to leave them off. Direct mode is a nice touch, it bypasses all filters and gives you direct, unadulterated audio straight from the source, something we audiophiles love.

 

 

This is one of my absolutely favorite features. Back when I was into car audio, this feature was called "time alignment", and it was one of the most important components in a setup, but expensive because only the best headunits had them. What this does is allow you set the distance of the speakers to your ears. Sound takes time to travel, so the program would adjust the delay of that channel by milliseconds. The end effect is that sound from the speakers will all reach your ears at THE SAME TIME. This completely transforms imaging and the soundstage. You have to sit in a time-aligned car to really be blown away. Drivers sit on one side of the car, so left and right speakers are vastly different in distance, but time alignment can make it seem like the music is coming from right in front of you. It's so effective it's freaky.

 

While this might not be that useful in a home setup because speakers are usually placed symmetrically, this allows those with space issues to position their speakers in strange locations and still get great audio. This will also be infinitely important for a surround setup. Creative really surprised me with this. Just this feature alone blows many other alternatives out of the water.

 

I haven't even played around with other options like SBX, Scout mode or the equalizer yet because I tend to like pure audio, but already I can straight off say Creative has the best software out there I have seen. The UI is well-designed and easy to use while having some truly nice features, more and more I am feeling it worth the long wait we had to wait for it's release.

 

Sadly the only 2 modes I can switch between is 5.1 and stereo, there isn't a 2.1 option. While running in 5.1 works just fine, I can imagine there might be issues for 2.1 users. I have emailed Creative regarding that, and I will update back if they have a suggestion or fix for the issue.

[vogelspinnen]

Listening impressions

 

Well obviously no photos here because I can't take a picture of music. But I can describe it in words.

 

F*****G. CLEAN.

 

Pardon the language, but that's what this whole soundcard is about. That's what we audiophiles chase with a fervor. Because with good speakers, that matters so much. Assuming you have a good pair of headphones/speakers, you will know how important the source is. You can hear every detail, every nuance, every slight bit of distortion. Clean audio is the difference between feeling like you are listening to awesome music on your PC and feeling like the music is performed right before you by the musicians. That is the reason why people stayed away from onboard audio and soundcards: noise. But the AE-9 doesn't have any of that. I turned the gain way up and still there was zero noise, even on quiet acoustic tracks where there are periods of complete silence. It was pure music: every instrument, every voice, every detail came out in precise clarity.

 

It's hard to describe good audio (to me, at least) and I wish I could just sit you all down and have a listen. This is the kind of fidelity that made me fall in love in audio, and it's coming out of a tiny soundcard in my PC. Technology has come a long way hasn't it?

 

I have yet to test a surround setup for gaming and movies because I have no idea how to place my speakers yet, but once I figure that out I'll report back. I can be sure there'll be nothing to complain about, because if the AE-9 can handle high quality soundtracks the way it is, I doubt there's anything that can give it a problem.

 

I am blown away, it words I cannot describe. I just regret I cannot give you guys any more data than that, but I'm pretty sure some tech reviewer will soon come out with a detailed review with measurements and charts and whatnot. But from the viewpoint of an audiophile, I can just say that the Creative AE-9 is all I ever wanted from a soundcard.

[rice guru]

8 hours ago, vogelspinnen said:

You are absolutely spot on! The most important part is the drivers. In my opinion, the best DACs/soundcards/amps and whatnot are those that just do what they are supposed to do well. That means whatever goes in (source) is what comes out (output). No coloration, no drops in quality, no change in sound. Pure, unfiltered audio. If I wanted to change it I would use an equalizer.

 

Cheap products tend to make the audio sound digitalised/flatter/tinny and other strange effects, so yes you will still need to invest in a decent one. What I love about the AE-9 though is that it does it so well while sitting in my PC. Clean, beautiful audio, with lots of nifty features I will talk more about later. And I can do it all from one app, which is nice.

 

I'll say at the end of the day it boils down to what you need. In my case, I find the AE-9's price very justifiable for what I need it to do.

 

 

 

tru I persoanlly sai it's hard to justify because I can get the very clean khadas tone board, topping d10 , sdac, topping d30 for less than a $100. get a JDS labs Atom, or a liquid spark both very clean headphone amps. and for a peaker amp get the micca Origain. but then again at this point it's like a prebuilt vs a custom build bpc and you are gaining software along with the hardware so . if it can perform at least as well as these which I highly doubt cause the atom and the tone board's performance is insane for the price its somewhat justifiable. 

[alicskysareblue]

13 hours ago, vogelspinnen said:

The AE-5 is a pretty good soundcard too, I don't really think the difference is SNR is going to be even noticeable. The AE-9 has stuff like the breakout box, swappable opamps and RCA outputs which made me choose it over the AE-5, but if none of these matter to you I'll say go for the AE-5, you get the bonus of having RGB lighting too lol.

 

I used to hear so much about why soundcards are inferior to DACs because it's in the PC so it's subject to EMI, but after hearing a couple of friend's setups, I'll say that problem is non-existent with today's technology.

sorry didn't clarify, I meant my onboard. its okey but Im kind of an audiophile so I want the best that I can afford for music and games

[alicskysareblue]

13 hours ago, rice guru said:

an ODAC/SDAC is only $150 on massdrop . but you don't need to spend that much on a good dac and amp. the best upgrade you  really have on any audio setup are the drivers   ( headphone or speaker) and the amp .

I have my matx computer on my desk, along with my router and modem and other stuff I really don't want more clutter. but thanks !

 

13 hours ago, vogelspinnen said:

The AE-5 is a pretty good soundcard too, I don't really think the difference is SNR is going to be even noticeable. The AE-9 has stuff like the breakout box, swappable opamps and RCA outputs which made me choose it over the AE-5, but if none of these matter to you I'll say go for the AE-5, you get the bonus of having RGB lighting too lol.

 

I used to hear so much about why soundcards are inferior to DACs because it's in the PC so it's subject to EMI, but after hearing a couple of friend's setups, I'll say that problem is non-existent with today's technology.

I meant my onboard.. its okey but its not as good as my old mobo,  

My sound blaster-z lasted for years, it was awesome, but driver support sucked, I had a hard time getting it to work with windows  ten. I eventually did. 

[vogelspinnen]

11 hours ago, alicskysareblue said:

I have my matx computer on my desk, along with my router and modem and other stuff I really don't want more clutter. but thanks !

 

I meant my onboard.. its okey but its not as good as my old mobo,  

My sound blaster-z lasted for years, it was awesome, but driver support sucked, I had a hard time getting it to work with windows  ten. I eventually did. 

Oh if you meant onboard then the AE-9 is definitely going to be a HUGE upgrade. The sound quality is leaps and bounds over any onboard audio. And I'm with you on the clutter part too. One of my main reasons for going the soundcard route is cleaniness too. An audiophile-level surround setup usually means huge, chonky receivers or at least a DAC if you're going 2.0 or 2.1. With a soundcard I could reduce my clutter to this:

 

[Derkoli]

On 7/21/2019 at 7:10 AM, vogelspinnen said:

Listening impressions

 

Well obviously no photos here because I can't take a picture of music. But I can describe it in words.

 

F*****G. CLEAN.

 

Pardon the language, but that's what this whole soundcard is about. That's what we audiophiles chase with a fervor. Because with good speakers, that matters so much. Assuming you have a good pair of headphones/speakers, you will know how important the source is. You can hear every detail, every nuance, every slight bit of distortion. Clean audio is the difference between feeling like you are listening to awesome music on your PC and feeling like the music is performed right before you by the musicians. That is the reason why people stayed away from onboard audio and soundcards: noise. But the AE-9 doesn't have any of that. I turned the gain way up and still there was zero noise, even on quiet acoustic tracks where there are periods of complete silence. It was pure music: every instrument, every voice, every detail came out in precise clarity.

 

It's hard to describe good audio (to me, at least) and I wish I could just sit you all down and have a listen. This is the kind of fidelity that made me fall in love in audio, and it's coming out of a tiny soundcard in my PC. Technology has come a long way hasn't it?

 

I have yet to test a surround setup for gaming and movies because I have no idea how to place my speakers yet, but once I figure that out I'll report back. I can be sure there'll be nothing to complain about, because if the AE-9 can handle high quality soundtracks the way it is, I doubt there's anything that can give it a problem.

 

I am blown away, it words I cannot describe. I just regret I cannot give you guys any more data than that, but I'm pretty sure some tech reviewer will soon come out with a detailed review with measurements and charts and whatnot. But from the viewpoint of an audiophile, I can just say that the Creative AE-9 is all I ever wanted from a soundcard.

If you need any help setting up surround, pop me a message

[Derkoli]

15 hours ago, vogelspinnen said:

Oh if you meant onboard then the AE-9 is definitely going to be a HUGE upgrade. The sound quality is leaps and bounds over any onboard audio. And I'm with you on the clutter part too. One of my main reasons for going the soundcard route is cleaniness too. An audiophile-level surround setup usually means huge, chonky receivers or at least a DAC if you're going 2.0 or 2.1. With a soundcard I could reduce my clutter to this:

 

Yeah my denon X8500H was chonky and a half, lol.

[vogelspinnen]

9 hours ago, Derkoli said:

Yeah my denon X8500H was chonky and a half, lol.

Chonky and a half is an understatement, any bigger and I can just use it for a computer chair lol!

[vogelspinnen]

9 hours ago, Derkoli said:

If you need any help setting up surround, pop me a message

Thanks for the offer! I am slowly figuring out stuff, and it's great to know I have an expert to turn to if I do need help!

 

Today I learnt the importance of a center speaker lol. I tried to run without one hoping the front speakers will just fill the space, but apparently there is a lot of information specific to the center channels which do not play on the fronts. For example, my Lara Croft is now mute XD.

 

I am an idiot, I gonna have to find my Audioengine B2s now.

[Derkoli]

2 hours ago, vogelspinnen said:

Thanks for the offer! I am slowly figuring out stuff, and it's great to know I have an expert to turn to if I do need help!

 

Today I learnt the importance of a center speaker lol. I tried to run without one hoping the front speakers will just fill the space, but apparently there is a lot of information specific to the center channels which do not play on the fronts. For example, my Lara Croft is now mute XD.

 

I am an idiot, I gonna have to find my Audioengine B2s now.

You can run a "phantom centre" but you have to config windows to 4.0/4.1, and the speakers have to have quite good imaging to feel realistic. Also you have to have your head pretty central at all times to get the effect.

[Derkoli]

2 hours ago, vogelspinnen said:

Chonky and a half is an understatement, any bigger and I can just use it for a computer chair lol!

Well, i use a mcintosh MA9000 now and its a bit bigger and quite a bit heavier lol.

[Maill]

I'm looking to buy this audio card, mainly for the audio inputs/outputs options and pleased that it sounds great. But @vogelspinnen, I'm interested by your 5.1 setup. What is your setup ? I think your speakers are regular hifi speaker, but how do you connect them to the sound card ? You need an interface for that right ? (Yeah, i'm a bit of a noob when it comes to audio equipment) I'm looking to upgrade my Logitech Z906 and start seeking information for that matter 

 

[vogelspinnen]

3 hours ago, Maill said:

I'm looking to buy this audio card, mainly for the audio inputs/outputs options and pleased that it sounds great. But @vogelspinnen, I'm interested by your 5.1 setup. What is your setup ? I think your speakers are regular hifi speaker, but how do you connect them to the sound card ? You need an interface for that right ? (Yeah, i'm a bit of a noob when it comes to audio equipment) I'm looking to upgrade my Logitech Z906 and start seeking information for that matter 

 

Nope you do not need any interface, everything is processed by the AE-9 and output via:

 

Front left and right speaker: RCA output

Rear left and right speaker: AUX output

Subwoofer and center channel: AUX output

 

So just plug in any speakers and they will work just fine. If your cable uses a different input than the soundcard, just get a cable that can convert from AUX to RCA or RCA to AUX.

 

Also make sure your speakers are active, which means they have an amplifier built-in, or you will have to buy an amplifier separately.

 

If you are planning to use your Z906, you can just use the optical cable and that's it.

 

If you have any other questions feel free to ask!

[vogelspinnen]

6 hours ago, Derkoli said:

You can run a "phantom centre" but you have to config windows to 4.0/4.1, and the speakers have to have quite good imaging to feel realistic. Also you have to have your head pretty central at all times to get the effect.

Yeah that was what I was planning to run, but how do you set windows to 4.1? There doesn't seem to be an option present. And yes my speakers have spot-imaging so I'm not too worried. I emailed the Creative guys and they said a 4.1 support may be in the works, so that's good news!

[Derkoli]

2 hours ago, vogelspinnen said:

Yeah that was what I was planning to run, but how do you set windows to 4.1? There doesn't seem to be an option present. And yes my speakers have spot-imaging so I'm not too worried. I emailed the Creative guys and they said a 4.1 support may be in the works, so that's good news!

Should be in windows sound settings.