Creative Sound BlasterX AE-9 : First look and impressions

[Maill]

18 hours ago, vogelspinnen said:

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!

Ah ! They're active ! Now I understand, but 1 remaining thing, how do you plug 2 speakers in 1 input on the SD ? I know on my Z906, 1 jack is for 2 channels and it have 3 jack (I've plugged it with the 3 jacks on my Xonar D2X), so I think you achieve that with some adapters because you need to plug 4 RCA to 1 jack and 4 RCA to 2 RCA in the case with the AE-9 (if that so, can you link me what you use).

For the reference, can I have your speakers models ?

 

Edit : After 20 min of google, I did not found any device 4 rca to jack, so by curiosity I searched the electric schematics for rca to jack and I found what I searched, with a little bit of soldering it should be possible to have my adapter 

https://imgur.com/X3aE1Qz

 

Or like you say, RCA to Jack Mono and 2 Jack Mono to Stereo, anyway, I've answered my questions myself with more research , thanks for the tips.

[Derkoli]

2 hours ago, Maill said:

Ah ! They're active ! Now I understand, but 1 remaining thing, how do you plug 2 speakers in 1 input on the SD ? I know on my Z906, 1 jack is for 2 channels and it have 3 jack (I've plugged it with the 3 jacks on my Xonar D2X), so I think you achieve that with some adapters because you need to plug 4 RCA to 1 jack and 4 RCA to 2 RCA in the case with the AE-9 (if that so, can you link me what you use).

For the reference, can I have your speakers models ?

 

Edit : After 20 min of google, I did not found any device 4 rca to jack, so by curiosity I searched the electric schematics for rca to jack and I found what I searched, with a little bit of soldering it should be possible to have my adapter 

https://imgur.com/X3aE1Qz

 

Or like you say, RCA to Jack Mono and 2 Jack Mono to Stereo, anyway, I've answered my questions myself with more research , thanks for the tips.

What you need is three of these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/UGREEN-Splitter-Controller-Connector-Gold-plated-Green/dp/B015PZ7QO2/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?keywords=3.5mm+to+rca&qid=1563967732&s=gateway&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzQ0FKOTBVRjNIRjBWJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwOTkwNDYyMjVLMkxRUFIzQ01IRyZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwOTk5MjU5MTA3WkFKUzhKUjExOCZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=

[vogelspinnen]

2 hours ago, Maill said:

Ah ! They're active ! Now I understand, but 1 remaining thing, how do you plug 2 speakers in 1 input on the SD ? I know on my Z906, 1 jack is for 2 channels and it have 3 jack (I've plugged it with the 3 jacks on my Xonar D2X), so I think you achieve that with some adapters because you need to plug 4 RCA to 1 jack and 4 RCA to 2 RCA in the case with the AE-9 (if that so, can you link me what you use).

For the reference, can I have your speakers models ?

 

Edit : After 20 min of google, I did not found any device 4 rca to jack, so by curiosity I searched the electric schematics for rca to jack and I found what I searched, with a little bit of soldering it should be possible to have my adapter 

https://imgur.com/X3aE1Qz

 

Or like you say, RCA to Jack Mono and 2 Jack Mono to Stereo, anyway, I've answered my questions myself with more research , thanks for the tips.

 

Ok I drew a little diagram to help you better visualise stuff. This is what your typical active setup will look like. Nothing to difficult for the front and rear, just plug it in directly and get an AUX to RCA adapter if needed. The tricky one is Center/Subwoofer out. When you plug in a regular AUX cable, what happens is the left channel is your center speaker and right channel is the subwoofer. Both become mono channels. So I use a regular AUX to RCA to split the channels, then one goes to the woofer (which has a mono output) and one to the center speaker, which I have to use a RCA splitter to split the RCA output to stereo again.

 

For your Z906 it's much simpler. You have 3 AUX inputs, which is front, rear and center/sub. So just get a RCA to AUX for the fronts, and you can use a regular AUX for the rear and subwoofer. Or alternatively just use an optical cable, I think just that cable will be enough to run all your speakers.

[Maill]

2 minutes ago, vogelspinnen said:

[Image]

 

Ok I drew a little diagram to help you better visualise stuff. This is what your typical active setup will look like. Nothing to difficult for the front and rear, just plug it in directly and get an AUX to RCA adapter if needed. The tricky one is Center/Subwoofer out. When you plug in a regular AUX cable, what happens is the left channel is your center speaker and right channel is the subwoofer. Both become mono channels. So I use a regular AUX to RCA to split the channels, then one goes to the woofer (which has a mono output) and one to the center speaker, which I have to use a RCA splitter to split the RCA output to stereo again.

 

For your Z906 it's much simpler. You have 3 AUX inputs, which is front, rear and center/sub. So just get a RCA to AUX for the fronts, and you can use a regular AUX for the rear and subwoofer. Or alternatively just use an optical cable, I think just that cable will be enough to run all your speakers.

This is perfect, now this is all clear, thanks for the diagram and your references. 

[vogelspinnen]

 

 

Surround system is up! Nothing to complain here, it is a dream come true! So is it possible to have a clean,uncluttered setup where one can enjoy audiophile-quality music and still get an immersive gaming/movie experience? For this, the Creative AE-9 is everything I could have wanted and more. Switching between stereo mode for listening and 5.1 for games/movies is a breeze. I like my games/movies bass-heavy, and music as neutral as possible, and SBX makes tweaking that with a push of a button so easy.

 

Time alignment, or what Creative calls speaker calibration, lets you get your positioning spot-on, allowing you to calibrate every speaker's distance from 0.3m to 2.0m. This means that with some careful tweaking, the sound from all speakers will hit your ears at the same time. Don't underestimate that few milliseconds difference, it's extremely important.

 

I feel that once you game or watch a movie in 5.1, you will never want to go back. The immersion is just unreal.

 

I made a couple of stupid mistakes with my setup though. First off I only just realised my Xeo 2 has an input delay of 20ms to compensate for the wireless bridge between the speakers. That is a huge problem because the AE-9 cannot compensate for that much, and I'm still trying to find a solution which hopefully does not involve me having to buy a second pair of Xeo 2s.

 

Secondly I completely underestimated the importance of a center speaker. For a true 5.1 setup, there is audio that is EXCLUSIVE to the center channel, like dialogue, gunshots, reloading sounds, etc. Creative has replied to me that they might look into a 4.1 option in the future, which basically just mixes the center channel audio into the left and right speakers equally. That will be really nice for us desktop users to have, considering how we really do not need a center channel since desks are not that big.

 

Also do note that not many media players support 2.1 discrete, so things like YouTube will not work properly in discrete 2.1 mode. Thankfully Creative has an added Bass Redirection mode, which basically is an electronic crossover which passes the lows to your subwoofer. That is a really awesome feature, the only problem I have with it is that my Xeo 2s play pretty low, and passing that over to my subwoofer means taking some of the bass from them. I emailed Creative regarding having a custom crossover setting where we can control the range of frequencies the speakers play, or at least give us the option to keep the speakers full-range.

 

Overall the Creative Sound BlasterX AE-9 performed beautifully, and I couldn't expect anything much more from a little soundcard! Next up is opamp testing, I am considering the Burson V6s, but that's a story for another day.

[jasonvp]

I finally got mine yesterday.  Unfortunately I have this annoying thing called "work" that I have to do, so I haven't spent a ton of time playing around with it yet.  It and its software installed easily enough, replacing my previous ZxR card.  I had RCA line ins and line outs running to the ZxR, so that was an easy enough transition to make to the new one.  The ACM box is sitting on the floor next to my mixer as I have no intentions of using the headphone outputs on it.  I also can't really keep the ACM on my UpLift sit/stand desk; the PC is sitting on a table next to my desk, and the ACM's 1.4m cable just isn't long enough.  So: floor.

 

My first test wasn't actually sound playback, it was sound input.  I attempted to send a line out from my mixer to the XLR port on the ACM.  Annnnnd ... nope.  That didn't work.  At all.  All I was rewarded with was static and garbage every time I tried to talk.  I didn't spend a lot of time trying to get that going, so more experimentation will be needed.  For now, the RCA lines in are fine.

 

Formerly, with my ZxR, I was using Razer's virtual 7.1 software for games that support Surround Sound (eg: the Battlefield series).  It works very well and provides decent positional audio over a pair of stereo cans.  I'd have to disable it for games like Rainbow Six Siege that don't support Surround, but that's easy enough to do.  I was half-expecting to not be able to use Creative's virtual 7.1 specifically because, as I said earlier: I'm not using their headphone output ports.  My assumption was that it would only apply to those ports, and by default it does.  But: there's a setting that allows you to apply it to the lines out, and when you do that, it actually disables all of the headphone ports.

 

Cool!

 

So, with it enabled, I did some quick surround tests using the Creative software.  I didn't have a lot of time to play any games.  The problem is: Creative's software claims it creates a virtual 7.1 device, but it presents a 5.1 device to Windows.  And that's all any game is going to see: 5.1.  And when I tested the directional audio in their software, I found that the "Side" and "Side/Rear" audio actually sounded like it was identical.  Because to Windows: it is.  So, for instance, the "Right" speaker and "Right Rear" speaker sound identical.  Same for the left side.  Again: I strongly suspect that the issue here is that Creative's software is telling you, the end user, "Hey, it's a 7.1 device!" but it's telling Windows, "This is a 5.1 device".

 

That's quite unlike Razer's virtual software.  It presents a 7.1 device to the end user and to Windows.  And the 7 different directions are quite different from one another.  So for the time being, I'll keep using Razer's software with the Sound Blaster.  I really do expect Creative can keep polishing this up and get the virtual surround working a lot better.

 

Ultimately: I can hear a slight difference in clarity between the ZxR and this new AE-9.  It's a small difference, but it's there and I can appreciate it.  Whether this card is worth the steep asking price is up to the individual.  I think it sound fantastic, and it has potential for further greatness.  Creative's just got some software to work on.

[vogelspinnen]

2 hours ago, jasonvp said:

I finally got mine yesterday.  Unfortunately I have this annoying thing called "work" that I have to do, so I haven't spent a ton of time playing around with it yet.  It and its software installed easily enough, replacing my previous ZxR card.  I had RCA line ins and line outs running to the ZxR, so that was an easy enough transition to make to the new one.  The ACM box is sitting on the floor next to my mixer as I have no intentions of using the headphone outputs on it.  I also can't really keep the ACM on my UpLift sit/stand desk; the PC is sitting on a table next to my desk, and the ACM's 1.4m cable just isn't long enough.  So: floor.

 

My first test wasn't actually sound playback, it was sound input.  I attempted to send a line out from my mixer to the XLR port on the ACM.  Annnnnd ... nope.  That didn't work.  At all.  All I was rewarded with was static and garbage every time I tried to talk.  I didn't spend a lot of time trying to get that going, so more experimentation will be needed.  For now, the RCA lines in are fine.

 

Formerly, with my ZxR, I was using Razer's virtual 7.1 software for games that support Surround Sound (eg: the Battlefield series).  It works very well and provides decent positional audio over a pair of stereo cans.  I'd have to disable it for games like Rainbow Six Siege that don't support Surround, but that's easy enough to do.  I was half-expecting to not be able to use Creative's virtual 7.1 specifically because, as I said earlier: I'm not using their headphone output ports.  My assumption was that it would only apply to those ports, and by default it does.  But: there's a setting that allows you to apply it to the lines out, and when you do that, it actually disables all of the headphone ports.

 

Cool!

 

So, with it enabled, I did some quick surround tests using the Creative software.  I didn't have a lot of time to play any games.  The problem is: Creative's software claims it creates a virtual 7.1 device, but it presents a 5.1 device to Windows.  And that's all any game is going to see: 5.1.  And when I tested the directional audio in their software, I found that the "Side" and "Side/Rear" audio actually sounded like it was identical.  Because to Windows: it is.  So, for instance, the "Right" speaker and "Right Rear" speaker sound identical.  Same for the left side.  Again: I strongly suspect that the issue here is that Creative's software is telling you, the end user, "Hey, it's a 7.1 device!" but it's telling Windows, "This is a 5.1 device".

 

That's quite unlike Razer's virtual software.  It presents a 7.1 device to the end user and to Windows.  And the 7 different directions are quite different from one another.  So for the time being, I'll keep using Razer's software with the Sound Blaster.  I really do expect Creative can keep polishing this up and get the virtual surround working a lot better.

 

Ultimately: I can hear a slight difference in clarity between the ZxR and this new AE-9.  It's a small difference, but it's there and I can appreciate it.  Whether this card is worth the steep asking price is up to the individual.  I think it sound fantastic, and it has potential for further greatness.  Creative's just got some software to work on.

Yea I feel you on the software part. While the software is pretty great for most users, it doesn't offer a deeper level of customisation some of us need. I have a 20ms delay on my Xeo 2s as they are wireless, and the Sound Blaster app could only compensate for around 5ms. There is also no option to simulate a false center channel ( I have actually emailed Creative about this, and they told me they might release 4.1 support for a future update, so fingers crossed! ). And finally, the bass redirection feature, while useful, does not allow nearly as much control over the crossover settings as I would like.

 

I ended up just putting the AE-9 in "direct mode", and am now using a free software called Equalizer APO to manage all my channels. The app is awesome enough to create a false center so I do not need a center speaker, allow me to do custom passover settings for my subwoofer, let me sync my speakers to a 20ms delay, and automatically detect if I am on a 2.0 or 5.1 soundtrack, and apply different settings accordingly. It's highly recommended!

 

Overall I still love my AE-9 to bits, and like you I do not really need the features of the breakout box, but I still keep it on my desk for the very nice volume control knob.

[Derkoli]

2 hours ago, vogelspinnen said:

Yea I feel you on the software part. While the software is pretty great for most users, it doesn't offer a deeper level of customisation some of us need. I have a 20ms delay on my Xeo 2s as they are wireless, and the Sound Blaster app could only compensate for around 5ms. There is also no option to simulate a false center channel ( I have actually emailed Creative about this, and they told me they might release 4.1 support for a future update, so fingers crossed! ). And finally, the bass redirection feature, while useful, does not allow nearly as much control over the crossover settings as I would like.

 

I ended up just putting the AE-9 in "direct mode", and am now using a free software called Equalizer APO to manage all my channels. The app is awesome enough to create a false center so I do not need a center speaker, allow me to do custom passover settings for my subwoofer, let me sync my speakers to a 20ms delay, and automatically detect if I am on a 2.0 or 5.1 soundtrack, and apply different settings accordingly. It's highly recommended!

 

Overall I still love my AE-9 to bits, and like you I do not really need the features of the breakout box, but I still keep it on my desk for the very nice volume control knob.

EqualizerAPO is a bloody god send for windows sometimes. I hate windows audio so much. EqualizerAPO makes it alot more bearable.

[RejZoR]

AE-9 is slowly creeping into Europe. One shop got it, but they only ship within Germany which sucks. Gonna have to wait some more time...

[RejZoR]

Yay, that German store had the Sound Blaster AE-9 in stock and after contacting them, they agreed to send it to my country anyway at a slightly higher fee. If all goes well I should have it sometime next week, probably.

[vogelspinnen]

55 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Yay, that German store had the Sound Blaster AE-9 in stock and after contacting them, they agreed to send it to my country anyway at a slightly higher fee. If all goes well I should have it sometime next week, probably.

Finally! Why is it so hard to get it into your country though?

[RejZoR]

3 hours ago, vogelspinnen said:

Finally! Why is it so hard to get it into your country though?

I hate ordering from outside EU coz then I have to deal with stupid customs delays and costs. Just that.

[freekymachine]

Say ;

 

I got the card for already 2 weeks, preorder, early shipping...but

 

It doesnt run..well..

 

Well it sounds awesome..dont get me wrong, it is the best soundcard internally, when it runs. I saw the complete line from AWE32 ISA to now the AE9..and it makes the best computersound my Marantz Class A Amp with 40kg Eton Speakers ever had.

 

But the "Drivers" ?! fail, when card arrived, it worked flawless for 6hours, then sound just stopped working, sometimes when i browse, sometimes when i click something new, open tab, switch music, start a game. Betadrivers dont help either. My mic "crashes" in Teamspeak, software/Creative Controlcenter go stuck and use CPU0 100% ?!..its horrible. So horrible, i put back in my old Soundcard and are now waiting for creative to fix that problem ?!

 

Playback can run sometimes nonstop, sometimes when i for e.g. start a livestream newstime broadcast it just stops, can be re-enabled in controlcenter if i switch between speaker and headphone mode.. and so on, hard to explain,t o catch, to reproduce, did all, new OS, PCI-E ports, settings, everything...

 

The card wont work nonstop. Anyone else or anyone from Linus guys experiencing similar stuff ? Since i saw already many websites and youtubers "infulencing" the new card,t esting it too, running, must be someone out there, besides the supernice article "ouuh wow the new AE9 --look at it, pics" ... yet noone speaking about maybe big issue ?! Reddit has already here and there quite many weird "bugs" from people, i have like "only" 2, while some other have even more and worse, at some people it does run...creative said already its certain types of mainboards ?! pci-e 4.0 problems too, but not all ? ...its so annoying, 30 years creative and then this

 

Well, for audiophil it is a good card, but the problems made me look further in external DAC ..gotta move on, ESS Sabre 9016, 9018 are also built in some pretty expansive external DAC..while surfing i found this one "Vincent DAC-7" ...if you rly rly want something over the top.

Not there are ofc Vincent DAC-1 cheaper one, or Marantz N6006, and other high end "barely payable shit" like Cambrige Audio or Audio lab, up to 6k for a DAC..

 

But well, since Creative has the newes 9038 ..and should/could be enough for Class A, i wanted it..now the card sits in a box and is waiting..for idk..doomsday ? Drivers ? Shipment back ? ( or..wts, brandnew AE for sale, only 350 € , germany / Kiel )

[RejZoR]

I had similar problems with AE-5 in terms of reliability on release. But their tech support was actually very helpful and they resolved the issues very quickly. Now they also have official support on Reddit with one guy hanging there all the time. They are also unifying AE series which will have same drivers and control panel now. They really need to make one software and stick with it coz they have fuck ton of software that no one can maintain. So, I'm quite optimistic in this regard even though I might expect initial issues as with every new Creative release unfortunately.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/SoundBlasterOfficial/

 

I suggest you get in touch with Ryan on Reddit.

[freekymachine]

already have^^ more or less.lets see if anything new is on there..

 

he said the ae-9 is not a soundcard, like you would call a bugatti chiron, not just a "car"

wwweeeellll :=)

if it were bugatti, they would have waaay different customer support, communicate much better, treat people they way they deserve, if you buy a bugatti.

And regarding the AE9 = bugatti..no, its just a mercedes s-class, nice..but not a ferrari or so..the vincent dac-7 is maybe a ferrari, there are option out there which cost 6k for a soundcard, 350 is like discounter^^

[vogelspinnen]

Mine was basically plug-and-play. Had it in and since day 1 it has never failed on me, I did hear the PCIE 4.0 crowd complaining though, and if you are part of that crowd I think they have released a beta if you wanna test if it'll fix your issue. Or alternatively wait for the official patch to be released, which is.....not yet.

[RejZoR]

10 hours ago, freekymachine said:

already have^^ more or less.lets see if anything new is on there..

 

he said the ae-9 is not a soundcard, like you would call a bugatti chiron, not just a "car"

wwweeeellll :=)

if it were bugatti, they would have waaay different customer support, communicate much better, treat people they way they deserve, if you buy a bugatti.

And regarding the AE9 = bugatti..no, its just a mercedes s-class, nice..but not a ferrari or so..the vincent dac-7 is maybe a ferrari, there are option out there which cost 6k for a soundcard, 350 is like discounter^^

People overrate DAC's so damn much like they are the God of audio. Sorry to break it to you, but they aren't. They are just a dumb device that outputs audio through high end components. AE-9 on the other hand, at least for OpenAL and ALchemy powered games, is more than that and actually connects to them on hardware level. Good luck with your even $10.000 DAC ever doing that. Not to mention Crystalizer which is the most heretic thing for so called "audiophiles", but on a device (computer) that predominantly plays MP3's and other compressed audio (games don't use lossless formats), it's actually doing an amazing job at adding things that are missing because of compression. And I don't recall DAC's having an equalizer. Which sound cards do have.

 

It's just always this argument with "audiophiles" who don't seem to have any concept of why gaming soundcards exist or how certain types are just better because gaming is not even about SNR and THD and DAC's and shit. It's about other things. Unfortunately Microsoft basically killed it off with Vista, but it's still relevant to some of us. Along with Crystalizer and EQ. AE-9 having top notch components on the PCB is a bonus, not a primary feature.

[vogelspinnen]

1 hour ago, RejZoR said:

People overrate DAC's so damn much like they are the God of audio. Sorry to break it to you, but they aren't. They are just a dumb device that outputs audio through high end components. AE-9 on the other hand, at least for OpenAL and ALchemy powered games, is more than that and actually connects to them on hardware level. Good luck with your even $10.000 DAC ever doing that. Not to mention Crystalizer which is the most heretic thing for so called "audiophiles", but on a device (computer) that predominantly plays MP3's and other compressed audio (games don't use lossless formats), it's actually doing an amazing job at adding things that are missing because of compression. And I don't recall DAC's having an equalizer. Which sound cards do have.

 

It's just always this argument with "audiophiles" who don't seem to have any concept of why gaming soundcards exist or how certain types are just better because gaming is not even about SNR and THD and DAC's and shit. It's about other things. Unfortunately Microsoft basically killed it off with Vista, but it's still relevant to some of us. Along with Crystalizer and EQ. AE-9 having top notch components on the PCB is a bonus, not a primary feature.

Pretty much hit the nail on the head with this. Too many people go "you can get a quality DAC for less" when they hear the term "soundcard". And there is also the "DACs are better isolated from EMI". Most people who will spend that much on a soundcard KNOW why we are not getting a DAC instead of a soundcard. Yes, if we wanted clean audio on a stereo setup, we'll get a DAC and call it a day. But a soundcard does so much more than just output stereo audio, and to be able to do all that whilst not having half your desk space taken up is a big plus.

 

And 90% of people who talk about noise in a soundcard probably haven't even heard a good, modern soundcard, and are probably just parroting off what they read in 2001.

[freekymachine]

2 hours ago, RejZoR said:

People overrate DAC's so damn much like they are the God of audio. Sorry to break it to you, but they aren't. They are just a dumb device that outputs audio through high end components. AE-9 on the other hand, at least for OpenAL and ALchemy powered games, is more than that and actually connects to them on hardware level. Good luck with your even $10.000 DAC ever doing that. Not to mention Crystalizer which is the most heretic thing for so called "audiophiles", but on a device (computer) that predominantly plays MP3's and other compressed audio (games don't use lossless formats), it's actually doing an amazing job at adding things that are missing because of compression. And I don't recall DAC's having an equalizer. Which sound cards do have.

 

It's just always this argument with "audiophiles" who don't seem to have any concept of why gaming soundcards exist or how certain types are just better because gaming is not even about SNR and THD and DAC's and shit. It's about other things. Unfortunately Microsoft basically killed it off with Vista, but it's still relevant to some of us. Along with Crystalizer and EQ. AE-9 having top notch components on the PCB is a bonus, not a primary feature.

True ! .. at some point, the big adavantage of internal soundcard is ofc the direct connection to the bus and no extra toys around, which many external dac have, which maybe nobody needs, but you have ofc to pay for em. The optimization trough games, the crystalizer fpr mp3 madness is ok - i mean, what else to do with 320 mp3s ?! ofc would prefer 7200er files, if youre able to get em..from where ?!.

And well, ofc in Class A Systems there arent equalizer, nothing which would dampen the sound, modify it, there is reason why there are still tube amps out there, dont mess the sound in anyway, i know many Class A Amps which basically have only a power off and on button. So most high end external DAC have nothing either. Not sure myself where the money-sound ratio is, 400€, 600 € ? 1500 € 6000 € ? ..well heard many 20k € audiosystems, compared to my 5k System..they are better..but not that 15€++ better. from like 1000 € to 2000 € you get the "double" better sound ?!..from 2k to 5k ..not rly twice again ?!..well some can hear it, some dont, some say they must have the 20k, can understand, if i had money i guess i would go for 10k ..but i would stop there and start wasting money on women, cars and alcehol again

 

Either way, im currently stuck with a non working AE9 on X99 PCI-E 3.0 system. Creative have another 10 days to bring a driver out which make it works, else i have to send it back..and ya well..what to buy then ?

[RejZoR]

I mean, AE series still have direct mode which is pure DAC like output without any DSP involved and it goes up to 32bit 384kHz through one of the highest level components on the market. And if components were so damn affected by EMI, nothing could work at all. Ever. The PCIe dedicated power line is already an overkill if we're honest, but audiophiles will hear something somewhere somehow and that's a no go, but realistically, no one can hear said "interference".

[freekymachine]

1 hour ago, vogelspinnen said:

Pretty much hit the nail on the head with this. Too many people go "you can get a quality DAC for less" when they hear the term "soundcard". And there is also the "DACs are better isolated from EMI". Most people who will spend that much on a soundcard KNOW why we are not getting a DAC instead of a soundcard. Yes, if we wanted clean audio on a stereo setup, we'll get a DAC and call it a day. But a soundcard does so much more than just output stereo audio, and to be able to do all that whilst not having half your desk space taken up is a big plus.

 

And 90% of people who talk about noise in a soundcard probably haven't even heard a good, modern soundcard, and are probably just parroting off what they read in 2001.

hehe yes..well what to expect, its a sound evolution, you do with your own ears. IF you once tasted good/better sound than befor sound, you wont go back, till you reach a niveau where you only browse trough vincent, accuphase, marantz, Klangfilm, Cambridge Audio, Linn and so many other high end manufacteurs. Anf for those you need ofc best input signal. So yes..some are sometimes stuck in the past..2001 ..didnt notice time moves on.

[freekymachine]

Just now, RejZoR said:

I mean, AE series still have direct mode which is pure DAC like output without any DSP involved and it goes up to 32bit 384kHz through one of the highest level components on the market. And if components were so damn affected by EMI, nothing could work at all. Ever. The PCIe dedicated power line is already an overkill if we're honest, but audiophiles will hear something somewhere somehow and that's a no go, but realistically, no one can hear said "interference".

yes, currently with the 9038 sabre its like the modernest part you can get - well even though i tested the 32 bit mode with 384khz with the few files i have..its amazing..but still, would need new library, so i rly can enjoy that. Not that i found somewhere one external DAC which also could do 32bit/768khz ..but well, no use for youtube^^

Since i can hear, or the system makes you hear a lot, i also tested putting industrial netfilter in front of pc..which also helps quite a lot. Read only in the net "no its useless" ..well same people using obviosly logitec 2.1 system..ofc there you wouldnt notice .

 

Ye i dont want to send card back, i heard it, i tasted "blood" ..it is amazing, the best internal soundcard my marantz ever had, favourite songs give me goosebumps on skin when i turn it on with the ae9..till it disrupts

[vogelspinnen]

It is a never-ending chase in the end isn't it? I used to go crazy in car audio chasing better and better sound, until the point I realised that even the music I was listening to has changed, because I was after the best quality recordings I could find. I was enjoying the system, not the music. While that is definitely not a bad thing, I realised I lost track of what I had set out to do in the first place : musical enjoyment. I still like crappy-recorded MP3s, low-quality soundtracks, as long as it was music I liked. With music you like, even a $20 speaker can sound good. Better on a $99999 system of course 

[RejZoR]

Woohoo, just got notification that AE-9 has been delivered. Can't wait to check it out in the evening It said tuesday, but they already delivered it. Nice. I'm so hyped because the change from Sound Blaster Z to Sound BlasterX AE-5 was quite big. So my expectations are very high yet again

[jasonvp]

On 8/15/2019 at 5:30 AM, RejZoR said:

The PCIe dedicated power line is already an overkill if we're honest,

No it's not.  It's there to help power the ACM, such that the ACM can provide +48V phantom to a condenser mic.  That may not be important to you, but it's a thing.  And that's why it's there.