Sound Blaster sound card

[Mike90504]

Hi,

I just got a new PC system (Ryzen 3600, Asus ROG x570, Windows 10 Pro) and of course the Creative AE-7. 

I just powered my new PC eager to listen some CDs and experience the amazing sound every review touts. Well folks I can hear sound for about 2 seconds only when changing settings (in SoundBlaster Command) from Enhanced on-off  or Headphones to Speakers. It also works when starting to play a new song for 2-5 seconds then it goes mute. Although that the Windows sound settings panel shows the sound source as selected and Device manager says everything is ok. Drivers are from 20'th of June 2019. I tried headphones several sizes, even speakers (Logitech Z623), set from SB Command the impedance with no success.

"Amazing" experience for almost 300 usd. What a piece of GARBAGE. This is the reality behind the glowing reviews.

Do you need to be a sound expert just to be able to output any sound?

[RejZoR]

33 minutes ago, Mike90504 said:

Hi,

I just got a new PC system (Ryzen 3600, Asus ROG x570, Windows 10 Pro) and of course the Creative AE-7. 

I just powered my new PC eager to listen some CDs and experience the amazing sound every review touts. Well folks I can hear sound for about 2 seconds only when changing settings (in SoundBlaster Command) from Enhanced on-off  or Headphones to Speakers. It also works when starting to play a new song for 2-5 seconds then it goes mute. Although that the Windows sound settings panel shows the sound source as selected and Device manager says everything is ok. Drivers are from 20'th of June 2019. I tried headphones several sizes, even speakers (Logitech Z623), set from SB Command the impedance with no success.

"Amazing" experience for almost 300 usd. What a piece of GARBAGE. This is the reality behind the glowing reviews.

Do you need to be a sound expert just to be able to output any sound?

Yeah, it's a total fuckup. I have the AE-9 and it kept going dead non fucking stop. I got it working now for 2 days with this:

Disabling exclusive mode and it's working now. But I'm getting reports from people that it's not working for them. So, I really don't know how Creative managed to fuck things so horribly after Sound Blaster Z that had zero problems and AE-5 that had minor UI glitches, but sound worked fine. Try the above if it works for you.

[S w a t s o n]

22 hours ago, RejZoR said:

Yeah, it's a total fuckup. I have the AE-9 and it kept going dead non fucking stop. I got it working now for 2 days with this:

 

Disabling exclusive mode and it's working now. But I'm getting reports from people that it's not working for them. So, I really don't know how Creative managed to fuck things so horribly after Sound Blaster Z that had zero problems and AE-5 that had minor UI glitches, but sound worked fine. Try the above if it works for you.

Oof, this is why buying high end sound cards is a meme, get a desktop dac and amp or just buy a mobo with high end onboard. Fuck add-in cards and their additional drivers for something as simple as sound.

[Blademaster91]

13 minutes ago, S w a t s o n said:

Oof, this is why buying high end sound cards is a meme, get a desktop dac and amp or just buy a mobo with high end onboard. Fuck add-in cards and their additional drivers for something as simple as sound.

I like the DAC the AE-9 comes with, but yeah oof, anyone who buys a freaking $349 soundcard is gonna be disappointed when the sound randomly drops. Creative has been kinda known for having buggy drivers though I was expecting they'd get it right with these new cards. I agree, and a mobo with high end onboard is really common nowadays , or a cheap dac+amp is so much easier with no drivers to worry about.

[Mike90504]

22 hours ago, RejZoR said:

Yeah, it's a total fuckup. I have the AE-9 and it kept going dead non fucking stop. I got it working now for 2 days with this:

 

Disabling exclusive mode and it's working now. But I'm getting reports from people that it's not working for them. So, I really don't know how Creative managed to fuck things so horribly after Sound Blaster Z that had zero problems and AE-5 that had minor UI glitches, but sound worked fine. Try the above if it works for you.

Thanks so much for the help. Unfortunately the 2 solutions did not work in my case. So I reverted - that is- the 2 options are enabled again.

As a last resort I went to Command Center - Settings - Check Update and updated to a newer version 3.4.25.2 

So far it works, even when changing settings, no glitches.

Let us know if the update works for you.

 

21 hours ago, S w a t s o n said:

Oof, this is why buying high end sound cards is a meme, get a desktop dac and amp or just buy a mobo with high end onboard. Fuck add-in cards and their additional drivers for something as simple as sound.

I already have a high end mobo Asus ROG Strix x570 with a decent onboard sound. However I wanted something better to pair with my Sennheiser HD650 headphones.

21 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

I like the DAC the AE-9 comes with, but yeah oof, anyone who buys a freaking $349 soundcard is gonna be disappointed when the sound randomly drops. Creative has been kinda known for crappy drivers though I was expecting they'd get it right with these new cards. I agree, and a mobo with high end onboard is really common nowadays , or a cheap dac+amp is so much easier with no drivers to worry about.

Yes buy a dac + amp if you have the technical knowledge to know what to look for. I agree that going custom you'll be better off. But getting an opinion is everything but easy. There is no consensus. Everybody less/more experienced swears by all kind of amps/bits that range from brand new to back when papa was a Rolling Stone. The same for dac and other parts. The time to compile this amount of information I can't afford it.

I just want a good sound without too much overkill.

[S w a t s o n]

55 minutes ago, Mike90504 said:

I already have a high end mobo Asus ROG Strix x570 with a decent onboard sound. However I wanted something better to pair with my Sennheiser HD650 headphones.

Yes buy a dac + amp if you have the technical knowledge to know what to look for. I agree that going custom you'll be better off. But getting an opinion is everything but easy. There is no consensus. Everybody less/more experienced swears by all kind of amps/bits that range from brand new to back when papa was a Rolling Stone. The same for dac and other parts. The time to compile this amount of information I can't afford it.

I just want a good sound without too much overkill.

IMO you really dont need to have much technical knowledge to choose a dac+amp unless you think you can really hear the differences between tubes vs solid state and the various differences within each category. Literally almost any any fiio dac/amp or just go for the EZ meme and grab a Objective2 or a schiit stack which is almost certainly objectively better and cheaper. For Senn 650's I would have stuck with onboard on that mobo (assuming strix e) but meh.

 

Basically if you are concerned about picking the dac and amp due to lack of technical knowledge probably any well reviewed dac+amp would sound just better, these sound cards are no different, they will have technical differences that make them sound different too.

Objective2+ODAC (Pick one, they are the same product just put together by different companies):
https://jdslabs.com/product/objective2-odac-rev-b/

https://mayflowerelectronics.com/desktop-objective2-with-odac-rev-b/

 

Schiit Stack (Buy both or get one and buy a separate dac/amp):
https://www.schiit.com/products/magni-1

https://www.schiit.com/products/modi-1

Some example from Fiio, they makes lots of good cheap shit:
https://www.fiio.com/e10k
https://www.fiio.com/k5pro

[RejZoR]

39 minutes ago, Mike90504 said:

Thanks so much for the help. Unfortunately the 2 solutions did not work in my case. So I reverted - that is- the 2 options are enabled again.

As a last resort I went to Command Center - Settings - Check Update and updated to a newer version 3.4.25.2 

So far it works, even when changing settings, no glitches.

Let us know if the update works for you.

Don't celebrate too quickly. Sometimes it works for hours and then for no reason it shits itself. And then it might repeat it 5 times in a row. And then miraculously it won't do it for half a day. But more than anything, it keeps shitting itself. What's most bizarre is that problem seems to exhibit same problem outcome (audio cutting out), but the solution doesn't seem to work for anyone else but me. I haven't had audio cut out for me for 2 days, since I fully disabled Exclusive Mode. But I've contacted few others and it didn't work for them either. What an absolute shitshow after SB Z and SB AE-5 that were absolutely problem free the entire time.

[Mike90504]

1 hour ago, S w a t s o n said:

IMO you really dont need to have much technical knowledge to choose a dac+amp unless you think you can really hear the differences between tubes vs solid state and the various differences within each category. Literally almost any any fiio dac/amp or just go for the EZ meme and grab a Objective2 or a schiit stack which is almost certainly objectively better and cheaper. For Senn 650's I would have stuck with onboard on that mobo (assuming strix e) but meh.

 

Basically if you are concerned about picking the dac and amp due to lack of technical knowledge probably any well reviewed dac+amp would sound just better, these sound cards are no different, they will have technical differences that make them sound different too.

Objective2+ODAC (Pick one, they are the same product just put together by different companies):
https://jdslabs.com/product/objective2-odac-rev-b/

https://mayflowerelectronics.com/desktop-objective2-with-odac-rev-b/

 

Schiit Stack (Buy both or get one and buy a separate dac/amp):
https://www.schiit.com/products/magni-1

https://www.schiit.com/products/modi-1

Some example from Fiio, they makes lots of good cheap shit:
https://www.fiio.com/e10k
https://www.fiio.com/k5pro

Thanks for providing this info. Great, I'll start from here.

My worry was picking up something not good enough and then maybe hearing a better sounding system. And having to take out more money.

1 hour ago, RejZoR said:

Don't celebrate too quickly. Sometimes it works for hours and then for no reason it shits itself. And then it might repeat it 5 times in a row. And then miraculously it won't do it for half a day. But more than anything, it keeps shitting itself. What's most bizarre is that problem seems to exhibit same problem outcome (audio cutting out), but the solution doesn't seem to work for anyone else but me. I haven't had audio cut out for me for 2 days, since I fully disabled Exclusive Mode. But I've contacted few others and it didn't work for them either. What an absolute shitshow after SB Z and SB AE-5 that were absolutely problem free the entire time.

I'm still watching it. I'll keep you posted on this.

I am ok to pay top $ for something supposed to be high quality. But I have zero tolerance when it fails big to deliver. Anyway if it keeps shitting itself like this I'm giving it back. 

Looking from outside it's hilarious how they can release these audiophile grade top of the range products without proper support. Not enough tested, or tested and knowingly but pushed for delivery by some greedy bean counter/manager. Makes them look like complete clowns.

[Unixsystem]

2 hours ago, S w a t s o n said:

Oof, this is why buying high end sound cards is a meme, get a desktop dac and amp or just buy a mobo with high end onboard. Fuck add-in cards and their additional drivers for something as simple as sound.

I feel like this needs to be an informal law across tech in general. In the low/mainstream end you generally get decent support due to the fact that manufacturers sell tons and tons of units and as a result are incentivized to keep them running with regular support/bug fixes. Then on the ultra-high, enterprise end you pay out the ass but get excellent, often personalized support as a result. 

 

In the middle, though, you pay for a high end, niche product and then get left out to dry since there isn't enough market peneration to warrant significant ongoing support. I've seen it happen with high end motherboards before, as well as a handful of more niche peripherals I own, and it seems like sounds cards slot right into that worst-case-scenario level of popularity. 

[Mike90504]

32 minutes ago, Waffles13 said:

I feel like this needs to be an informal law across tech in general. In the low/mainstream end you generally get decent support due to the fact that manufacturers sell tons and tons of units and as a result are incentivized to keep them running with regular support/bug fixes. Then on the ultra-high, enterprise end you pay out the ass but get excellent, often personalized support as a result. 

 

In the middle, though, you pay for a high end, niche product and then get left out to dry since there isn't enough market peneration to warrant significant ongoing support. I've seen it happen with high end motherboards before, as well as a handful of more niche peripherals I own, and it seems like sounds cards slot right into that worst-case-scenario level of popularity. 

I understand your logic. But what is the activity object of this manufacturer? Sound systems. These flagship products are a showcase of their technological level. Are not the bread and butter but they'll put their name high on the list. Show their technical leadership. Or if they fail it will be the contrary.

[RejZoR]

1 hour ago, Mike90504 said:

Thanks for providing this info. Great, I'll start from here.

My worry was picking up something not good enough and then maybe hearing a better sounding system. And having to take out more money.

I'm still watching it. I'll keep you posted on this.

I am ok to pay top $ for something supposed to be high quality. But I have zero tolerance when it fails big to deliver. Anyway if it keeps shitting itself like this I'm giving it back. 

Looking from outside it's hilarious how they can release these audiophile grade top of the range products without proper support. Not enough tested, or tested and knowingly but pushed for delivery by some greedy bean counter/manager. Makes them look like complete clowns.

They keep on saying we're tiny minority and that everyone else has it running absolutely perfectly. And then you look at the report thread and it's an absolute mishmash of all possible absolutely unrelated configurations. Like, from X99 to Z390 and X570. The initial reports were that X570 with PCIe 4.0 is problematic and since I have X99 and never had issues with AE-5, I went ahead and bought AE-9 thinking experience will be like with SB Z and SB AE-5 since they all run the same bloody processor. Boy oh boy this is the clusterfuck I'm dealing with now. What way to mark 30th anniversary...

 

Luckily the Exclusive Mode thing seems to have fixed it for me. 2 days straight and no audio drop, that was unheard of before. So I can use it until they eventually figure it out so I can run it out of the box...

 

Sound is amazing, but the experience is absolutely crappy, something I've never dealt with through 20 years of owning Creative products. People don't seem to understand why I'm so monumentally pissed about it. It's because of this.

[Blademaster91]

5 hours ago, Mike90504 said:

I already have a high end mobo Asus ROG Strix x570 with a decent onboard sound. However I wanted something better to pair with my Sennheiser HD650 headphones.

Yes buy a dac + amp if you have the technical knowledge to know what to look for. I agree that going custom you'll be better off. But getting an opinion is everything but easy. There is no consensus. Everybody less/more experienced swears by all kind of amps/bits that range from brand new to back when papa was a Rolling Stone. The same for dac and other parts. The time to compile this amount of information I can't afford it.

I just want a good sound without too much overkill.

True, theres so many choices for a DAC+amp and everyone has an opinion on what is best, headphones are a lot like that too, and you could end up with something you don't like the sound profile of. I understand why someone would just want good sound, a soundcard is much more simple to buy and it can be can tuned to how you want it to sound with the software.

[jasonvp]

5 hours ago, Waffles13 said:

In the middle, though, you pay for a high end, niche product and then get left out to dry since there isn't enough market peneration to warrant significant ongoing support. I've seen it happen with high end motherboards before, as well as a handful of more niche peripherals I own, and it seems like sounds cards slot right into that worst-case-scenario level of popularity. 

The fella having problems with this new SB isn't inviting any help from anyone.  The tone of the posts he's put in the Creative sub-reddit have been nothing but childish and confrontational.  Were I on Creative's support team, I'd be virtually flipping him off and not bothering to try and help.  Just spending a lot of money on a product doesn't automatically give you a right to be a dick.

 

He's going to attack me and throw a fit in 3, 2, 1 ....

[RejZoR]

3 hours ago, jasonvp said:

The fella having problems with this new SB isn't inviting any help from anyone.  The tone of the posts he's put in the Creative sub-reddit have been nothing but childish and confrontational.  Were I on Creative's support team, I'd be virtually flipping him off and not bothering to try and help.  Just spending a lot of money on a product doesn't automatically give you a right to be a dick.

 

He's going to attack me and throw a fit in 3, 2, 1 ....

Oh give me a break dude. I bet you absolutely love buying something irreplaceable and then having fuck ton of problems with it and the company has absolutely ZERO clue what's even going on. Like ABSOLUTELY ZERO. Yeah, irreplaceable, because there aren't 50 soundcards to choose from. You have what, ASUS that I had and I wouldn't ever buy again because they were even more shit and EVGA that's new on the market and god knows how good it is. And I'm not even blaming Ryan, he's just a middle guy there doing the damage control for the company's fuckup. And if you read this news post I made back then I talk how I had amazing experience with SB Z and AE-5 and I posted years ago how Creative is turning a new page in history:

https://rejzor.wordpress.com/2018/02/11/creative-labs-turning-a-new-page-in-history/

 

But sure, go on like I'm just pissing at Creative for no reason what so ever and just being childish for the lolz.

 

But hey, buying a super expensive product and having it totally and absolutely fucking broken (I'd say audio randomly dropping dead continuously, atrocious stuttering and lag kinda classifies as that) makes me totally unreasonable for being fucking furious. Coz everyone who buys something this fucking expensive and has such absurd problems goes like "Oh what a shame it's totally broken, I guess I'll just patiently and quietly wait for god knows how long, it'll get sorted out for sure". And you have the audacity to call me "childish". Fuck me.

 

Also what makes me "a dick"? Every consumer has every god damn right to be furious when shit is broken. Just saying "uh oh then return it" is not a fucking solution. I want a god damn functioning product, not having no product at all. And I bet you'll again go "oh muh gosh he's attacking me". No, I'm telling you shit you don't seem to understand.

[Blademaster91]

11 hours ago, RejZoR said:

Oh give me a break dude. I bet you absolutely love buying something irreplaceable and then having fuck ton of problems with it and the company has absolutely ZERO clue what's even going on. Like ABSOLUTELY ZERO. Yeah, irreplaceable, because there aren't 50 soundcards to choose from. You have what, ASUS that I had and I wouldn't ever buy again because they were even more shit and EVGA that's new on the market and god knows how good it is. And I'm not even blaming Ryan, he's just a middle guy there doing the damage control for the company's fuckup. And if you read this news post I made back then I talk how I had amazing experience with SB Z and AE-5 and I posted years ago how Creative is turning a new page in history:

https://rejzor.wordpress.com/2018/02/11/creative-labs-turning-a-new-page-in-history/

 

But sure, go on like I'm just pissing at Creative for no reason what so ever and just being childish for the lolz.

 

But hey, buying a super expensive product and having it totally and absolutely fucking broken (I'd say audio randomly dropping dead continuously, atrocious stuttering and lag kinda classifies as that) makes me totally unreasonable for being fucking furious. Coz everyone who buys something this fucking expensive and has such absurd problems goes like "Oh what a shame it's totally broken, I guess I'll just patiently and quietly wait for god knows how long, it'll get sorted out for sure". And you have the audacity to call me "childish". Fuck me.

 

Also what makes me "a dick"? Every consumer has every god damn right to be furious when shit is broken. Just saying "uh oh then return it" is not a fucking solution. I want a god damn functioning product, not having no product at all. And I bet you'll again go "oh muh gosh he's attacking me". No, I'm telling you shit you don't seem to understand.

Irreplaceable? Not really, if you must absolutely have to have a soundcard you can either go back to a SB Z, which has been around longer so it should have all the issues ironed out, or try an EVGA Nu audio card. I'd personally choose the EVGA card as they have top tier customer support.

And no you're acting as if the thing completely bricked your OS install, being rude to the Creative support on reddit isn't going to help them fix the problem either. If it doesn't work just return it and use something else, really no point in getting upset at their support staff.

[RejZoR]

DPC latency so high it takes Start menu 3 seconds to open, browser scrolling lags and plays Youtube video like I'm using it on Celeron 333MHz from 2 decades ago and that sweet losing of sound entirely that can't be fixed in any way other than rebooting, I'd say that classifies as "completely bricked". Also why would I DOWNGRADE things? That's like saying to someone who has problems with RTX 2080Ti to go with GeForce GTX 770Ti coz it has been around for long and has no issues. You see the problem with that logic?

 

Since everyone's a smartass there (and here), but not really provides anything useful other than calling me names, I'm digging through stuff on my own like freaking always in the end. Monitoring DPC latency when system went insane, I've discovered driver in question racking up execution time like insane was HDAudBus.sys and I've pinpointed the driver for it in Device Manager to be under "System devices" named "High Definition Audio Controller". Currently testing with this thing disabled in Device Manager. I'm following the logic, if that's disabled it can't cause DPC latency.

 

In a nutshell, HDAudBus.sys is responsible for audio I/O besides the soundcard itself whose drivers are still fully enabled. Meaning I've lost all audio connectivity from GeForce and monitor that has speakers. But I don't care about that anyway.

 

Even if it's Microsoft's fault, I can't get past the fact 2 years old AE-5 with exactly the same audio processor works flawlessly, but AE-9 doesn't. Which is implying that something on Creative's end got seriously messed up and they don't seem to have an idea what/where.

 

Need to first see if I get any positive results from this disabled driver and then start contacting all the people who reported it so they can try this to either confirm or dismiss my findings.

[Unixsystem]

19 hours ago, Mike90504 said:

I understand your logic. But what is the activity object of this manufacturer? Sound systems. These flagship products are a showcase of their technological level. Are not the bread and butter but they'll put their name high on the list. Show their technical leadership. Or if they fail it will be the contrary.

Believe me, I'm not excusing it. Anyone providing a product in this industry should feel compelled to offer decent customer service and technical support for at least a few years, and I'd argue that goes double for something marketed towards a more niche market. Someone who is willing to pay hundreds on a sound card probably knows exactly what they want and is more likely to be picky and choosy over what they get. 

 

My point was just that, unfortunately, it seems like products in that high-end-but-not-enterprise-grade tier seem to always get the shaft when it comes to decent long term support. 

[Blademaster91]

1 hour ago, RejZoR said:

DPC latency so high it takes Start menu 3 seconds to open, browser scrolling lags and plays Youtube video like I'm using it on Celeron 333MHz from 2 decades ago and that sweet losing of sound entirely that can't be fixed in any way other than rebooting, I'd say that classifies as "completely bricked". Also why would I DOWNGRADE things? That's like saying to someone who has problems with RTX 2080Ti to go with GeForce GTX 770Ti coz it has been around for long and has no issues. You see the problem with that logic?

I don't see that mentioned at all in the reddit thread, the software devs can't see the problems you're having unless you help them with as much detailed info as possible.

And no I wouldn't see going back to an AE-5 or SB Z as a downgrade because at least that would work as its supposed to, lol i'd go back to onboard audio if a soundcard were messing up the whole system, and having to pay more while messing with drivers is why people say to avoid soundcards. If a 2080Ti was having problems out of the box I would just send it back and maybe try another one, IMO no point in dealing with an expensive item that doesn't work.

[RejZoR]

2 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

I don't see that mentioned at all in the reddit thread, the software devs can't see the problems you're having unless you help them with as much detailed info as possible.

And no I wouldn't see going back to an AE-5 or SB Z as a downgrade because at least that would work as its supposed to, lol i'd go back to onboard audio if a soundcard were messing up the whole system, and having to pay more while messing with drivers is why people say to avoid soundcards. If a 2080Ti was having problems out of the box I would just send it back and maybe try another one, IMO no point in dealing with an expensive item that doesn't work.

It's not mentioned because I discovered all this on my own today. And I need more testing before I post things over.