So, Creative Labs released new soundcard last year, the "Z" range featuring base Sound Blaster model Z, mid range Zx and high end ZxR. I'll be reviewing the base Z model since thats what i bought. The main reason for such decision is the fact that i don't need any "dock" stations and no microphones and i have no space for the daughter board from the ZxR pack (and no need for it either) on my microATX motherboard. Granted, the ZxR has bettter PCB shielding and a bit higher SNR, but in all honesty, i don't think it matters all that much.
The second reason why i'm going to write a review so late is because i was disappointed on how poorly everyone reviewed the new range of soundcards. 3-4 pages of specs and photos and then a tiny paragraph of experience with it. No one even bothered to compare SB Z's to the existing higher end like the Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium or the X-Fi Forte from Auzentech. They all compared it to motherboard integrated HD audio codecs, leaving existing Sound Blaster X-Fi users in the cold whether they should upgrade or not.
I'll do that as well, so lets get cracking with the stuff others left out... you can check the photos and specs in those reviews (you have probably already done that), but the important stuff will be here...
Drivers and Software, the basics...The main problem with Creative Labs in the past were the drivers and the software. I never really had any problems worth mentioning with any Sound Blaster and i had quite a lot of them in the past, but Creative has finally stepped up a bit and fixed this properly and thoroughly. SB Z is based on Core3D processor, first released on Recon3D cards and so they also have similar software. But the thing is, Creative finally (after quite a lot of years) ditched their ancient software framework and used a more modern and better coded foundation on which they built their current software and drivers. And it's quite radical. No more annoying mode switching like on X-Fi, the main control panel is a single window with really well placed settings. And whats best of all, it opens in a micro second unlike slow loading interface from the past. They even went on making a really lovely tray icon, a tiny image of the Core3D processor (black core surrounded by a red bezel and a white "SB" in the middle of it. Quite nice. And they even fixed the volume issue where anything below level 6 in Windows did nothing. It was dead silence below level 6, but now you can also go on steps 4 and 2 which is useful for having music through the entire night on a very low volume...
It's not all great though, but then again, it's not super problematic. Profiles selection is a bit clumsy with too many levels of depth just to reach the profiles selection. Profiles dropdown menu should really be positioned on top of the panel and be there regardless of which subsection you have selected at the moment. And the fact that tray icon only has Open and Exit setting. Why not also a profile selection menu? That would be great, picking predefined and user made profiles directly from the tray icon. The highly negatively commented was also the fact that software is consuming a lot of RAM. Seriously, the sorts of ppl who will buy such soundcard probably don't have only 2GB of RAM these days so who gives a damn right? And since it's so responsive and fast, i really can't complain over it. And i'm still on "just" 6GB of RAM with the LGA1366 platform...
Settings a bit in depth...There are some new and some existing settings from the X-Fi series. And if i'm honest they work pretty well.
Yes, Crystalizer is back and despite negative "atmosphere" around it, i still quite like it. It does make things nicely punchy and sharp and if you just want to quickly improve a perceived sound quality, this is the best and quickest way really. bass setting with Crossover frequency is also back and it seems to work a bit better now, makes the bass slightly deeper instead of punchier, which is nice since it's much harder to overdrive the subwoofer with it. But it still sounds great.
"Smart Volume" replaced the SMV mode from the X-Fi cards and it's even better and useful. In Normal mode you can adjust the normalization level, for Loudness, it will make the max possible volume without any clipping and Night mode it will make the sound as soft as possible so you don't disturb others in the house late in the evening, gaming, watching movies or listening to the music.
New settings also include Dialog Plus which makes speech in movies easier to understand, but i think it works the best with 5.1 or higher surround audio in the movies where center channel is separated and thus easier to manipulate. I'm basing this on the fact that Dialog Plus mode gives mixed results on stereo sources where it's kinda struggling to "peel" out the vocals from the rest of the sounds.
And last a "Surround" mode. Some might say it sucks but it's a bit different than in the past. It's much more subtle now and it gives the audio tiny bit of space and depth while not overdoing it. purists will disable it but it's not bad really. Certainly not in the way of ruining the atmosphere too much though it sometimes makes sounds a bit "thinner" and out of focus, so play with it a bit...
MusicI'm still running the old but trusty Altec Lansing MX5021 speakers which are one of the best i've had in years. And the music is quite nice, but in the end it really depends on the source and the music genre. I'm a big trance/vocal trance fan so bass and vocals are my trade and it performs pretty good. It requires some adjusting of settings sometimes, but default works very well in general since most of mixes are encoded in MP3 format (usually of lower quality).
But i had to ramp it up with some FLAC lossless music. I've taken Bring Me To Life and My Immortal from Evanescence. And it excels here as well. The quality is easily on the same level as Auzentech X-Fi Forte that i had before and i don't think it's any worse than the one on ASUS Xonar Essence STX either (yeah, the one i had before X-Fi Forte). And what was the biggest surprise to me, all those SBX enhancements don't really ruin the experience. In fact they make it even better at times. They make Amy's vocal even sharper, the piano in My Immortal gets that thumping depth and all the guitars in Bring me to life become really alive. A hell for purists, but i sometimes like over exaggerated depth of music for here and there.
There is also one setting dedicated to all those who want pure unmodified sound. You can find the setting under Speakers/Headphones section called "Stereo Direct". It's sort of a God Mode for purists as it bypasses all software enhancements and outputs the sound as it is. Adjusting any of the SBX settings will do absolutely nothing in this mode.
I'll point out two interesting things now...
One bad and one good. The bad one is that i was unable to get ASIO to work in MusicBee media player, unlike on X-Fi Forte, which worked flawlessly with any kind of ASIO settings. The latest Z drivers supposedly fixed the ASIO issues but apparently it's not entirely fixed yet. The good one is that you can use Dialog Plus slider to "peel" out vocals if you're after the lyrics of your favorite song. It pushes everything else to the background and makes the vocals really stand out so you can understand the words a lot easier. It sounds weird, but you can easily hear what they sing about. Might come in handy sometimes.
MoviesNot really much different than for the music. It all boils down to the source and it's up to each user to define SBX settings that work the best for him/her and for the specific movie. Only downside that i mentioned before is the Dialog plus which works pretty well in movies with 5.1+ audio where center channel reserved for speech is separated from the rest and soundcard can easily amplify and enhance it. But with stereo sources like lower quality DVDRip's or home recordings it will fall short as it will really struggle to make out the voice from the rest of the sounds from a single continuous sound stream. It usually just ends up sounding sort of muffled and kinda weird if i can put it that way.
GamesAnd now the part for which the soundcard of this caliber was designed in the first place. SBX settings again work really well, some will prefer to tweak Surround and Crystalizer along with Bass, but default works pretty well.
It sounded quite amazing when i cranked Surround and Crystalizer all the way to the max for a bot match in Unreal Tournament 3. It sounded a lot different than my Auzentech X-Fi Forte in this mode, but wasn't exactly unpleasant, just very different from what i've been used to. It sounded so rich it was like oversaturating the sound on all ends, making it sound like it has thousands of bits and millions of Hz but wasn't exactly a quality as such. You just have to try it to understand. It might work for some as it really changes the way how game feels with such extreme settings. It makes it feel like you're unleashing hell on the map and that the hell is being unleashed by every other player as well. Yeah, that describes it pretty well
The main reason why i keep on insisting with Creative soundcards is the fact that they have THE best 3D sound positioning. Period. I've started the gaming with Diamond Monster soundcard. You may say, wtf are you on about mate. Well, these soundcards were powered by the best audio processor of that time, the amazing Aureal Vortex featuring in my opinion the best 3D sound positioning system, the Aureal A3D. I still can't forget the 3D demo with fountain, helicopter and the bees. And all the time playing Half-Life and mod for it, They Hunger. A really chilling experience that brought me into the world of high quality 3D sound in games and the reason why i keep on spending a lot of money on sound where others get quickly satisfied with on-board audio... Long story short, Aureal went bust years ago in legal battles with Creative and then Creative assimilated their tech (and they had pretty good one of their own as well). And that still applies.
I've had ASUS Xonar Essence STX which is by all means still a very respectable soundcard with very high grade components and a quite radical hardware design. But it's 3D positioning in games is so horrible it made my ears bleed. I never knew whats above me, whats below me, left and right was sort of confusing and inaccurate. It also had zero depth so while the sound might be great because of all the bling components on the PCB, it was useless as it didn't assist me with audio positioning cues at all. And their crappy GX Mode was either crashing all the time or was very inaccurate and buggy. So you were stuck with no EAX 4.0+ as well. There goes the immersion...
So, the UT3, it's similar to X-Fi Forte, only thing that's different is that you have to crank up volume a bit (or maybe use Smart Volume) for the weapons to really become alive. With lower volumes the Rocket Launcher felt a bit bland and washed when fired and detonated rockets felt a bit too silent for some odd reason, but when i increased the volume a bit more, the punch of explosions was really awesome and the James Earl Jones style announcer really made that "REJECTED" the best sound you could ever hear in a thumping deep voice when you gun down an enemy right in front of a score point in Greed mode. Very satisfying indeed.
Next one was CS:GO or CounterStrike:Global Offensive. I got dropped on a new Militia map and yes, lovely again. 3D positioning is fantastic and i could easily pinpoint exact position of every noise. And enemies were exactly where i heard them. It was really enjoyable to play and if you bother to listen, you don't even need cheats and wallhacks. And no, i wasn't using Scout Mode, which i'll comment a bit later... New SBX settings tweaked the sound quite nicely and the weapons sounds and explosions were amazing. A bit saturated but that probably made them amazing.
Killing Floor was also good though there seems to be a problem where environment sounds don't blend with each other. They just cut off when you leave/enter an area which is nothing like EAX 4.0 should work (the transition was soft and progressive with X-Fi Forte and other older X-Fi's). Too bad as the game is awesome and the rest was also sounding really well.
Third was a racing game, Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2010. A bit older title, but the sound was yet again great. 3D positioning was clear and spot on so you can know where opponents are without looking around at all. The engine noise was nice and rough and the ambient and other effects were nicely rich.
I'll eventually test it in more games, but one thing is for sure, first person shooters are its primary playground and it's absolutely fantastic at it.
Scout ModeYes, this new "gaming" soundcard also features a mode called "Scout Mode" which some might consider as a cheat but in reality it really isn't. After reading all the reviews, i thought it would really make you hear stuff way far away and make a massive advantage over others. But the fact is, they were over exaggerating with it. Reviewers, not Creative Labs... In essence, all Scout Mode does is turn off ALL settings under the SBX section and sort of enables a filter similar to Dialog plus that sort of peels out the important noises like enemies picking up weapons, footsteps and that sort of thing you might miss with all the bass and other effects that are otherwise preferred during combat itself but unwanted when you're mano-a-mano and you want to have an advantage over the enemy. And for this, you can set yourself hotkeys so you can have all the thumping explosions and gunfire during the round but you can quickly switch into a, well, Scout Mode where you can pinpoint the enemy before he can pinpoint you. I'll test it more, but so far i kinda get the point of it.
VerdictSo, the point where i have to say "yey" or "nay". The thing that pretty much all reviewers left out is, should you buy Sound Blaster Z if you already own a soundcard from the X-Fi range. And the answer is orange shape with rectangular color. No, it really is. On one end, they are very similar and as far as gaming goes, they are roughly the same thing. What sets them apart is the set of new software settings and tweaks available through SBX panel. Not having three separate modes anymore makes it easier and faster to use and whole software just feels like it has been finally done by a professional.
For the brave...Ok, now for real, if you just want something new, and you don't mind spending a bit, then go for it. Base model Sound Blaster Z is quite cheap and it also comes in BULK edition (no microphone, no packaging, no extras, just soundcard, drivers and a lot lower price). And best of all, unlike first retail SB Z models, these newer revisions come with very high grade Nichicon Gold capacitors. At least mine did and i heard reports from other users that they did as well. So all in all a pretty damn good package even for existing users. You won't leave anything behind but you will gain few extra goodies. And the list is pretty long. Just make sure you don't depend on ASIO as it's still a bit buggy where on X-Fi, it's fully functional from my experience.
For the conservative...But if you don't really need to fiddle with the settings and you don't exactly want to spend extra money right now, then simply stay with X-Fi Xtreme Music, Titanium or the Forte. They are still fantastic soundcards and if i wasn't so curious to try something new, i'd most probably stay with the X-Fi Forte.
For the skeptics...If you think ASUS Xonar are the best gaming soundcards, you couldn't be wrong any more than that (regardless of what gaming names they stick to them). If your primary task (or at least majority of it) is gaming, then this is the deal. Don't bother with Xonar's as they are rubbish. Awful driver support, buggy and badly designed interface, awful GX mode and really horrible 3D positioning in games. If you want a proper quality soundcard for gaming, SB Z is the best bet. Cheap and loaded with features makes it a great value. Xonars are only good for music and maybe movies, but they basically suck for everything else where SB Z is a well rounded package that works great in pretty much all scenarios. Doesn't excel in any of them specifically but will do the job great in all scenarios.
For the rest...This is for those who think they don't need a good soundcard and that on-board HD audio is good. Sure, it can be, but considering for how cheap these SB Z Bulk models go, be at least a bit brave and taste what you're missing out. They are a lot cheaper than any soundcards from Creative before, so it makes even more sense to give it a try and be absorbed into a wonderful world of awesome gaming sound.
Aureal Vortex did this to me like a decade and a half ago, maybe a Sound Blaster Z will do it for you...
My Opera
