Audigy Fx

Once again I have installed a Sound Blaster card for my sound device on my new PC. Over the years, I've used SBs as I've usually found them to work well and provide the best sound on my PCs. I brought a new Dell, and it came with on board sound and graphics. As I had had some experience with on board graphics before, I have usually replaced the graphics with a drop in board as it gave me the best performance for the my games which I did this time. This time the sound was pretty good on the on board sound. I, at first, didn't notice any of the normal things I didn't like about on board sound. It seemed pretty good. I didn't note any of the issues I had seen before. (Like back ground noise, or game problems, etc.) In fact, the sound was nice thru my 5.1 speaker system. I then started noticing small things. First, some games seems not to sound right and on others I had trouble getting the sound to work right. I also started noting a small amount of background static that I hadn't heard before. It wasn't very pronounced or loud but it was there just under the surface so to speak. I also noted that on high listening level that the sound somewhat distorted and sounded a bit "shattered" unless I turned the volume down a bit. (The older system I had had a SB Audigy in it and although you could drive the speakers to distortion it took a really high volume level setting to do it.) So after going along a bit and finding these things out, I decided to do what I had always done.....get a SB. I chose this card as it fit the bill for what I want. A good card at a good price that has the features I want. (It had to have 5.1 connectively and be able to handle my 5.1 speaker system first of all and the reviews seemed good.) After getting the card in, I proceeded to pulled the new system out and crack the case to install it. I found that my Inspiron case had two slots this card could fit in but the bottom slot was covered over by the GT-730 graphic card's heat sink/fan array and that only left the top slot which this card fit into without a problem. (I had already uninstalled the on board sound's driver and disabled it in the BIOS before I shut down the system to pull it.) I reconnected all the stuff to the system and cranked it up. (I had also dropped 16 gigs of RAM in too.) Everything came up OK, and it booted into Windows with no problem. I installed the included CD's drivers and checked out the installation. Things seemed to be working OK. As is my usually routine, I registered the card thru Creative's Web site and let it check for updated drivers. None found. I then decided to see if my decision on this card. was right. I checked out the 5.1 set up and all the tests seem OK, including the each speaker ID test. I then cranked up some games to see. On Remember Me which has some good places to check the bass and for distortion at high volume levels, I found very little, if any, "shattering" or distortion at higher levels than I would normally use to play the game. Also the sound was much better sounding than before and much easier to catch the small sounds that you might miss in some scenes. Bass was less "boomy" and much more solid. I was very happy with what I heard. I also noted that lack of any background static or other noise. A few other things that I noticed. On my on board sound card, I had to set it up in software to handle my 5.1 system. (That is assign rear speakers and the woofer and middle speakers to the mic in and aux in ports on the MB. This seemed to be being done in software by loading an extra driver to handle this items above the normal driver the on board sound processor would normally use. This is OK, but in my experience, it's better to have hardware ports that are fixed to handle this as the SB Audigy's ports on the card. When I first looked at the memory set up with the on board sound, there were five sound driver items loaded. It seemed that maybe these were aimed at provide what the 5.1 speaker system needed to work right. After installing the new SB card, I noted only two sound card loads and one of those was fore the new SB software that was included with the card and might be able to be disabled if you decided not to use it! So much less memory to enable your 5.1 sound it appeared. The last things I noted which I found interesting was that the chipset of this card was the same brand as the on board sound but the difference in the way they sounded sure easy to hear! This card is a very good purchase if you want to upgrade your sound a bit and not spend an arm and a leg doing it. A good buy! 3/6/16: Update: Rec'd second card of this type and it's as good as the first, but there were a few things on this one that sort of put me off. First, no outer shrink wrap on box as is normally the case on new cards. Second, when card's box was opened, I found that the small slot cover adapter package had been opened. And third, safety anti-static bag of the card itself had been opened and resealed by a piece of tape. These items would indicate to me that this card was opened and removed from the package and was not a factory sealed new card. I have no problem with the card itself as it works great, but if it is sold as a NEW card then it should have not been previously opened and should have the all the factory sealing in tact. It would seem to me that would fit under the classification of a used card rather then new.

I recently set up a gaming room, so I was finally able to set up my surround sound properly. I'd been using the spdif out on my motherboard. It's a 2013 MSI board so it was a little long in the tooth. The spdif stereo signal I had been using when I didn't have the room to set up for surround was fine, I had completely reasonable sound. My AV receiver is also a little older, thankfully from a time when analog 5/7.1 inputs weren't confined to the higher end gear like they are now. Anyway, I was totally pumped to finally have access to uncompressed surround sound! Only.... The sound was very weak, my subwoofer would never kick on.... I was very disappointed. If I turned on the "bass management" in the Realtek drivers it... worked. On paper. BUT I had no fine control of the crossover which defaulted to way, way too high a frequency and made my speakers sound even worse. No amount of googling was able to offer me any answers. Everyone was saying onboard audio was fine, but I had to do something. So I bought this card. As I read here, I disabled my onboard audio in the bios and installed this card. Right out of the gate it worked! But wait... Still no sub worth speaking of and I couldn't find any crossover settings in Windows 10. I tried to install the Creative software sans drivers hoping it would give me access to that setting without goofing anything up. It wouldn't detect any compatible hardware. I crossed my fingers and installed the Creative drivers, hoping these relatively old drivers didn't conflict with Windows 10. Thankfully that was not the case! Everything worked great! The software let me adjust my crossover setting and everything. But wait, the sub still wasn't meeting my standards. What the heck? This last one was a goof on my part, it seems the crossover doesn't really matter if you have your speakers set to full size. I turned that off and set the crossovers to 80hz..... And it's been the smoothest of sailing ever since. I have much fuller sound all around, the subwoofer always works correctly and music sounds great. Stereo plays on stereo, surround plays in surround. I went on a rampage of reinstalling games that I thought might melt my ears (in a good way!) such as Residents Evil 2 and Doom 2016. I'm in a whole other world of pc audio now, all thanks to this relatively cheap card. I give this little guy my heartiest recommendation!

The center, sub-woofer, and rear speakers worked but not the front ones. All but the front, indeed. The OS was up-to-date, purchased Windows 10 Home. The driver was downloaded from Creative. It let me touch related settings after installation but the front speakers made no sound, not even some common noises we hear when we touch an audio connector. They just felt dead. Of course the front speakers are fine. I’m writing this with them turned on. After all, there were two suspects. One was the sound card, the other the motherboard(s). I’m careful in using the suffix because although I actually tested the card on two slates, I think they couldn’t be considered discrete two. It seems they are identical, with their different names being just nominal. They seem to me to have been made in the same factory in mainland China with the same technology and the same people but are just being sold through different vendors with different names. I couldn’t find a difference other than the intro image during boot. One presents American Megatrends Inc. instead of their corporate name Atermiter, but the other Huananzhi. If they are really a twin, I was deceived. The reason why I bought conspicuously similar X99 mobos twice was because the sound from Atermiter was stereo only. They didn’t mention a word on surround on their product description page but I had failed to notice that. Yeah, that was my fault. Huananzhi, on the other hand, had surround on the specs flamboyantly. So I decided to place a follow-up order to AliX… again, expecting to get the promised function and be able to satiate my obsession in no time. But I was wrong again. The authorized Windows 10 Home recognized no more than stereo on Huananzhi too. Numerous attempts to install numerous drivers made no difference, overridden by the OS driver at reboot. What added to my sorrow was the vendors’ incompetency to solve the problem while both stubbornly insisting their slates had the function. In the end of the fruitless dispute between me and Huananzhi, the mediation team from AliX.. closed the dispute seller-friendly. I got no refund, no solution, no apology. So, once you get a problematic item you will experience a hell breaking loose upon you to get refund for it in AliX.. even when the seller keeps telling a lie. And the precept made me hesitate in this case. Is Amazon different? To make a long story short as I’m being exhausted now, I took 5 hour round trip to Seoul on Friday Korean time last week and dropped the card on a DHL spot on the way. To my utmost surprise, I got refund on Sunday. That’s how Customer Service is supposed to be. Fast, reliable, rational, and responsible. A textbook! None of which the dubious Chinese retailer has. This is why buying from Amazon is not actually more expensive than from the dork in my neighborhood, let alone chronically weak Korean currency in exchanging. The top-notch return policy was more than enough to offset my grief over the bad purchase, hence 4 stars in total.

At this price the Sound Blaster/Audiology FX-PCIe sound card is a truly great performer. I only use it with a 2.1 speaker system but it clearly supports 5.1 systems along with several tweaking options. Sound is clear and expansive - almost impossible to believe that this level of sound quality is attained at such a low price. A few install/setup notes: I run Windows 10 and herein lies the issue. Clearly, this sound card has been in production for a few years - long before Win10. I used the enclosed CD-ROM setup disc. It is a waste of time & confusing. Just go to: [...] and download the latest Windows 10 Install Pack, extract, and you are all set. The enclosed CD-ROM is intended for windows 7, 8, whatever. When I used the CD-ROM it kept getting hung up during several steps of the install process. When you finally struggle through, you are directed to the link I posted (supra) anyway. OK. We have the sound card installed along the appropriate Win10 drives - yea! You will notice that you now have an FX Control Panel icon installed in your Quick Launce Bar. (If you do not see it expand your Quick Launch bar and there it is!) The default for the card is for a 5.1 system. As I mentioned earlier, I use the the card with a 2.1 speaker system. So, we need to select settings that will give 2.1 system users the maximum benefit. Here we go- 1) Open the Audiology FX Control Panel (single click for me) 2) Select the "Speakers & Headphones" tab 3) Select "Stereo" (remember card default is 5.1) 4) Check the Full Range box (Front Left & Right) 4) Run test. Happy? Almost done! Now, select the "Mixer" tab from the FX Control Panel. 5) Extend the Speakers slider all the way to the right (full) 6) Inside the Balance/Settings Box: Slide L, R, & Sub fully to the right 7) Slide C, LR, & RR all the way to the left. The Equalizer Tab: Default is "Flat." That is exactly what you want. Leave it alone if you want the music to playback the way it was recorded (or closer to that ideal). One last step you may wish to double check before leaving the FX Control Panel altogether. Look to the very top right of the FX Control Panel. Do you see the small arrow (or whatever it is called)? Open that arrow. Make sure that "Audiology starts when Windows starts" is selected (it should already be so set). That should do it. Hope this helps you avoid the errors I made. UPDATE: After learning how to get into the Dell XPS BIOS (F2 Key) I quickly found the sound enable/disable option. Once the on-board sound chip was disabled and PC rebooted there was a great improvement in SQ. It took some courage for me to enter the BIOS.

I have been using the onboard sound on motherboards for the last 15 years because they have been pretty decent most of the time. The one area that the onboard soundcards (RealTek) suck at though is headphone amplification. Normally, I used an external amplifier to power my headphones to give them that extra volume. Well I spilled a drink on the amp and fried it. So I went looking to buy a new one. But considering I was going to have to spend $20-30 on a new one anyways, I decided to try out a soundcard instead and see if they made a difference in quality/volume, haven't had a separate soundcard since the SB16 (remember those?). Well, I have to say, it was WELL worth the switch. I didn't think that a dedicated soundcard would make that big of a difference, boy was I wrong. Not only does the built-in amp work flawlessly making my headphones louder (use the SB software to adjust the volume, it's in the Equalizer section and the one you want to adjust is the "LEVEL" slider), the sound quality upgrade from onboard sound is very, very noticeable. Using Teamspeak voice chat, people sound like they are in the room with you, instead of the flat sound you get from the onboard sound. Music is another area that you will notice the difference in, it feels as if you went from mono to stereo for the first time. Games are also better sounding, Battlefield 4, Elder Scrolls Online, GTAV you will definitely hear things that you did not hear before. Currently my headphones are the Creative Labs Fatality set, cheap and kind of flimsy, but very good sound for the price, especially the bass. So if you have an even better headset, you will probably hear the difference even more. The sound fidelity upgrade from the onboard sound is enormous. Granted, this review is coming from someone who hasn't had a dedicated soundcard since 2000, so I can't compare it to any of the other more expensive cards, but if you are looking for better sound than any onboard sound, this is a HUGE jump in quality. Well worth the $30. btw, running it just fine on Windows 10 64-bit, although I haven't tried running it on Linux yet, so not sure if it's got good drivers for it.

I studied the Amazon reviews from people giving a step-by-step guide on how to set this thing up for Windows 10. No problems at all. Ignore the installation disk and download the Windows 10 drivers-->disable onboard sound in the BIOS-->shut down and physically install the soundcard-->restart and install the drivers. It was that simple. It already had sound (Windows Startup sound) before I even installed the drivers. That was even with my internet access temporarily disabled while setting up this soundcard, but I installed the official drivers anyway, so I can't comment on just how plug and play this thing actually is. I fiddled with the Audigy FX Control Panel for a few minutes to get the sound the way I wanted it. This was a definite upgrade in sound over the integrated audio on my Dell Optiplex 5050. Crisp, clear sound with the ability to tweak the bass and treble if I need to, which I prefer to go just a little lighter on the bass than most internet content is produced with these days, so the control panel comes in handy. The "Crystalizer" function did seem to give more clarity to the audio. This is only going to a small 2-channel stereo system with two 37 year old 30 watt speakers. You can set up this soundcard for stereo, 2.1 or surround, maybe even a different configuration. I needed it because the desktop didn't have a line in input on the back. Only an audio out on the back and an all-in-one headphone/mic/line in input on the front and I don't want to have to deal with plugging and unplugging a mess of audio cables on the front. My turntable and tape deck are on an A/V switcher and I prefer to have them permanently plugged in ON THE BACK and out of sight. I can do that with this soundcard. I did lose my front headphone jack because it's directly attached to the motherboard without an "HD Audio" cable that would have enabled me to plug it into the soundcard. I guess permanently surface mounted is a way to describe it. But with the mic/headphone to USB adapters I already had for my previous desktop with a broken front headphone jack, it's not too much of a problem even though I still wish I didn't have to use one of those adapters. But, with the awesome sound that this soundcard produces, I can't complain too much. I recommend this soundcard. My records have never sounded this good through computer audio before...and I've had my A/V components (turntable, tape deck, VCR) hooked up through my computers for decades. I agree with what others have said about anyone having problems setting up this card, even the supposed techys, computer savvy experts and PC techs. You probably shouldn't be trying to install any hardware on your computer. Find someone else to do it who will take the time to research the product, watch Youtube videos and read all the reviews for a product before they install or even buy it. Wa-la! Wha-la! Voila! VIOLA!

Why only three stars? My motherboard Asus P7P55D Pro has an onboard soundcard that worked great until I had a big static pop when I was plugging in my studio speakers and it blew out all usage of plugs in the back of the PC. So I bought this card and can not say that I have that much better sound quality than i had prior to my blow out but I do have sound again and the card works pretty good and it was easy to install. Windows 8.1 seems to clash a with this card software..Some of my FPS games on Steam will play surround sound and some of them don't . Netflix and Windows media player will not play surround yet Pandora does. Sometimes the speaker levels rest themselves back to default and I have to rest them. No big deal but it is a hassle I have not had before the card. I have spent hours trying to figure out these bugs but have not as yet. Other people have had the same problems. If you are building a computer and are not using Windows 7 and up then I would say this would be a great card. Otherwise it is just a good card and worth the dollars I spent.

Back in 90s I had SoundBlaster cards because motherboards didn't have audio connections for external "stereo" speakers. Then motherboards started coming with onboard audio which I've used with surround sound speakers since about the mid-2000s. I have high quality surround sound at my desk with rear speakers mounted under shelves for a perfect sound playing games. And though my motherboard now is about 6 years old, I started having lots of problems with the onboard audio. From my research these were highly recommended upgrade in both quality and ease of driver installation and compatibility. But WOW! I've gotten so use to the onboard low quality surround sound, which still sounded good through my speakers, that I didn't realize a audio card like this Creative Sound Blaster Audigy FX could elevate the clarity, range of lows to highs, and immersed center of sound in a game, and I will never go back to using the cheap onboard audio included on motherboards. But hey, playing high quality graphics games, no one settles for onboard video included on motherboards, you buy a high quality video card to plug into your motherboard, so why settle for the low quality sound on the motherboard; get you a Sound Blaster Audigy FX upgrade!

Gratamente sorprendido, la calidad de esta tarjeta de sonido supera con creces a cualquier tarjeta integrada. La compre simplemente para salir del apuro, necesitaba una alternativa a la tarjeta integrada de mi placa base debido a que dejo de funcionar. La utilizo con unos Senheiser GSP600, no espera un aumento en la calidad de sonido. Pero desde luego que si que lo tiene. La música se escucha mucho mas definida, graves mas potentes y agudos mas definidos. De volumen va sobrada difícil pasar del 50% si pasas de aquí te duelen los oídos de la presión sonora. El software que trae parece un poco outdated, pero ahí que destacar que las opciones que trae son buenas. Un lavado de cara no le iría mal. Si bien, algunos productos de Creative parecen algo desfasados sospecho que esto es debido a que no hace falta mejorar nada mas. La competencia se lo pone exageradamente fácil. En conclusión por 30€ puesta en casa no se puede pedir mucho mas. Quizá si lo que buscas es una gran actualización otra tarjeta superior puede darte mejores resultados. Si lo que buscas es una tarjeta de sonido calidad/precio es una candidata a tener en cuenta.

I got this on sale for $20 and the retail price is $40usd. For $20 I would definitely recommend this sound card! Even for regular price it gets the job done. Installing is super easy and it has "HD Audio header" on the card it self. That lets you move your front panel audio jacks to work with the sound card! It doesn't look all special but the quality is definitely present. It comes on the OEM box, I would recommend getting the Amazon packing added (free option at this time). The quality of the sound I'm getting from my 5.1 Logitech system is fantastic. The software that's included is also available via download and depending on your set-up you will need it for the 5.1 to work. I needed to install the software for all my speakers to work with it, took a few seconds. Lastly when you first install it and turn your PC on, it may shit off and turn back on twice before turning on normally, that is normal and shouldn't happen again. This is just the PC and PSU ensuring power is being distributed correctly. 9.5/10 overall

Bekledigimden once geldi ve hasarsiz ambalajli geldi. Ses kalitesi parasini sonuna kadar hakediyor ozellikle isletim sistemi guncelse hicbir sorun cikarmiyor. 5.1 kanal destekli film ve oyunlarda oldukca yuksek ses ve dolasim sagliyor. Battlifield 5 online denedim muthis sesi ortaya kadar acamadim en ufak mermi sesleri dogru yönden geliyor.

for music lovers, it will make little different, only if you have low volume it's solution for that, but for rich sound you will disappointment, it's better to go with good quality for (headphone or speakers)

He leído muchas quejas, principalmente sobre el software de instalación, comentaré mi experiencia & quizás, quizás resuelva el dilema de algunos, ya que de manera general puedo afirmar que el problema no es la tarjeta de sonido ni en sus drivers, el problema está en W10 & en un conflicto con drivers de otro sofware de audio, explico: Desde W7 he utilizado este producto previamente, mi SO ya utilizaba una tarjeta dedicada de la misma marca pero con interfaz PCI (actualmente obsoleto), por ello no fue problema para W10 detectarla inmediatamente al actualizar el hadware de mi equipo con una nueva placa madre. En el primer arranque trabajó excelente, el problema se detectó cuando realicé alguna configuración del sistema que requiriera reinicio que no tenía que ver con la tarjeta de sonido. Al apagar el equipo para prenderlo al siguiente día, el sonido se fue de modo que al subir el volúmen el "100%" vagamente se escuchaban las 6 bocinas (5.1) es decir, se escuchaba como si estuvieran mal conectadas, lo cual no era posible ya que la noche previa al montaje del equipo sí funcionaban perfectamente. Pensé que podía ser el driver por alguna "incompatibilidad" pero no era ese el problema, al menos no con con los drivers de la tarjeta, de hecho el primer problema de compatibilidad general (si lo hay) radica en que desde que se lanzó W10, siempre ha tenido problemas con tarjetas dedicadas de sonido, siempre. Muchos usuarios han reportado este tipo de problemas dese hace ya varios años pero Microsoft jamás & nunca le dio solución a este tipo de problemas & es un hecho que hay gente que actualmente pasa por lo mismo. Ahora bien, intenté reinstalar los drivers desde el panel de control, usando el disco como fuente pero el sistema no instaló nada, es decir ya estaba bien, no eran necesarios; entonces, al no ser ese el problema principal, desmonté la tarjeta, volví a instalarla & pasaba lo mismo pero descubrí el problema real. Si tienes drivers instalados de sonido ajenos a los de la tarjeta Sound Blaster (Realtek por ejemplo), ¡desintálalos! Quita cada uno de ellos exceptuando aquél que se relacione con el video nativo o dedicado, ya sea de tu procesador o tarjeta de video & solamente deja los drivers de la tarjeta de sonido Sound Blaster. RESULTADO: desinstalen todos los drivers que tengan por defecto del audio nativo de la placa madre que tengan & solamente instalen los de la tarjeta Sound Blaster. Eso es todo. Soy melómano & audiofilo por ello tenía que buscar la manera de que funcionara & puedo decir que el sonido en formatos "lossless", DTS etc. es soberbio, es una exquisitez al oído si eres audiofilo pero, si lo que escuchas son formatos en .mp3 almacenado o por medio de aplicaciones prepagadas no es para ti este tipo de expansiones de sonido.