Generally speaking, tracks encoded at low bitrate seem more likely to sound better than those with higher bit rates. Although in most cases sound will be audibly different depending on how the signal is being altered, whether it sounds better is debatable and to some extent will depend on your speakers/headphones, and what frequencies they can reproduce. As we discussed in our review of the original Creative X-Fi soundcard:īut can the 24-Bit Crystalizer make your MP3s or CDs really sound that much better? Not really. Creative has been offering this feature for some years now, and so far we have seen a mix of opinions among users whether they like the change produced by this feature or don't like it at all. This may sound like a cheap marketing gimmick but Crystalizer does work one way or the other. Low-end (bass) frequencies are richer and more defined.” The mid-range and high-end (treble) becomes cleaner and clearer. According to the X-Fi FAQ, the Crystalizer “analyzes your audio file, identifies key elements that were lost or damaged during the compression process, and re-masters them using selective audio enhancement. The X-Fi Crystalizer is something I was familiar with already and if you are a big music buff, this is somewhat of a must-have feature. This actually works very well when using headphones during gaming, but I preferred to leave it off when listening to MP3s with my headphones and speakers. X-Fi CMSS-3D Virtual expands your MP3s and digital movies into surround sound through your speakers or headphones. The X-Fi CMSS-3D tab allows you to toggle this feature on or off and adjust its settings. Switching between modes, I was able to hear a substantial difference, for example, Entertainment mode is much louder and seems to have a more robust sound versus Game mode while listening to music. Each mode is meant to offer an optimized setting and environment for the task. One area of major interest is the Mode tab, where you can select between three presets: Entertainment, Game, and Audio Creation. The Creative Audio Console is where most of the card options can be found. Similar to Winamp, this is a simple interface that allows you to play various media without taking up your entire screen. If you prefer a smaller footprint, the Player might be right for you. If you don’t already use something like iTunes or Windows Media Player, I would give the Organizer some serious consideration. With loudness information, you can eliminate volume differences across songs. With tempo information, you can create playlists based on the type of music automatically (somewhat similar to Apple's new Genius feature in iTunes). You can edit track information, create playlists, and even analyze your music to acquire tempo and loudness information. The Organizer is a nice piece of software that allows you to accomplish a lot of tasks from the home screen. There are also plenty of freeware programs that can handle this kind of task nowadays, but that's not to say Creative wasn't right to include such functionality with the card. This is a handy program though I'm not sure how much use it would receive considering WAV files are not nearly as popular as they were in the past. The Audio Converter allows you to easily convert between different audio formats, for example, WAV to MP3, or viceversa. As you’ll see, performance tests with RightMark Audio Analyzer showed them to be close, but not equal.First up is Creative’s MediaSource 5, which includes an Audio Converter, Organizer, and Player. Subjectively, I couldn’t hear any discernable difference between the Titanium and my previously installed sound card, the ASUS Xonar DX. CD and high-bitrate MP3 music sounded equally juicy and satisfying. Movie surround effects sounded spot-on as well, which I know after watching most of the final installment of Lord of the Rings on my PC. In gaming, including current titles like Mass Effect, Sins of a Solar Empire, Call of Duty 4 and The Witcher, the Titanium card delivered near-perfect audio with terrific positional precision through all five speakers. This didn’t occur with the analog connection, and it had no effect on longer-term sounds like listening to an album or playing a game. One oddity we did note was that, with the optical cable, Windows Vista’s standard noises (the clicks when you navigate Explorer, the new mail wail, the alarm when a program errors) were stunted and often resulted in pops or thumps.
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