Final words and conclusion

Conclusions and Final Verdict

Overall, we were quite impressed with the new SoundBlaster ZXR.  This source offers crystal clear sound quality while still presenting an impressive organic signature.

The fact that this card offers high end converters on all channels is a big step in the right direction as generally some companies use the higher end DACs on the front channels and use a more generic converter for the remaining channels.  We hope more companies follow this lead in newer designs.

Quality

All is not perfect though as we have a few issues, we would have liked to have seen machined opamps sockets instead of the more generic pressed sockets.  It would have been great to see this card will fully replaceable opamps on all channels. We also didn’t see more advanced settings for speaker calibration such as channel delay for the rears and center.

Conclusion

We will say the Creative ZXR is the new champ on the block for PCI-E surround cards offering a feature set, acceptable with many user groups.  This card seems to have that “IT” factor, a quality that makes the product sound excellent but it cannot be put into a formula or a component.  A product either has it or it does not and man, the ZXR card definitely has it!

Given what this card produced in the Guru3D Audio Lab, we are giving this product our coveted Top Pick award.  If you are in the market for a new soundcard or need a replacement for your aging X-fi based products, we strongly recommend you have a look and listen to the ZXR.  Until next time, this is Robscix Rocking on with the ZXR.

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