X-Fi Xtreme Music Sound Blaster review

Soundcards and Speakers 106 Page 3 of 10 Published by

teaser

Page 3 - photos

Photography

 

Taken with a Sony DSC-V3 at 3072x2304, with too much coffee and failing sunlight, and resized for the web. This page contains a few photos, so give it a chance to load.

 

Overview

The board itself is a vast expanse of chips, resistors, and loads of capacitors. We can clearly see the seperation of digital and analog sections on the board.

 

My Precious.

You can see a clear division of analog on the left, and digital on the right.

 

xfi-top-angle1.jpg

The card table is an antique from Vienna.

 

Yes, that's dust.

Obligatory backside shot.

 

Analog

In fact, the X-Fi has parts that some DIY types have soldered onto their Audigy2 ZS's. I like the design. It uses 3 ST 4558CN op amps, which are high quality 2-channel amps, to drive the outputs.

 

Strange, beautiful, music

Op-amps by CS Micro.  High quality.

 

Those who build CMOY amps for fun (it's obsessive, let me tell you) will go towards the Burr-Brown 2227 op-amps instead. But, I have heard good things about the ST Micro chips and in listening tests, they do kick ass.

 

Zoom, zoom.

ST 33078, upper left, upside down, is a 4-channel op-amp which I think is for the Flexi-jack.

 

Digital

For the D/A chores, the X-Fi uses a Cirrus Logic CS4382 chip. This high performance, 8 channel D/A converter is used a lot in high-end DVD players and receivers. It does 8 channels in 24 bit and 192 kHz resolution with 114dB Dynamic Range.

Digital Section

Digital section of the card.  Note the Samsung RAM.  X-RAM says MT, for Micron.

 

Shakey cam strikes again

8-channel, 24 bit, 192 kHz DAC for output.

 

The A/D (that is, recording) is handled by a Wolfson WM8775, a 24 bit, 96KHz DAC with a 4-channel mixer built in. There is no doubt that the X-Fi is capable of 24 bit recording now, unlike the first Audigy. If digitizing LP's is a project on your mind, give the X-Fi a look.

 

Bark at the moon

4 channel, 24 bit, 96 kHz ADC for recording.

 

That's Not a Joystick Port

I'll just say this once: the 9-pin joystick port is dead. Deal. Now, whether or not the X-Fi Xtreme Music can use previous breakout boxes from the Live! or Audigy line is a mystery.

 

That is not a joystick port

That is not a joystick port.

 

The FlexiJack

The first time we saw this feature was in the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. Basically it doubles or triples what a 1/8" mini-jack can do. In the X-Fi's case it's an input for microphone, a line-in, and digital I/O. It doesn't work with the digital DIN cable of the Live! or Audigy series cards, however.

 

7.1 channel output looks like this

Edge connectors

Edge connectors - analog

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