Creative makes an astonishingly big claim for a new little device - the Xmod - due to arrive this month.
The USB-powered gadget is said to make MP3s and other digital music files sound better than the original CDs!
The Xmod, £60 in the UK and $80 in the USA, is used in-line - the output from a music player (or to PC's speakers) being fed onwards to headphones or to the speakers.
Find out more in this HEXUS.lifestyle.headline.
Seeing as the X-Fi Elite Pro I tested over a year ago now made a difference to the sound of MP3s with some of its features turned on, I'd say this could do the same. Whether those changes are an improvement is a subjective matter, but I'd say it probably does.
Still, won't do much for a 64kbps 32khz file. The audio files need to be fairly decent to start with.
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I don't understand that at all, how can you make something sound better than the subject matter it was recorded from?
Tom Scott,
Scancom.co.uk/HEXUS Liason
Groovey, yes i love my xfi on my desktop. Hope it will work on osx (doudt it tho)
HTC Diamond, Cannon G9. Apple Unibody Macbook Pro 15" 2.4Ghz C2D, 256 9400GT,
Well you can interpolate a higher resolution digital signal that should closer represent the 'true' sound. Of course, there's some margin of error.Originally Posted by Tom Scott
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Another bloody know-it-all writes:
Although the human ear is harder to fool than the human eye, there are ways that it's possible to analyse and enhance music by identifying various faults and putting them right.
Usually, this is done using sophisticated apps, such as Sony Sound Forge, that are best run on a decent PC, take a good while to carry out the processing and need to be used by someone with a seriously good level of understanding of sound editing.
What's produced in that way can indeed sound a good deal better than the original compressed file - though 'better' here is a very subjective term.
However, the idea that the Xmod might produce sound that is superior to the original CD does seem hugely unlikely to me.
And it seems even more unlikely when you realise that Creative is saying that this very clever stuff is being done on a relatively inexpensive little box - and in real time as well.
Hence my immediate request to the company for a review sample.
I've got a feeling, though, that review samples may only find their way into the hands of 'reviewers' who write articles to please advertisers, rather than to tell the truth.
Perhaps what we should do is lash out the money ourselves to buy one (perhaps when one of us is next in the USA) and just get on and test it.
Or am I being TOO cynical?
X-fi does make a difference but it does not make 192kb/s WMA files sound as good as CD. Close enough for me though
so its got an automatic equalizer or something similar with a different name? iv had enough trouble telling someone at work why you cant uncompress a 128k mp3 back into CD quality and then this comes along.. oh well if your stupid theyll have your money
Vodka
it is, presumably, just the xi-fi chip(s) in a little box (so for those who want to know how it works to 'upscales' sound, just read the xi-fi reviews). not that aesthetics are everything but would look bulky next to a nano (not mention the portable power supply you'd need to carry round too) and silly next to a big silver amp. £80 is a lot for a marginal improvement in sound quality - decent mp3s made with EAC ripper and correct version of lame on correct settings produces sonically transparent music files anyway (on double blind tests by audiophiles). Any extra enhancement is great but would go to waste on me anyway...
The easy way to 'improve' mp3s is to add fake harmonics in the high end and add shifted bass harmonics in a frequency range where small speakers and cheap headphones actually have some response (around 120Hz). This can work reasonably well on highly processed music (which is 'fake' to start with) although it just further degrades the soundstage.
this might make an MP3 "sound better" but that is not the same having a better quality recording in the first place. How good something sounds is subjective and there are things that can be done pretty easily to make something sound good on specific hardware and in a specific setup. Bose sound systems are a good example of this. They may sound "good" but they are by no means accurate.
The only way creative's little box of tricks is going to make you think your mp3's are sounding better when played through it is if your speakers sound terrible in the first place.
The only thing creative @ creative is their marketing!
Basically the little box adds distortion.
How would you connect a set of speakers with 3x3.5mm jacks to this?
work out which jack supplies the front left and right of the suround and just plug that in. It is meant for music, not for surround cinema or gaming
Ive just bought myself an X-Fi Xtreme Music, i know they are good as my friend has them and wow BF2, BF2142 CSS and mostly all games sounded superb. My friend jumped once as a bullet sizzled past his head.
Ive gotta say Creative have done a good job on their X-Fi range although i cant see the point in the Fatal1ty.
I guess it's a X-Fi Crystalizer in a box of it's own. That feature must have it's fanbase for such product to be released. Still, I do not get the appeal.
I bought the Elite Pro model (currently dead - putting Creative's Customer Support to the test) because it came with better DAC than the rest (Xtreme Music -> Fatal1ty all use the same DACs while the Elite Pro is pretty much an EMU 1212 with gaming support), but I did spend some time playing with the bells and whistles.
The Crystalizer does change the sound considerably. I think that may be the reasons for it's success. However, I find that the Crystalizer is, for most practical purpose, just a glorified equalizer (with less flexibility but easier to use). It doesn't matter what I use it on, whether it is a 96kps MP3 (I haven't tried encoding any lower than that), or lossless, it will change the sound just as much and in exactly the same way. The type of change put more emphasis on the ends (e.g. Trebble & Bass), and that makes it for a more 'exciting' sound. This has benefits (to my ears) if when listenning to dance music on relatively layed back headphones (Beyerdynamic DT880/most Sennheisers).. except that I can get a very similar effect, for free, by tweaking the EQ.
I will also say that a well encoded MP3 at 96kps sound closer to the original than the original/lossless + the Crystalizer. So indeed, if the effect of the Crystalizer agrees with your ears, you could say that the music sound better than the original. However, from an audio reproduction point of view, it does far, far more changes than interpolating at higher resolution (though changes are, if that is all it did, it wouldn't sell as the differences would be considerably more subtle).
Note: I am not much of an audio purist - I don't mind tweaking sound to my liking, and I do think highly of the CMSS of the X-Fi for movies when used with a nice pair of headphones. I've yet to find a better hardware/software alternative for that tasks. But I just can't say the same about the Crystalizer.
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