Introducing 3 Members of staff from Creative Labs - here to answer your questions

[Zak33]

Hi all

HEXUS.net has teamed up with Creative to bring some Technical support people to the Community Forum.

creative_edwin - Edwin
Creative_Renny - Renny
creative_franc - Francis

If you guys have questions now, you're welcome to ask them here in this thread.

However, for future questions, please title the new thread with the word "Creative" so they see it easily.

[Output]

Welcome to HEXUS!

I guess the question that comes to mind is: Is there still a benefit to having a dedicated sound card rather than using something built into the motherboard in 2019 (almost 2020)?

I ask as someone who has never had a dedicated sound card (that I can recall), and who uses a USB wireless headset (Logitech G533) rather than any type of speakers.

[creative_edwin]

Hi all

HEXUS.net has teamed up with Creative to bring some Technical support people to the Community Forum.

creative_edwin - Edwin
Creative_Renny - Renny
creative_franc - Francis

If you guys have questions now, you're welcome to ask them here in this thread.

However, for future questions, please title the new thread with the word "Creative" so they see it easily.

Thanks for the introduction!

A big hello from our Singapore headquarters - apologies up front if we seem to reply a little slower due to time zone difference

We're happy to answer any questions you guys might have!

Edwin

[creative_edwin]

Welcome to HEXUS!

I guess the question that comes to mind is: Is there still a benefit to having a dedicated sound card rather than using something built into the motherboard in 2019 (almost 2020)?

I ask as someone who has never had a dedicated sound card (that I can recall), and who uses a USB wireless headset (Logitech G533) rather than any type of speakers.

Thanks for the question, it's a good one!

While there's no doubt that integrated motherboard audio has improved over the years, one can't achieve good audio by simply putting a decent DAC on a motherboard.

A good audio design requires a good analog section. There are many contributors of noise on any motherboard, so designing a good analog section on the noisy motherboard is almost a defeating cause. On a powerful gaming computer, the noise from the powerful CPU is even worse. And this problem is magnified by onboard WIFI, Bluetooth et cetera.

The final nail in the coffin is the multiple GPU cards found on the most powerful computers, which makes the motherboard audio unredeemable.

A dedicated sound card can offer so much more, especially if it is the accumulation of many years of experience and expertise resulting in pristine audio design.

Our latest Sound Blaster X3, which has also been reviewed here on HEXUS, will attest to that
https://hexus.net/tech/reviews/perip...nd-blaster-x3/

[Dashers]

Hi Creative! Nice to see you join this forum.

I have a SoundBlaster X, another in a long line of cards I've owned from Creative. Whilst I'm largely happy with it, I noticed that there is a significantly notable lag when using either Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect - it seems that encoding the digital signal is software driven and not accelerated by the card in any way.

I guess my question is: what gives? Has this ever been resolved in more recent models?

[jimborae]

Questions -

1. Have Creatvie started giving compensation or refunds to Audigy owners from many many years ago whose EEPROM chip, in said soundcard, decided to take a an unscheduled vacation only to never return.

2. Have Creative decided to start writing new Windows 10 drivers for older soundcards rather than forcing the owner to ditch it and go by another supported soundcard??

If the answer to bothe of those questions is a big fat NO then Creative as a brand & company are still dead to me.

Welcome to you guys though, I'm sure you'll provide a valuable resource here, god knows Creative needs it.


Jimborae - Proudly ignoring that Creative even exist since 2006

[kalniel]

Thanks for the question, it's a good one!

While there's no doubt that integrated motherboard audio has improved over the years, one can't achieve good audio by simply putting a decent DAC on a motherboard.

A good audio design requires a good analog section. There are many contributors of noise on any motherboard, so designing a good analog section on the noisy motherboard is almost a defeating cause. On a powerful gaming computer, the noise from the powerful CPU is even worse. And this problem is magnified by onboard WIFI, Bluetooth et cetera.

The final nail in the coffin is the multiple GPU cards found on the most powerful computers, which makes the motherboard audio unredeemable.

A dedicated sound card can offer so much more, especially if it is the accumulation of many years of experience and expertise resulting in pristine audio design.

Our latest Sound Blaster X3, which has also been reviewed here on HEXUS, will attest to that

Have creative stopped selling PCI/e cards for all the reasons you give above then?

[Creative_Renny]

Hi all

HEXUS.net has teamed up with Creative to bring some Technical support people to the Community Forum.

creative_edwin - Edwin
Creative_Renny - Renny
creative_franc - Francis

If you guys have questions now, you're welcome to ask them here in this thread.

However, for future questions, please title the new thread with the word "Creative" so they see it easily.

Hi and thanks for the welcome!

Apologies for not coming in any earlier too!
The team here will try to the best of our abilities to answer questions or even discuss any ideas or improvements to our products!

Renny

[creative_edwin]

Questions -

1. Have Creatvie started giving compensation or refunds to Audigy owners from many many years ago whose EEPROM chip, in said soundcard, decided to take a an unscheduled vacation only to never return.

2. Have Creative decided to start writing new Windows 10 drivers for older soundcards rather than forcing the owner to ditch it and go by another supported soundcard??

If the answer to bothe of those questions is a big fat NO then Creative as a brand & company are still dead to me.

Welcome to you guys though, I'm sure you'll provide a valuable resource here, god knows Creative needs it.


Jimborae - Proudly ignoring that Creative even exist since 2006

Hi there,

I'm a little surprised at your questions, because we did address the issue with the Audigy cards for affected customers back then, through a return/refund program. As for Windows 10 support, we do have it for many of our sound cards.

[creative_edwin]

Have creative stopped selling PCI/e cards for all the reasons you give above then?

Hey there,

On the contrary, these reasons also apply for our PCI-e cards; the X3 just happens to be an external sound card which is also better than motherboard audio.

I suspect you may not be aware that we have been launching PCI-e cards all this while.. can I invite you to our website to check them out? We have 3 launched over the past 2 years alone.

(I'd love to post a link, but can't as I'm too new here )

[Creative_Renny]

Hi Creative! Nice to see you join this forum.

I have a SoundBlaster X, another in a long line of cards I've owned from Creative. Whilst I'm largely happy with it, I noticed that there is a significantly notable lag when using either Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect - it seems that encoding the digital signal is software driven and not accelerated by the card in any way.

I guess my question is: what gives? Has this ever been resolved in more recent models?

Hi Dashers,

I'm not exactly sure which product you're referring to. Could you fill me with the exact model name?
With regards to lag (or latency which we call it), there will always be some as the encoding engine is at the last end of the processing chain. In our internal assessment as well as customer feedback in general, any form latency was not highlighted in most user cases especially in pre-recorded content like movies or music.

The encoder engine is software-based (or host system processed) and is not implemented at the hardware DSP level due to prohibitive costs and development efforts. AFAIK, we're probably the only company on the market to offer any form of Dolby or DTS encoding technology at zero cost to our customers.

In our latest model, the Sound Blaster X3, the engine has been improved to work on Windows 10. That said, improvements to any of our software engine modules are carried over to our older and/or legacy products so that other customers benefit as well.

[kalniel]

Hey there,

On the contrary, these reasons also apply for our PCI-e cards; the X3 just happens to be an external sound card which is also better than motherboard audio.

I suspect you may not be aware that we have been launching PCI-e cards all this while.. can I invite you to our website to check them out? We have 3 launched over the past 2 years alone.

Thanks, so how do those cards avoid all the problems that were mentioned regarding CPU/GPU/wifi noise?

[Creative_Renny]

Thanks, so how do those cards avoid all the problems that were mentioned regarding CPU/GPU/wifi noise?

Our recent cards starting from AE-5 have been designed with better shielding and grounding from potential interference from internal high performance components inside a PC system.

We are gamers and hardware enthusiats ourselves and are very much aware of problems some components may poise. Better design need not always require expensive capacitors, rectifiers, mosfets etc but requires innate electronic engineering knowledge and sometimes simple yet innovative solutions.

Case in point, our latest CleanLine technology is pretty simple solution to minimize 12V noise that could affect our 48V XLR input on our AE-9 audio control module.