Creative Labs SB1090 USB Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Audio System

Review by MassiveAttack for Creative Labs SB1090 USB Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Audio System
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Under ‘Creative audio control panel,’ be certain that ‘high speed’ (2.0) is checked, and not ‘full speed’ (1.1). This may or may not solve lag and other commonly cited audio issues. That said,

I do not like this sound card. In fact, it’s not really a sound card at all. More truthfully, it is a (large) software suite connected to a big volume knob. As far as I can tell, and from what I have read and seen in task manager), all of the real work is done with your computer. Well, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem on modern machines, right? I mean, aren’t the days of needing external chips to alleviate workload on the CPU long gone and irrelevant?

Maybe. But the fact is that I feel that I could have attained the same, cheap audio tricks via any number of winamp plug-ins, equalizers, et al. What I wanted was a superior external DAC than the noise coming from my onboard RealTek ‘high definition’ audio. The truth is that I can tell no difference between the two outputs until I turn on the effects of the x-fi, which are really annoying to a music purist. They produce listener fatigue and unwelcome distortion (music was not meant to be heard in simulated surround, and ‘crystalizer’ can get downright ’screechy’).

The simulated surround or EAX is fine for watching movies and playing games, though. But if you are primarily a music buff and have decent speakers, I advise looking elsewhere.

There is good news, though. While Creative has a history of not supporting older cards on a newer OS, there is a functioning beta driver for Windows 7 already at their site. You won’t be experiencing what thousands of people did when trying to use their XP cards on Vista, etc. However, the overall performance of the card is sluggish both on my XP install and my Win 7 beta. Adjustments are cumbersome and opening the severe bloatware of sound options is unacceptably slow even on fairly well-equipped hardware. I’d consider this a fluke of my install, but on two separate disks, and with two different OSes (XP and 7)? No. It’s just bloated.

I got this new for virtually nothing, but I’d still not buy it again because I can honestly achieve the same effects by using the EQ of the iTunes, Mediamonkey, etc. Again, this is nothing but a ton of sound software that happens to have a physical body. You can do better for not much more money. However, as a solution for a broken onboard chip / output jack, this is an economical solution. But even then I’d almost recommend one of those USB thumb drive-type cards as they won’t take up unnecessary desktop space or clutter your install with a ton of software that, btw, takes 20 minutes to install).

If the x-fi surround were anything but a fancy software suite, I’d rate it higher. Sorry. Just trying to save someone the grief if they are looking for a music solution. That’s what these reviews are for.

Review by Homepro for Creative Labs SB1090 USB Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Audio System
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I purchased this Creative Labs X-Fi 5.1 external sound card to watch movies on my new laptop based on Creatives reputation, past creative products and the reviews that I read here.

The good:

Playing music is awesome. Mp3 files trully do sound great.

The bad:

The previous reviewers must not have been running Windows Vista. (I’m running the 64 bit version). After plugging the card into my USB port, installing the the software, and plugging in my Logitech Z-5500 5.1 speaker system, I sat down to watch a movie. There is a terrible sound lag that makes watching a movie seem like you’re watching a baddly dubbed foriegn film. The actors speak and the action happens before you hear the sound. I have tried to reinstall the software and drivers numerous times and the only way to correct the sound lag is uninstall the Creative software and drivers and go back to the Vista drivers. Unfortunately without Creatives drivers you loose the mp3 fuctions that make the music sound so good. Also, when using creatives software / sound card my cpu is really being worked hard sometimes up to 100% cpu usage when watching a dvd (it averages about 30 – 40% with music and nothing else running). I’m running a 2.0 ghz dual core processor with 4 gigs of ram???

I contacted Creative support over a week ago and have yet to get a reply. I am very unhappy with this sound card and with Creatives customer service. If you want to read more about the sound lag just check out creatives public forum, theres over 9 pages about this issue.

I’ve heard that if youre running Windows XP there is no lag. So if you are running XP or just want to listen to music this might be right for you. If your running Vista don’t waste your money. Creative should not advertise that this is Vista compatable until they figure out this lag issue!!!

Review by R. T. Meisenholder for Creative Labs SB1090 USB Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Audio System
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It is important to note that this sound device is not for everyone and it is less ideal for surround sound users than those of us just looking for high quality stereo. The sound quality is tremendous for 2 channel sound and generally reliable to a point. You have to understand the limitations of using a USB sound device. YOU MUST have a powerful enough CPU to process the sound information and because of the fact that it uses the USB connection whatever else shares that bandwidth like a wireless USB network adapter will impact the audio with possible hiccups and crackle when transferring large amounts of data.

In 2 channel mode at 24 bit 96khz when coupled with a quad core processor your chances of the best quality audio experience are greatest. Even with my Phenom II 920 @ 2.8ghz during downloads from STEAM transferring my games with my wireless USB network adapter at a 135 mbps connection leads to crackle when listening to music at the same time. USB only has so much bandwidth and using 5.1 surround only lets its limitations become more prominent.

Review by Bob for Creative Labs SB1090 USB Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Audio System
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If you want to use this device strictly to listen to music through your digital entertainment center’s speakers using the optical digital connection, you will be quite pleased.

If, however, you want to listen through the earphone output on the device, you will hear all sorts of pops and cracks.

Also if you want to use the device to record music on your computer hard drive and need to listen to the monitor, the monitor switch is hidden in the device volume panel (it is a recent software upgrade), in the Mixer function window. There is a small box to the right of the field that says Mic-in/Line-in. Click that box. However, you will notice a horrible delay between what you say and what you hear back through the monitor. This is an absolutely unacceptable engineering flaw.

I’ve communicated with Creative about the problem, and their attitude is “so sad, too bad, get a refund.”

To summarize, this is great for simply listening to music through your stereo. It is horrible for listening through headphones or when using the microphone/line-in monitor.

Review by Wayne Cox for Creative Labs SB1090 USB Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Audio System
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I had the unfortunate experience of frying the sound on not one but two Dell Inspiron 5100 laptops, and was faced with the dilemma of either replacing both motherboards or both laptops, as the sound chipset is obviously built right onto the motherboard. How fortunate I was to buy Creative Labs USB Sound Blaster X-Fi for a little over $36! The sound is excellent, the product superior, and truly saved the day for me! Hats off to Creative Labs for a job well done!

Review by Edgar Mertins Pappa for Creative Labs SB0880 PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Sound Card
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I’m not what I would call a hardcore audiophile, but I like my music sounding strong and rich. I had an ASUS Xonar before this one, and I swapped it because the Xonar was not very good at games, which is the second use for the PC. I was afraid the X-Fi wouldn’t live up the hype and I would lose music quality for games quality.

I was wrong. I cannot believe how incredible everything sounds. Music quality is perhaps the same or slightly better than with the Xonar, but gaming is just incredibly immersive.

The only two things I don’t like very much of the product is 1. the “Modes” are just exactly that. “Entertainment mode” truly makes music sound incredible, but deactivates some gaming features, and “Gaming mode” reactivates all those, but music doesn’t sound as well. Switching back and forth isn’t my idea of fun. 2. It’s Creative. I’m probably one of the most anti-Creative people around since I can’t agree with most of their business decisions, but sadly, they have way to many sound patents that won’t allow the competition to rise. Although I still hate them, it’s just that sadly it’s the best product around.

Overall I’m very impressed with the card.

Review by the Wolf for Creative Labs SB0880 PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Sound Card
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The card itself is fantastic however I had a hell of a time getting drivers to work properly with this thing. Finally I had to resort to recent beta drivers after the install of all the software on the CD failed to get the audio working ‘properly’. Meaning Windows Vista found generic drivers for the device and installed them however none of the Creative software packages would run since they couldn’t correctly detect a properly running card in the system. As noted once I got the card working properly it puts out incredible sound. Well done on the hardware front however typical Creative Labs trash software/drivers ruined what should have been an easy going experience. I will not be purchasing another Creative Labs piece of hardware again. I said that prior to purchasing this card. This time I’ll have to stick with that ideal.

Review by K. Brown for Creative Labs SB0880 PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Sound Card
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I am using this to connect my computer to my receiver. I’m using a HDMI cable for video and TOSLINK from this card for audio. I get excellent surround sound from DVDs that I watch this way.

Review by A. Harper for Creative Labs SB0880 PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Sound Card
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Let me preface my review with a little bit of background information: I was interested in this card because I was looking to upgrade my old Sound Blaster Audigy 2 on my Win XP desktop for two reasons. One was that I could tell my card was clearly outdated in terms of gaming features because the sound would not work at all for some games (Call of Duty 4) and I could tell a lot of sounds were missing from others (Far Cry 2) even after updating the drivers and editing all of the game settings that I could. The second reason was because I now have my desktop hooked up to my living room’s HDTV and I wanted to have the capability to run my computer sound on my TV’s 5.1 receiver by using the card’s optical out (TOSLINK) feature. By searching around, it seemed to me that this was one of the only card’s that had the optical feature within a decent price range.

So, in terms of what I was looking for, this card has excelled in both areas. After installing it on Win XP SP 2 (where I did not run into any of the driver issues described by others in their reviews…perhaps Win 7 capability was the main issue there), I booted up Far Cry 2. Let me tell you I was VERY impressed with this new card. The EAX 5.0 clearly made a huge difference. Playing this game with the X-Fi Titanium made it a whole new experience. I then checked out Call of Duty 4. Great surround sound as well. This card honestly blew my expectations out of the water for how much better Far Cry 2 could sound.

The optical out feature has also been great. To refute another reviewer’s post, the optical out DOES output in 5.1 surround sound. You simply need to switch on the “Dolby Digital Live” feature within Creative’s provided software console. When you first hook your card up to your receiver, it will only push out sound in 2.1. You will need to switch this setting on to get 5.1 surround, a process which takes all of about 5 seconds.

Another aspect that I would like to refute from a previous reviewer’s post is that switching between the sound modes (entertainment, gaming, etc) is some kind of difficult, annoying, or tedious task. Actually, I think it is so easy and a nice little feature to have. To switch the sound modes, all you have to do is click “mode” in the software console and then click a picture for one of the three different modes — and that’s it! Compare it to the amount of time you spend clicking between two browser window tabs, two IM windows, or two Google chat windows. It is seriously so easy.

Finally, another great feature is the “X-Fi Crystalizer”. Since I didn’t see it on the Amazon product description, I figured it’s a worthy mention. When you switch this feature on, your mp3 music becomes much cleaner and clearer. Using it with iTunes, I could hear a noticeable difference. I only listen to music with this feature on now! From Creative’s site: “The X-Fi Crystalizer(tm) analyses your audio file, identifies key elements that were lost or damaged during the compression process, and re-masters them using selective audio enhancement. The mid-range and high-end (treble) becomes cleaner and clearer. Low-end (bass) frequencies are richer and more defined.”

Review by K. McKenzie for Creative Labs SB0880 PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Sound Card
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I was using a Soundblaster X-Fi Platinum before buying this card, but the drivers for that card have been less than stable under Windows Vista/Windows 7, and I wanted a card with a TOSLINK input on the back, which this card has. It works much better than the on-board sound functionality, which would often squeak/turn into static with a high processor load, which made gaming difficult at best. I bought this instead of one of the ones built specifically for gaming because X-RAM is used in very few games, and I didn’t think it would be much of a benefit. My only real concern is that Creative’s driver quality is variable at best, so I can’t be sure it will work as well in the future. My suggestion is that once you find a driver that you like, stick with it; don’t upgrade just to upgrade. That may make sense with other drivers, like video drivers, but not with Creative drivers.