RPGWiZaRD

Well I got the card today and been listening to music and tried some gaming for a few hrs or so. I've tweaked the card and tried out every setting and combinations of settings but looks like CMSS-3D is the only of those settings that may be usable anyway for gaming in this case but even that is questionable as I don't like options that degrade sound quality so (using different speakermodes it'll sound different and allow different settings too for example) and depending on the settings used it sounds either worse or about the same (at this point I can't clearly say I enjoy this card I paid 150 EUR for more than the old Audigy 2 ZS with kX Audio drivers). I'll need to give it more time to make some final conclusions though but I'm kinda disappointed right now at least.

Crystallization

So how does this card perform with music? Is there a noticeable difference in sound quality or is it about the same as the Audigy 2 ZS? If you're able to swap Stereo output, does it actually sound better through the rear channel output then the front channel the way it does with the kx drivers?

Sorry about all of the questions, I only ask them because I plan on upgrading my computer using a particular motherboard but unfortunately that motherboard doesn't have any PCI slots and so I'll have to abandon my current Audigy 2 ZS card. If the audio quality, specifically for music, is not on par or better then what I'm currently using then I'll just have to deal with the onboard audio until something better comes out.

Anyway, thanks for posting.

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Tyrsonswood

Actually the swap front/rear in KX is a legacy carryover from some of the older Live! cards that used a different CODEC for the rear channel. The newer Live! and the Audigy series use the same part front and rear so both should sound the same if the same signal is applied...... Just a FYI.

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RPGWiZaRD

Well in order so I don't have to write so much here you can follow some impressions and discussions from here to see what I think of it so far. *Moderator Edit: No linking out to other forums in this way. Thanks*

But short answer, no I'm not that satisfied with it and there's no very noticable difference even when listening to music but often not in gaming as well! I get good results with kX Audio drivers thanks to surrounder+ when set to 5.1 speakers, something without any sound quality impact whatsoever. CMSS-3D improves positioning in a similar way as Surrounder+ helps but the impact on SQ is quite severe with CMSS-3D while Surrounder+ doesn't affect it negatively at all.

At this point I'm strongly concidering selling it. The software part just isn't good enough (suprise suprise) from Creative yet. The reverb effects were very lacking for my needs for example, I like to use CLEAXReverb2 plugin in kX Audio and "Auditorium" preset and tune it down with the FXMix2 plugin with the "Reverb" slider set to 3 or 4 for a perfect subtle reverb effect emulating EAX reverb (needs to be in 5.1 speakermode in Surrounder+, in 2.1 it sounds different). Now if only Eugene would get the WaveHQ / 24bit support to work properly in kX Audio drivers and usable with DSP plugins, the kX Audio drivers might even be able to perform better on a subjective basis. xD

This is my config for kX Audio with my headphone.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/593/dsppk.jpg/
http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/5911/surrounder.jpg (using 5.1 speakermode grants a virtual surround sound for your headphone, similar to CMSS-3D without any sound quality impact!)

So to sum it up, Audigy 2 ZS is still a bloody awesome card in 2011 (I feel sorry for the early X-Fi adopters).

RPGWiZaRD

Here's some comparision vids I made

Audigy 2 ZS vs Titanium HD - Bulletstorm

Audigy 2 ZS vs Titanium HD - UT2k4

Audigy 2 ZS vs Titanium HD - UT3

Audigy 2 ZS vs Titanium HD - Portal2

Audigy 2 ZS vs Titanium HD - BioShock 2

Audigy 2 ZS vs Titanium HD - Left 4 Dead

and decide for yourself. I'm getting hell for criticizing Titanium HD over at head-fi and liking the Audigy 2 ZS with kX Audio drivers. Oh well some people can't handle the truth...

nakamichi

Have you compared the sound quality of the Audigy2 ZS w/kX drivers to a non-CreativeLabs card , such as the ASUS Xonar series?

How about buying a cheap Xonar DX or D1 and doing an honest, no-BS mini-review of its music / gaming performance and sound quality?

This card gets much better reviews than any Creative card, has configurable Dolby Headphone, Virtual 5.1/7.1 speaker management, all the necessary effects for gaming, and NO built-in headphone amp. If you don't like the default ASUS drivers, here's always 'UNi Xonar' (modified and fixed drivers with more options)

Veridian3

Hey, what headphones are you using? Also, how do you find the sound quality between the two cards from something like a CD?

(On a seperate note, I havent listened to the different video's yet but on BulletStorm the Audigy section sounds less natural to me... like the surround effect is set too high, could just be personal taste)

RPGWiZaRD

You reckon DX or D1 would be a better choice for me than picking ST or STX. I was concidering exchanging the Titanium HD for ST or STX as they are similarly priced if I can find some interested people here in a finnish forum. I'm already using a separate amp so wouldn't really need the one on ST/STX. I mean is there big difference between DX/D1 and ST/STX if the built-in amp is excluded?

What more options do those modded asus drivers provide? I'm a tweaker and more options is ALWAYS welcome. I'm worried about ASUS driver's reverb tweaking is lacking (I'd need some sort of a volume slider for reverb to make it very subtle, Titanium HD has such slider but the reverb on it sounds piss poor compared to using CLEAXReverb2 in kX Audio drivers) and I'm also worried that the ASUS EQ maybe isn't good enough to me. The kX Audio driver's 10-band EQ is REALLY superb, best 10-band EQ by far but the one on Titanium HD comes very very close though but kX Audio's allow 0.1 increments though and you can even load more than 1 EQ if needed (for EQing different channels for example or just increase it to -/+ 24 range for example ). The ASUS' EQ doesn't even specify any values but what I gathered it's 40 different steps and since it's a range of -/+ 20 that would mean 0.5 increments, while slightly too much might be just good enough for my needs.

I also think Dolby Headphone suits me better as I got experience with how it sounds like as I'm even using a custom Dolby Headphone config for foobar2000 where I've EQ'd out the frequency response balance change DH adds (about +1.5dB to bass and around 1.0 ~ 1.5dB reduction in the treblerange). CMSS-3D isn't just a matter of frequency response change though and can't be fixed with EQing.

Different games provide very different results, it's not a constant "Audigy 2 ZS seems to perform better", it ranges from slightly worse to slightly better in my opinion. In Left 4 Dead and UT2k4 I get the best results with Audigy 2 ZS but in BioShock and for example CoD the Titanium HD with EAX performs possibly slightly better. There's no such thing as "too much surround" to me though, I like it the more clear it is as it's a big aid but at the same time I'm extremely picky about sound quality impact with the different options, even OpenAL seems to have too much of an impact for me sometimes and CMSS-3D in 90% cases impacts too much on sound quality for me to concider using it.

I should add I have no bias towards any brand or method used (it doesn't matter to me if it's software or hardware or even 'renderer' based solutions to bring better positional cues. I'm just looking for the best result which I decide with my own ears, the specs on paper means shit to me if I won't hear it!

nakamichi

Quoted from the Head-Fi forums:
You can always bypass the low-quality resampling by using the WaveHQ output
Just use the regular 48kHz output (Master Mixer, AC3/SPDIF or Wave x/x) for gaming and set all your audio/video players to use the WaveHQ output.

Testing a cheap, but almost-as-good card is better than buying a much more expensive one and not liking the experience/results (getting "burned")

- Unified driver for all Asus Xonar Cards - this means you don’t have to wait months or years for Asus to release (the already old) new driver version for your specific card
- Fixed 5.1 stereo upmix issue: stereo sounds won’t be upmixed to 5.1,7.1 or 4.0 anymore (stereo is played in 2.0, surround is played in 5.1)
- Updated OpenAL (for everyone who uses the GX function)
- Fixed/disabled the Rear and Center channel delays. This fixes the strange annoying reverb that people hear with 5.1 headphones. This also offers a more “responsive” 5.1 sound experience, regardless if you are using speakers or headphones
- Alternate and better sounding Dolby enhancements
- Drastically reduced DPC latency
- Reduced memory usage
- Fixes for various audio / Dolby / game glitches and performance issues
- Easier access to various buttons and sliders

Crystallization

So, for music, Audigy 2 ZS or Titanium HD? Also, is there a PCIe version of Audigy 2 ZS anywhere? If so, then I won't have to change my mobo config.

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RPGWiZaRD

Well to my ears there were no noteworthy differences, in fact thanks to surrounder+ I'm able to achieve a subtle better soundstage in music usually which the Titanium HD won't be able to but if comparing without any enhancing effects then it's difficult to tell, at least if using WaveHQ I at times thought Audigy 2 ZS almost sounded better but that probably has to be in my imagination. I had expected that Titanium HD would stomp all over it in this regard as it should be of a lot better quality components but maybe it's due to the extra layers in Creative's drivers, I don't know but it certainly didn't sound as impressive as I had expected.

Crystallization

You mentioned that you use foobar2k, correct? is there any difference when Kernel Streaming/WASAPI output is enabled?

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RPGWiZaRD

Well unfortunately I'm unable to comment on that due to my current setup (efficient headphones paired with an amp lacking volume control, yea it's a ZO Portable Subwoofer amp but the upcoming v2 will sport volume control though which I also plan getting), it becomes quite unable to use WASAPI due to way too loud volume as I currently lack a external volume knob why I haven't used WASAPI, it's simply WAY too loud, like on foobar2000 I'd have to be at the very left end of the volume bar which would defeat the purpose of WASAPI. I can say to get normal volume currently I don't have to use more than 10~12% or so. Now imagine what happens when I use WASAPI, it just becomes scaringly loud so I'd be afriad of accidentaly moving the vol slider too much and cause hearing damage.

RPGWiZaRD

I got the ASUS D2 today but I'm not quite happy with it either mostly due to the EQ wasn't good enough and there's also some slight hissing heard which I don't with Creative Audigy 2 ZS or Titanium HD even when using the ZO amp. As expected the reverb effects were lacking but then again if using dolby headphone you get some reverb so that's enough. But between CMSS-3D and Dolby Headphone I'd easily pick Dolby Headphone for gaming though but I'd only use DH-1 mode (possibly DH-2) with dolby headphone as that one has the least impact on SQ / frequency response. The GX, ie. emulated EAX wasn't always that impressive in the ASUS card, I thought most of the time it sounded best when GX was disabled and only Dolby Headphone activated. Wasn't also that impressed with music playback quality, I thought Titanium HD had noticably better audio quality between the two and it was questionable if the ASUS one did even sound as great as Audigy 2 ZS with my custom kX Audio driver config even if using Hi-Fi mode. The bass response especially wasn't that convincing. Yes it's not ST or STX but the D2 is reasonably close in price anyway. I don't plan on spending much time with this card since the EQ is very poor, maybe marginally better than Realtek onboard's EQ so can't get any great result with XB500 on this card.

I easily prefer kX Audio / Audigy 2 ZS over the ASUS D2 at least, between Titanium HD it's more even but that Titanium HD doesn't clearly satisfy me more is quite weird for starters. I knew kX Audio drivers were great but I didn't think drivers could have so much impact on the end result. But as it is now that I think the Titanium HD isn't even an obvious upgrade, I'll probably sell it and keep the Audigy 2 ZS, for 158 EUR you want a little more obvious results for it to be worth it.

I also think kX Audio drivers even offers the most natural surround sound with Surrounder+ compared to EAX, Dolby Headphone, CMSS-3D, possibly even OpenAL. It's not always the most clear positioning (for some games it is though I think! Left 4 Dead sounds just perfect with kX Audio drivers, some of the Unreal Engine based games too) but at least it always has the least sound quality impact, none at all which is never true for the other mentioned HRTF filters.

nakamichi

Get the latest version of BASSMIDIdrv (v2.02) from here:
Index of /crap/audio

v2.03 coming soon

kosketus

Hi Tyrsonswood
Just caught up with your post.
May I ask for clarification, because I have my speakers (in a stereo setup) hooked-up to the rear outs - having understood (I thought) from Russ that my card's rear out codec was superior to the front one:-what did you mean by "older Live! cards", please?
My card is an Audigy2, plain vanilla, vintage '02 or thereabouts. I guess that qualifies as "legacy", but just to be sure would welcome confirmation.
Thanks!
PS If there is no difference I won't change my setup, I'd just like to know...

Tyrsonswood

You can read about it here..... kX Project -- Front and Rear issues and see how it applies to your setup.

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janez

I wonder if that super increased Quality has more to do with the converters than anything. I use my kx almost only on a digital level and listen to it via an external converter.
Would there still be a noticeable difference in Quality?

WxMan1

Can anybody imply how significant using the latest Kx compatible hardware could be?

The modern tech motherboards have all sorts of funtionality inherent. With multi-core CPU of extreme phenom speeds of today, and Win7 allowing access to mega memory, is Kx relevant anymore?

Tyrsonswood

Only if you want to use KX compatible hardware under the newer Windows OS.....

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