Creative speakers and soundcards...

[liquidsnake718]

Is creative a good brand? I used to have the sound blasters way back when it was cool to hear "sound" rather than beeps from the computer in Wolfenstein 3d. Is the brand still of good quality or are Altec Lansing, Bose, and Logitech better? How about for speakers?

 

[p1n3apqlexpr3ss]

Bose is creme de la creme, then comes altec lansing, then logitech, then creative. Creative a more budget orientated sound route.
As for soundcards creative xi-fi series are considered to be some of the best around

 

[englandr753]

Whats your budget? And what are you doing with this?

I personally think you cant go wrong with this:

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16836121120

You can get a cheaper price but read the reviews and see for yourself. As for the sound card I would try the onboard sound in the beginning and see if it performs above your expectation. If not, then buy a sound card.

I am still a little bitter with creative and their business practices. I would shop another brand but thats me...

 

[jitpublisher]

Creative sound cards the best around? I am not so sure about that.
Creative is like the best of the cheezy cheap stuff, maybe slightly better than good onboard sound at best.
Auzentech, ASUS, Omega are all good brands, if someone was giving me a sound card free, I would take one of their low-end cards over a Creative X-Fi card of any kind.
I used to own a X-Fi Titanium card, I ended up giving it away and going back to my onboard sound. The reason I gave it away was because I would have felt terrible if I actually asked anyone to pay good money for such a piece of junk.
Anyway, that is my 2 cents.

And I do have a set of the Logitech 5500's. For the price, it is really hard to beat Logitech. When I bought them, they were set up in a store (Fry's in Fountain Valley actually) right next to a $600 set Bose speakers (cannot remember exactly which ones), and there was not a single person around who did not think they were superior to the much more expensive Bose set right next to them.
But, sound is very subjective. What sounds good to 1 person will sound bad to someone else. You know, like when I hear a car going down the street booming away and say to myself, "my god, how can anyone actually sit and listen to that rubbish!"
So it really is worth it to go somewhere they have speakers set up so you can listen to them your self and make sure they fit your taste.

 

[clever_noob]

Creative sound cards are the best

 

[englandr753]

Creative sound cards are the best

Compared to what? I had creative for a long time and tbh I can't tell a difference between any sound card I have had from creative and the onboard sound on my high end motherboards.


You are someone looking to start a flame war and see how far it goes.

Clever_noob = instigator :lol:

 

[outlw6669]

Not looking to stoke a flame war, but Creative really does NOT make good products.
Their sound cards are sub par at best, their drivers and OS support are terrible and they are overpriced.
The last pair of Creative speakers I owned where junk and I hear the new ones are not much better.
Stick with Auzentech, ASUS or HT|Omega for the sound card and someone else for the speakers.

My staple sound card recommendation is either the ASUS Xonar DX (PCIe) or Xonar D1 (PCI).
Both have excellent sound quality that NONE of Creative's cards can best (not even their $280 X-Fi Eliete Pro)...
At $90 they are not priced over the top either.

As for speakers, I almost always use headphones so I am not necessarily an expert here.
I have heard mixed things about the Z-5500.
I hear that it has lots of bass (perhaps even to much) and, depending on who you ask, it is either reasonably detailed or really muddy, usually described as somewhat lacking in the mid range.
I personally use the much cheaper Logitech X-540 when I have guests and find them to be reasonably detailed with pretty good (if somewhat shallow) bass.
Still 1000x better than my old Creative 5.1 setup...

I would recommend staying away from Bose.
Their products are really over priced for what they offer, which is not really accurate or quality sound.
I have also not seen anything good come from Altec Lansing for quite some time.
Klipsch, Harman Kardon, M-Audio and Logitech are the brands I hear tossed around most with good PC speakers.

 

[jitpublisher]

^Dead right on. Tell it like it is.

 

[mrmazo]

Wow! I was thinking of getting an X-fi Fatality, but reading all this, I'm starting to have my doubts. My needs may be different. I was wanting to set up a media work center where I could plug analog sources into and edit music, video and pictures. Strange that I was also considering the Z-5500's, but, I'm having my doubts about them now too, based on other things I've read. Bose isn't the answer either. Now, I'm confused, hehe.

 

[jitpublisher]

Wow! I was thinking of getting an X-fi Fatality, but reading all this, I'm starting to have my doubts. My needs may be different. I was wanting to set up a media work center where I could plug analog sources into and edit music, video and pictures. Strange that I was also considering the Z-5500's, but, I'm having my doubts about them now too, based on other things I've read. Bose isn't the answer either. Now, I'm confused, hehe.

Do yourself a favor and take anything made by Creative off your list. There really are better sound card choices. Way, way better in price, performance, features, drivers, and customer support.
You do know what happened with Vista and the X-fi cards, right? Well long story short, they were not going to write drivers for Vista. That is right! The card would work under Vista and provide sound with the generic Windows drivers, but that is all it did. None of the features of the card worked. Finally, a guy wrote a set of 3rd party drivers for the cards. We were all happy! Finally drivers for our beloved X-fi cards that let us use the card under Vista! He posted them for download, and then Creative stepped in and said they would prosecute him if he did not remove the drivers for download. Finally, after a year of bad publicity, Creative did release a somewhat limited driver/application set for Vista. But it was just not the same. The only way to get full functionality out of the card the way you did in XP, was to go back to XP. I think that now they are over that hump, but it gave a lot of Creative customers a very bad taste for Creative. So, if want, spend your money and take the chance that if Micorsoft releases something new in the future, Creative products may or may not work if you upgrade.
Google around, there is a lot about this fiasco on the web.

As far as speakers go, you have to just go listen to them. Like I said, everyones taste is a little different here, there is no perfect choice that works for everyone. I have a set of the 5500's, and for my budget, I think they are hard to beat.
If I was the least tiny bit picky about how my music sounded, I would never suggest anyone buy a set of speakers they did not listen to first.

 

[Dirtman73]

Avoid Creative products at all costs. Hell, you'd be better off with a Turtle Beach soundcard than any of the crap Creative puts out.

As far as speakers, Bose are overpriced for what they do. Logitech's desktop speakers work great.

 

[astrallite]

Before calling Bose the "creme dela creme" you should read this:

http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html#marketing

As far as I am concerned the are the worst speakers/$ you could possibly buy.

 

[outlw6669]

^ jitpublisher

Yup, you got it just about nailed.
Forgot to mention how Creative absolutely refused to release Linux drivers (or even enough information to allow drivers to be made by someone else...) until well AFTER the whole Daniel_K incident.
Seriously, the X-Fi chip was released in August '04, it took until 2009 for proper Linux drivers to come out!

What really got me to move away from Creative and learn a little more about audio was some quite interesting driver issues.
When I was still using my X-Fi eXtremeGamer as my primary card, I would get an intermittent issue where all speakers would shift one to the left
The right channel would become center, center would be left, left was sub, etc.
The only way I could reset it was by rebooting.
After that, I swore off Creative for a good long while

 

[englandr753]

I never saw a thread with so many posts as the one you are talking about jtpublisher. It grew by the 1000's daily and I posted my share as well.

I haven't bought any creative products since and am not sure if I will. Most likely not, and I was a fairly die hard customer as I paid 130 bucks for their high end card before the xi-fi series came out. Its in a box somewhere collecting dust...

 

[MEgamer]

ppl, creative not very good with soundcards anmore, since vista, and even b4... asus will beat any soundcards, made by creative

plus, BOSE????? cmon...

 

[p1n3apqlexpr3ss]

Bose last time i knew only made speakers... go with a asus card as everyone else is saying if you want to pay for that, but tbh, onboard is more then enough for most people

 

[sovereign110]

I have the Logitech Z-680 system, which is the wired version of the Z-5500. I've owned the system for about 4-5 years now and I have zero regrets. The Z-5500 system is supposed to be very similar (wireless being the big difference, of course). The overpowering bass claims are factual, but I just don't turn the bass up that high. It's all about finding an equalization between sound (Oh, and if you use an equalizer for anything, you can putz with the bass anyway ).

 

[astrallite]

I have the Logitech Z-680 system, which is the wired version of the Z-5500. I've owned the system for about 4-5 years now and I have zero regrets. The Z-5500 system is supposed to be very similar (wireless being the big difference, of course). The overpowering bass claims are factual, but I just don't turn the bass up that high. It's all about finding an equalization between sound (Oh, and if you use an equalizer for anything, you can putz with the bass anyway ).

You are confusing the Z-5450s (wireless) with the Z-5500s (wired). The Z-5500s use the same 3" fullrange drivers as the Z-680s but with a slightly different enclosure. Also the subwoofer is bigger. Supposedly the fixed the Z-680 pre-amp hiss with the Z-5500s.

And EQ...is definitely needed with those subs. I can't tell if its harmonic distortion or the satellites and sub not being level matched, but the Z-680 sub is obviously limited by its poor bracing and 1/2" MDF enclosures that resonate like a drum, not to mention being plagued with a 140hz crossover that forces too much midrange to bleed through it.

 

[MEgamer]

You are confusing the Z-5450s (wireless) with the Z-5500s (wired). The Z-5500s use the same 3" fullrange drivers as the Z-680s but with a slightly different enclosure. Also the subwoofer is bigger. Supposedly the fixed the Z-680 pre-amp hiss with the Z-5500s.

And EQ...is definitely needed with those subs. I can't tell if its harmonic distortion or the satellites and sub not being level matched, but the Z-680 sub is obviously limited by its poor bracing and 1/2" MDF enclosures that resonate like a drum, not to mention being plagued with a 140hz crossover that forces too much midrange to bleed through it.

i know 140hz is quite a high crossover

but what do u think about 120?? cos thats seems to be the xover point for many pc speakers

 

[omnimodis78]

Bose is creme de la creme, then comes altec lansing, then logitech, then creative. Creative a more budget orientated sound route.
As for soundcards creative xi-fi series are considered to be some of the best around

I'm not writing this to antagonize, but Bose is not the "creme de la creme" (sic) - in fact, anyone who really understands these things knows that there's no such thing as any given brand is de facto cream of anything. Yes, there are some brands you can write off as cheap and unreliable, but those are clearly inferior (in-house retail store brands), but don't fall into the brand trap! I always look at value - a $60 Logitech can sound better than a $140 Bose (yes, it's true). If you can, go to your local retail stores and test them out - but keep in mind that the sound in a large store isn't accurate to how it will sound at home. In any case, if you settle only for brand name, then you might be giving yourself a false sense of comfort which may easily result in a much lighter wallet. Be an educated consumer, not a brand loyal sheep!

As for the original question, yes, creative is good. There are those who hate and those who love it and it's all just fine - that's why there are choices out there. Don't expect the best drivers for creative though, that's probably their biggest flaw! Otherwise, the sound output is great unless you care about synthetic tests, in which case some of the creative cards will not get the best scores. Cheers!

 

[MEgamer]

let me add to that, the quality ont he creative is still not as gd compared to the asus that is as long as the asus is NOT competing with the flagship models of creative of course...

 

[darkjuggalo2000]

for budget/quality go with logtech and get a great logtech 5.1 to go with it you will be impressed!

 

[astrallite]

i know 140hz is quite a high crossover

but what do u think about 120?? cos thats seems to be the xover point for many pc speakers

120hz is bad idea for a crossover for PC speakers. To give you an idea, the Klipsch RSX-3 is a 1" tweeter/3.5" aluminum midrange and fairly large of a satellite, sold with the Klipsch 2.1 iFi. The -3db point is 113hz. Even with a 120hz crossover point you need a sub with a gentle x-over slope meaning a significant amount of mid-bass will bleed through. A satellite with the RSX-3 is the "bare minimum" you need to blend a with a subwoofer at 120hz without failing miserably.

Something like a full range 2.5" or 3" with medium/small satellites will not be able to meet a 120hz x-over because the natural rolloff would be too steep. If a 120hz x-over was used then the system would have a significant output deficiency in the midbass.

 

[liquidsnake718]

for budget/quality go with logtech and get a great logtech 5.1 to go with it you will be impressed!

Yeah I am looking for budget/quality, I thought Altec was the best at quality/price..... Did you know Lansing is the L in JBL................. just some fyi stuff...................

 

[MEgamer]

James Bullough Lansing