Creative Sound Blaster Audigy FX PCIe 5.1 Internal Sound Card with High Performance Headphone Amp for PCs

Once again I have installed a Sound Blaster card for my sound device on my new PC. Over the years, I've used SBs as I've usually found them to work well and provide the best sound on my PCs. I brought a new Dell, and it came with on board sound and graphics. As I had had some experience with on board graphics before, I have usually replaced the graphics with a drop in board as it gave me the best performance for the my games which I did this time. This time the sound was pretty good on the on board sound. I, at first, didn't notice any of the normal things I didn't like about on board sound. It seemed pretty good. I didn't note any of the issues I had seen before. (Like back ground noise, or game problems, etc.) In fact, the sound was nice thru my 5.1 speaker system. I then started noticing small things. First, some games seems not to sound right and on others I had trouble getting the sound to work right. I also started noting a small amount of background static that I hadn't heard before. It wasn't very pronounced or loud but it was there just under the surface so to speak. I also noted that on high listening level that the sound somewhat distorted and sounded a bit "shattered" unless I turned the volume down a bit. (The older system I had had a SB Audigy in it and although you could drive the speakers to distortion it took a really high volume level setting to do it.) So after going along a bit and finding these things out, I decided to do what I had always done.....get a SB. I chose this card as it fit the bill for what I want. A good card at a good price that has the features I want. (It had to have 5.1 connectively and be able to handle my 5.1 speaker system first of all and the reviews seemed good.) After getting the card in, I proceeded to pulled the new system out and crack the case to install it. I found that my Inspiron case had two slots this card could fit in but the bottom slot was covered over by the GT-730 graphic card's heat sink/fan array and that only left the top slot which this card fit into without a problem. (I had already uninstalled the on board sound's driver and disabled it in the BIOS before I shut down the system to pull it.) I reconnected all the stuff to the system and cranked it up. (I had also dropped 16 gigs of RAM in too.) Everything came up OK, and it booted into Windows with no problem. I installed the included CD's drivers and checked out the installation. Things seemed to be working OK. As is my usually routine, I registered the card thru Creative's Web site and let it check for updated drivers. None found. I then decided to see if my decision on this card. was right. I checked out the 5.1 set up and all the tests seem OK, including the each speaker ID test. I then cranked up some games to see. On Remember Me which has some good places to check the bass and for distortion at high volume levels, I found very little, if any, "shattering" or distortion at higher levels than I would normally use to play the game. Also the sound was much better sounding than before and much easier to catch the small sounds that you might miss in some scenes. Bass was less "boomy" and much more solid. I was very happy with what I heard. I also noted that lack of any background static or other noise. A few other things that I noticed. On my on board sound card, I had to set it up in software to handle my 5.1 system. (That is assign rear speakers and the woofer and middle speakers to the mic in and aux in ports on the MB. This seemed to be being done in software by loading an extra driver to handle this items above the normal driver the on board sound processor would normally use. This is OK, but in my experience, it's better to have hardware ports that are fixed to handle this as the SB Audigy's ports on the card. When I first looked at the memory set up with the on board sound, there were five sound driver items loaded. It seemed that maybe these were aimed at provide what the 5.1 speaker system needed to work right. After installing the new SB card, I noted only two sound card loads and one of those was fore the new SB software that was included with the card and might be able to be disabled if you decided not to use it! So much less memory to enable your 5.1 sound it appeared. The last things I noted which I found interesting was that the chipset of this card was the same brand as the on board sound but the difference in the way they sounded sure easy to hear! This card is a very good purchase if you want to upgrade your sound a bit and not spend an arm and a leg doing it. A good buy!3/6/16: Update: Rec'd second card of this type and it's as good as the first, but there were a few things on this one that sort of put me off. First, no outer shrink wrap on box as is normally the case on new cards. Second, when card's box was opened, I found that the small slot cover adapter package had been opened. And third, safety anti-static bag of the card itself had been opened and resealed by a piece of tape. These items would indicate to me that this card was opened and removed from the package and was not a factory sealed new card. I have no problem with the card itself as it works great, but if it is sold as a NEW card then it should have not been previously opened and should have the all the factory sealing in tact. It would seem to me that would fit under the classification of a used card rather then new.

Great! Just what was needed!

There "use" to be a CD/DVD that had all the install and app programs on it. THAT has changed. Now AFTER you have installed your Sound Blaster card, you have to go to creative.com/support/SBFx (very last item on INSTALL SOFTWARE). You go through the steps to identify your specific product and the site verifies and downloads your Drivers to program file called creative. There is NO desktop icon nor instructions on what to do next. So, you go to the new creative folder, Open Sound Blaster Audigy FX (you may have a different card but use yours), Find Sound Blaster Audigy FX Control Panel (again if your product is different look to that one and Control Panel), In that listing you will see an application icon, I strongly suggest you click it and send a shortcut to your desktop or as a minimum pin to task bar. Open the Control Panel IT IS PRESET AS DEFAULT TO 5.1, if you are using headphones, stereo setup etc change that as necessary and scroll through the other settings and set and test to your taste. IMPORTANT!!! MIDDLE LEFT OF SCREEN A BUTTON SBX PRO STUDIO ..... TURN IT ON! Those looking to optimize sensitivity set AUTO to LOUD as neither Normal nor Night is going to let you hear the smaller audio signals like a soft sigh, etc or distant footsteps. You can use your own volume controller on desktop or wheel on your mouse to micro tune. There are some reports that Windows (when you put your cursor over the speaker) still shows Windows or a graphic card versus the Sound Blaster card, from those we have assisted it was merely a matter that after the install and set up, either they had failed to activate (turn on the sound card) or had not restarted their computer for the changes to take affect. Having the control panel icon handy makes turning the card on and off and making any tweaks much easier than flipping back and forth to the actual program file and location. Once all set up have no complaints as someone who is a normal user and music would be my big media of choice. For the heavy duty hard core gamer SB probably up a couple grades and remember the speakers/headphones had best be optimum if you want the most out of your card. I know using BOSE I can tell a big difference between a PANASONIC and a chasm between OneOdio. And yes, after everything has been set I CANNOT listen to anything with my headphones on at MAX volume with the Sound Blaster Audigy Fx.