Mini Review : Creative USB Sound Blaster X-Fi Go! Sound Card

Review
Last week I saw this nifty USB soundcard for sale at a local PC shop; even though I wasn’t really looking for a new sound card at the time, a X-Fi branded sound card with a 4300Yen (~$42) price tag was very tempting. I looked for some reviews or user comments on the net, but couldn't find anything useful because it was introduced very recently. However I’ve been happily using creative products for the past few years, therefore decided to buy it on faith.

It took me this long to write my comments because I was waiting for my notebook to come from repairs, as most other M1330 users out there, I also had to get my motherboard replaced due to graphic card overheating/failing . At the time I bought the sound card I was using an old Pentium 4 desktop running Windows XP, so I decided to test it on that first. Then yesterday I tested on my notebook too. Before moving further, here are some photos of the box, card and the contents:

Front and back views of the box



Contents of the box : USB Soundcard, earphones with built-in mic, Manual, USB extension cable.



Installation:

A nice feature of this sound card is the built in 1GB flash drive that doubles as a installation disk, so you don’t have to carry a separate installation disk. Crative also recommends this to be used for storing your game profiles.

As soon as I connected the card, both Windows XP and Vista automatically detected it and installed the basic drivers. However, to get all the extra features and sound effects, you need to install Creative applications. I ran the setup.exe from the flash memory and several applications and plugins were installed. There is an online software update tool for downloading and installing additional Creative applications like Karaoke Player, Media source plugins, WaveStudio etc..

Audio Enhancements and Features: (quotes from Creative site are in italics)

+ X-Fi CMSS-3D
X-Fi CMSS-3D technology expands your stereo MP3s and digital movies into virtual multi-speakers or headphones. Voices are centered in front of you and ambient sounds are positioned all around you.
I tested the card with a surround speaker test file ( 6 Chanel ) and did notice some surround effect, nowhere near that of an actual surround speaker set, but at least when the channel name is spoken (Front left, Front right , Center , rear left, rear right) there is an audible difference, so I guess for stereo headphones, CMSS-3D is not bad. I’ll update this post as and when I do more tests. [edited my previous comment]

+ X-Fi Crystalizer
Restores the detail and vibrance to your compressed music and movies. All the highs and lows are intelligently enhanced so you'll hear everything in crystal clarity.
This seems to enhance the sound by making the highs sharper and clearer while keeping lows very clean and rich. So I guess it does add more "vibrance".....

+ EAX Advanced HD 4.0
Multiple simultaneous environmental effects.
Has 8 presets with a slider to control the level of the applied effect, however no way to customize or add your own effects.

+ Creative ALchemy
Restores surround sound for legacy game titles running in Windows Vista®
Didn’t test this yet, since I don’t have any games.

+ Graphic Equalizer
There is a 10 band equalizer with several presets and the ability to make your own. With the correct amount of equalizing you can get very clear deep bass sounds while keeping the trebles high and crisp.

+ Microphone effects
Morph into another person while chatting with your friends over your instant messaging software using our in-built microphone effects feature!
There are 18 preset effects, sounds pretty nice.
There is a demo for a noise reduction feature but no way to enable it. The web URL underneath the effect description takes me to a page that is still under construction :-(. Maybe an upcoming feature.

+ What U Hear
This is basically an internal loopback function, which will allow you to record whatever you hear on your speakers. You can use this to record audio from online sources or a voice conversation. Since this can be set as an audio source you can use it to stream what you hear to your friends over instant messengers. For me, this is one of the most useful features of this card.


Problems

The biggest problem is CPU usage under Vista. When I was using this card on the old P4, I didn’t notice any abnormal CPU usage, but as soon as I installed it on my notebook I noticed a constant 10~20% usage whenever a sound is played. I managed to trace it to audiodg.exe. Did a bit of digging up and came across many instances where Creative sound card users complaining about CPU usage problems under Vista with audiodg.exe. Looks like a known problem. I already mailed Creative about this issue, now waiting for their response. I hope they come up with a fix very soon. Because this is a deal breaker for me, especially since M1330 is heating up too much as it is,so I really don't want to add unnecessary load to it.
UPDATE :
Well, the CPU usage problem has gotten somewhat better now. I don't know when exactly this happened or what was the cause, but now audiodg.exe is using around 6~8% when running in Power Saver* mode and 2~3% when running in Performance Mode* (* Vista power plans). Not too bad I guess... however, turning CMSS3D will still push the CPU usage up to ~15% and ~8% respectively under each power plan. Note : Earlier when I said 10~20% it was without CMSS3D. I normally don't use CMSS3D because it kind of distort the sound.

Concluding remarks
I’m very happy with the overall sound quality and the quality of the effects. However, CPU usage could be a bit of a concern for some.... nevertheless, I think this is a worthy notebook upgrade.

Screenshots:
New volume controller:



Main console :



Click to view larger images.

 

How big of a difference was the sound compared to the stock dell? What kind of speakers/headphones were you using? How about test media?

 

I’m not an audiophile, and I don’t have expensive high quality headphones or speakers, but I like deep bass. For testing I used a pair of Sony MDR-EX76 and Creative EP630 earphones. Listened to several high quality (256~320kbps) MP3s ranging from Classical/instrumental to hard rock. Then I listened to several Youtube videos and low bit rate online radio stations, they all sounded better.

First noticeable difference over the stock DELL soundcard was the lack of a constant background hiss. At stock settings (without any Creative applications / unequalized) there wasn’t much of a difference, however I thought Creative produced a slightly clearer output than the stock card (but that may have been a placebo effect).

 

Hey, great job on the *mini review* you did there on the Creative USB Sound Blaster.....!


Cin

 

Thanks for the review.

 

+1, thanks for this review! pretty nifty little device, i'd consider picking one up.

 

Great review. +1 rep point ;D

I'm a bit of an audiophile and can't do without high quality sound. I'm running an X-fi and Logitech Z-5500's on my desktop.

 

I've been wondering about this as I have a similar card. Thanks for the review.

 

How is it for Gaming?

is the sound Immersive?

 

Unfortunately I don’t have any games installed right now (no time ). But I want to stress test my graphics card to see if the motherboard replacement has actually solved the thermal problems I had before; for that I might install a game demo or two. If I do, I’ll post here.

 

Interesting card. I never knew it even existed.

 

For those who are money rise, tt doesn't make much a difference, just 15% better.

 

Nice review!

Where did you buy?

 

Hello. Can anyone tell me if it is possible to make the audio come out through my laptop's internal speakers? Is there a trick or something? I bought this card and was dissapointed when I couldn't hear anything out of my speakers

 

One thing to bear in mind for gaming and effects use is that unlike desktop X-Fi cards (and even then, the Xtreme Audio features the same limitations) the notebook X-Fi cards don't have hardware acceleration of the audio effects. This can result in a CPU impact, depending on what you're trying to do. For regular EQ-style effects it shouldn't be a problem, at least no more than other soundcards. The flexibility to have the capability that the X-Fi's do is IMHO a plus, even with the small impact.

Isamu, no. It's not how soundcards work since a better soundcard is supposed to bypass your motherboard audio. You could conceivably set your default audio to the internal sound, activate the line input, and feed your soundcard's output to the line in of your notebook. This does however assume that the app you're trying to use does have independent control of the sound output (many apps don't).

 

Thanks.

Dammit. Even using the SB-Xfi card, I still can't get sound from CoD5 W@W I took the card back today

 

Hey there (I know this page is quite old now but still)...

I've been looking for a decent sound card for my new netbook due to arrive soon when I came across this review.

I know why you are experiencing high CPU usage, it's because the entire "X-FI" experience you are getting is emulated via software, that little USB stick doesn't contain anything special in the slightest. It works in exactly the same way as thei X-Fi ExpressCard solution, no X-FI chip.

Regardless of getting less hiss out of the headphone jack or not, that's merely down to the jack itself.

It's a shame really that Creative labs should release 2 products like this that are nothing to do with X-FI, yet bare the name of their premium sound card.

It's a load of bollocks, I think you'd be better off getting an external USB box with some real chips in it!

 

Good job on the creative sound card review, thanks for a well detailed report!