X-Fi soundblaster card replacement

im in the process of buying a new XMG P502 from mySN UK to update my 4 year old clevo m860tu laptop and am wondering what to do about my x-fi soundblaster card.
now all these new lappys dont come with a express card slot so the x-fi card i have at the moment will be obsolete.
im running creative 5.1 speakers with the x-fi soundblaster and the 5.1 adapter connection that ive had for the past 4 years and am just wondering whats the best thing to get now to replace it.
dont want to spend too much as just forked out over £2000 for this lappy.

over to you

 

If you want to go with a USB solution and stick with Creative, take a look at the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro USB Sound Card.

 

thanks for the advice nanomist
yup. been looking at that one for a while but thought id open it up to see if theres much else out there. its also got £30 off in the uk at the moment.

 

Since you mentioned you don't have the expresscard slot anymore your only solution would be the USB way, which is the USB to SPDIF/optical adapter along with an external 5.1 or 7.1 receiver connected to its own speakers. If you still want to use your Creative 5.1 speakers you'd have to buy the USB Creative 5.1 product that goes with it. There's really no other way unless you want to settle for a 2.0 DAC which would render your Creative speakers useless, well not exactly but you get the idea.

 

oh bugger
thanks for the explanation Twiztidkidd

so the link nanomist posted wont work on its own with the creative 5.1 speakers plugged into it and that plugged into lappy via usb

£49.99 in uk at moment but dont want to pay that if im not 100% sure it will work

 

You could make it work... your speakers have three 3.5 mm jacks I'm guessing. The lime green one illustrated is for L+R front plug, the black one is for L+R rear plug and the orange is for your C+SUB plug. They seem to be on diff. sides of the device. So you'll prolly just need a Y-adapter to go from two RCA-female to one 3.5 mm female (that'd be your L/R front... see picture) if you don't want to split the speakers cable too much to reach around. It's prolly best to ask Creative but it looks like there's a possible connection in between the two.

The Y-adapter needed would look like this (see picture) but I have no idea if those two RCA jacks are pre-amp or amped just like the lime green one on the other side so do ask Creative if this is possible or download the pdf manual and look at the specs for those two RCA jacks.

 

ok mate thanks for that. will check it out when my lappy arrives.

 

I was just looking at this X-Fi to go with my upcoming laptop purchase.. There's an unboxing video somewhere, and it actually comes with one of those Y cables for the L + R. I'll be using it for my Logitech 5.1 system at the desk, headphone port (plan on spending $200 on headphones and this bad boy. It's running around $50usd on amazon atm so any headphone suggestions for under $150?) and it has an optical if for some reason I need to out to my main set up in the living room.

edit: Creative X-Fi USB 5.1 Surround Sound Card Unboxing - YouTube