Creative announces more unimpressive X-Fi gear

It's hard to believe that something this banal could required a press event -- it's like the Apple Hi-Fi event all over again. Nevertheless, Creative duped a bunch of journalists into an in-person showing of their $90 Sound Blaster X-Fi Notebook Sound Card and $270 Creative Wireless Receiver. Sure, the combo allows you to stream that premium X-Fi audio wirelessly from your laptop to any speaker in the house, but that's something we've been doing since, oh, 1999 for crissake. While you can argue the merits of X-Fi fidelity (which doesn't match the hype based on our own experience and that of others), we can't help but wonder if Creative has completely lost its way in the portable audio and video marketplace.

[Via Nothing But Creative]

[From My Cube @ Sep 17th 2008 7:43AM]

If only they could block you from posting with the great firewall of china

[Battery199 @ Sep 17th 2008 10:57AM]

The Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Notebook and the Creative Wireless Receiver (which includes a remote control) will be sold together at The CREATIVE Stores at Marina Square, Plaza Singapura and International Business Park, the online store at sg.store.creative.com and authorised dealers in Singapore at a suggested retail price of S$269.00 from end October 2008 onwards.

That price that Engadget is showing is for a bundle and it is in Singapore currency. It would equal out around $150 for the card/receiver bundle stateside.

[From My Cube @ Sep 17th 2008 7:44AM]

if only they could block you with the great firewall of china

[Hugh @ Sep 17th 2008 7:49AM]

I used to swear by Creative products, back when they were actually setting the standards. Cards used to be "SB-Compatible". Now, having splashed out on a Creative DM keyboard and not having any Vista drivers for it, and having had an Audigy 2 NX with no Creative-supplied Vista drivers capable of 7.1 surround, I've completely lost interest in them. ATEOTD a digital interface on an onboard Audio CODEC will send the exact same unencoded data stream from an A/V file as Creative's best alternative, and all other data down that interface will be exactly what the OS told it to send, so there's absolutely no difference at the decoder end except possibly some latency difference. So why splash out on something which won't have any support in the future when you get the exact same result with the one on your motherboard?

If Creative made Video cards, they'd be using baseline Intel GPUs with "superior" DACs and claiming magnificence.

[huh @ Sep 17th 2008 9:26AM]

I am sorry to say that I was around from the beginning for PC sound, and Creative never did anything good for the industry except set a really crappy, low bar standard. Think about it.... other computers, like the Amiga or even C64 had flexible and amazing sound cards, the Sound BLASTER wasn't even as good as the C64. In fact the first Sound BLASTER was just a clone of the AdLib card of the time, which at least had a real audio generating chip.

Creative has always typified cheap knock-off products. So, don't feel any pity for Creative. They are the farthest thing from being a Creative company, and they deserve no pity.

[billy bob thorton @ Sep 17th 2008 1:40PM]

creative is no longer relevant (or ever really was) They were just bullies in the marketplace and didn't really innovate that much. I used to own a Aureal Vortex sound card which I liked very much. Then stupid creative tried to sue them...

Here's the story:

Creative Labs sued Aureal for patent infringement in March 1998[1], and Aureal countersued for patent infringement and deceptive trade practices. Aureal won the lawsuit brought by Creative in December 1999. However, the cost of the legal battle caused Aureal's investors to cease funding operations, forcing Aureal into bankruptcy. Creative then acquired Aureal's assets in September 2000 through the bankruptcy court with the specific provision that Creative Labs would be released from all claims of past infringement by Creative Labs upon Aureal's A3D technology. While Creative Labs has not chosen to support the A3D API, the underlying advanced features of A3D technology is making its way into Creative Labs' newer EAX -wikipedia

[dennis @ Sep 17th 2008 7:52AM]

I feel kind of bad for Creative. Audio technology is a squeeze play between high end audio gear, professional audio hardware, and the lower limit of what people will tolerate in a receptive audio experience. Most people who want to create audio can go with a budget pro-audio hardware line, like M-Audio; but that gear isn't 100% consumer friendly for just listening to music. Most people who want to just listen to audio will get a PMP. And a lot of people will make do with whatever comes free with the notebook or motherboard for audio.

I just put an old Creative X-Fi Fata1ity card in my C2D system on an Asus P5B, and the sound quality is distinctly better with the X-Fi card than with the built-in 5.1 audio on the motherboard. But if I were running short on PCI slots, the difference in audio quality for gaming or movies wouldn't justify having the X-Fi card over other functions.

[Mobius_1 @ Sep 17th 2008 8:17AM]

Creative definitely seem a little lost right now, being quite uncompetitive in the PMP market, with few people demanding separate sound cards now the built-ins are quite good, and not exactly having a big advantage (if any at all) in making speakers and peripherals

[ashtray @ Sep 17th 2008 8:46AM]

What the H are these ponies smokin'? I guess, like old Dennis says, there are in the squeeze.

[dennis @ Sep 17th 2008 8:55AM]

lol

[brandoshido @ Sep 17th 2008 8:49AM]

there go my hopes for widescreen pmp

[Galley @ Sep 17th 2008 8:55AM]

They still make great speakers in the GigaWorks series.

[Stephen @ Sep 17th 2008 9:12AM]

I like their earphones - though build quality could be better. And they still make decent speakers. The issues with vista aren't entirely their fault. Microsoft changed the entire audio architecture when they brought put vista out.

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Sep 18th 2008 2:33AM]

They may make great speakers, but they sure have driven Cambridge Soundworks in to the ground.

[Shan @ Sep 17th 2008 8:58AM]

The thing with Creative is that they have been dragging their feet regarding the whole Vista sound issue and that in itself has a left a very bad taste in my mouth. Vista went through 4 beta versions before hitting store shelves and the fact that Creative did nothing to try and address the issue from that point to me sounds like either laziness or that they were hoping Microsoft would change the issue back to how it was in XP. At the end of the day - they let down a huge number of their customers when Vista rolled out and that for me is a lesson on how Creative actually are. Their only solution was ALchemy to try and tide over the frustrated Vista users. This was a year too late and the one guy who did hack Creative drivers to try and help the community - they shut down. I think also a lot of this stems from the fact that Creative don't really have any serious competition within the midrange PC user. Sure there are rival cards for the professional audio producer, but lets be honest - if you are producing music then companies like M-Audio with their professional range are much better but for the average person who just wants a decent sound card for music or games - Creative have had and still have the market to themselves - so this is probably why they don't give a shit and could care less.

Knowing how difficult getting Creative sound cards and Vista to work - I will stay well away from them. Also the general tardiness of the company to fixing problems and their negative attitude towards the fanbase has also lead me to never both with them. I'll stick with onboard audio or go with Asus' sound card which is proving to be quite good in terms of money and sound value compared to the equivalent Creative product.

[Rene @ Sep 17th 2008 12:44PM]

Using X-Fi Xtreme Gamer in Vista 64 bit and having no issues.
M-Audio and other fanboys are all over the place to scare people off from using X-Fi but this is generally BS considering all X-Fi cards are UAA compliant. That means they even work with Vista built-in drivers.

[Mike @ Sep 17th 2008 9:06AM]

Creative PMP's are like those innovative Casio watches in the past, nothing better or that set them appart from other brands today.

[Alex @ Sep 17th 2008 9:15AM]

They sold X-FI sound cards that were barely useable due to buggy drivers and missing functionality. They tried to silence the guy who developed an ASIO driver for their X-Fi card that actually worked. Would I ever buy one of their products again? Not in this lifetime.

[Vesh @ Sep 17th 2008 9:36AM]

Almost held off on purchasing the Zune 120 thinking there might be something interesting at this event....good thing I went through with the order and should be receiving the Zune today.

[Adrian Williams @ Sep 17th 2008 9:51AM]

Creative can DIAF

[Bman @ Sep 17th 2008 10:00AM]

who cares when a new version of windows comes out this stuff wont work anymore lol

[Ken @ Sep 17th 2008 10:07AM]

Creative isnt being to .. um ... creative

[David @ Sep 17th 2008 10:09AM]

Creatives not all bad, their 16/32 gig X-fi flash players are solid products and at better pricepoints than ipod or zune.
But, I was hoping to see something to replace their Vision W.

[A_Pickle @ Sep 17th 2008 2:56PM]

I'll be honest:

I think Creative could go stick it's head in the sand. I wouldn't care. Their business tactics over the two years that Vista have been out have been positively shameful, they have not been something I would care for the industry leader in audio digital signal processing to be doing. They artificially hindered X-Fi cards by not prescribing drivers for them that made use of their full featureset... and then sent a cease and desist to a the only guy who DID do that. When users got really huffy about that, they renegged on their cease and desist... until the storm blew over, and then a few months later they published it.

I specifically avoid buying Creative products for that reason. They don't make perfect MP3 players (there are better ones out there), and now, they don't even make the best of the best desktop sound cards. If you're looking for a good-sounding card, get an ASUS Xonar.

Alas, for those of us who want 5.1 from our notebooks... we have no choice but to buy from Creative. T_T

[John @ Sep 17th 2008 11:17AM]

Creative was among the first to offer a digital media receiver with a 2 way remote (Soundblaster Music). If they would have refined the product to allow it to stream using 802.11g and allow more than a 15 ft distance between the remote and the receiver it would have been a nice competitor to the Sonos system. I was fairly happy with the product but as more and more neighbors installed WiFi it became unusable.

I received a pair of their EP-630 headphones with a recent Dell purchase and they are GREAT for the money! They are more comfortable and have better bass response than my Etymotic ER-6 which retail for 3-4 times as much. I even left them in a pant pocket that was washed and dried and they still work/sound as good as they did before the cleaning!

That being said, I think they are trying to play in too many markets. They need to re-evaluate their core business strategy and re-dedicate themselves to that.

[kastonie @ Sep 17th 2008 11:33AM]

If they would have slapped F@tal1ty on it i would have scooped it up in a heartbeat..... /sarcasm

[The Drunken Blogger @ Sep 17th 2008 12:02PM]

This Sound Blaster X-Fi Notebook Sound Card allows you to stream that premium X-Fi audio wirelessly from your laptop. That is what makes the professional. Being able to do that allows you to replace many of todays standard equipment. Need one of these.

[Rene @ Sep 17th 2008 12:44PM]

Wireless streaming has been around for a while, that's right, but this card appears to give this feature efforlessly as an extra. If it works fine and and is easy to setup then at that price it might be a great buy.

I think the only trouble engadget has with this news item is that it does not comes from Apple. If it did the drolling and blaring would be all over the place and I am pretty sure the price would not be misquoted either.

How unprofessional you have to be to quote $270 instead of $180?

(accoridng to xe.com SG$270 = US$180)

[CoolTri @ Sep 17th 2008 1:30PM]

I used to live by creative cards. I just think that creative should have made a better play at getting there hardware trimmed to work in more laptops. They really lost the market when people were buying more laptops than desktops about the time Intel released their Centrino standard. A little adjustment to power consumption and they may not have had to worry about Microsoft making huge changes to the OS that excluded them.

[Pikl @ Sep 17th 2008 2:57PM]

Xonar FTW!!!

(testing my login)

[KC @ Sep 17th 2008 3:41PM]

That's one really small home layout they have there in the diagram. To me, this is like say that this product will not work for homes larger than 600 square feet!

[Dorville @ Sep 19th 2008 1:12PM]

uhmm, this will come with the SOD incorporated (Squeal of death) Anyone? I am righ?