So..... In other words, this is like Dolby Pro-Logic?

For those of you who don't know, Dolby Pro-Logic is a system of taking standard two-channel output, and upsampling and splitting those sounds into different channels, for which there is no signal. While there is a scientific basis for it's operation, it actually just makes an educated guess, as to how things would sound if the signal were actually four or five channels, rather than two.

What does this have in common with the XMod?

Both units take sound, and attempt to fill in gaps with a median that will create a more 'fluid' sound, without actually creating truly higher quality sound. And both methods of sound improvement equate down to one thing, scientifically based or not.... They are both ultimately GUESSING how something would sound if it were higher quality.

Its only $80....I don't think it would hurt to try it.

What a steaming load of BS. That is like saying that you can make an enlarged JPEG look better than the original. Fact of the matter is they are only smoothing the sound by inter-/extrapolation, just about any existing DSP system could do the same thing.

Aren't DSP systems expensive? I could be wrong but I thought a middle quality was like 500 or 700 dollars. Heck I even saw some for 8-10 thousand.

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Ok so basically its a mini DSP system that runs off a USB port,the question is know any audiopiles that have tried it?

I know a few that are fickle and hate mobo sound chipsts 0-o

Mmm untill more reviews start comeing out it could be a fancy cheap simulated surround sound thingy,I jsut love SSR nothing like scoring a set of fake surround sound head phones to make your day....

I don't understand... How will ths improve on the audio quality? You are upconverting the audio. Fine, but where is the missing information coming from?

Is there an advantage on buying this to having an extra HDD and just keeping the original wave on your PCs?? I doubt this is for portable mp3, because then the player does not become so portable...

Also, if you want to benefit from the quality of 24bit audio, you need the original tracks. Upconverting doesn't work. All it can do is give the impression of the music being more full, but in reality it causes damage to your ears by bombarding them with artificial frequencies and tones. MP3s are bad enough, do we need to make them worse??

JaguarGod
forgive me for my stupidity and I know..thats a godly talent (the forgiving not the stupidity),but could it not upconvert as well as filter(make it sound better) ?

Looks really interesting...

tocool4u
I forgot soethign sound cards with there equlizer programs and such can replace full audio equipment sets add extra audio programs and it can replace whole studios almost,creative is a sound leader so theres a 50/50 chance of it doing what they say and a 50/50 chance of it doing half that.

anybody know if there is any advantage to buying this if you already have an X-FI plat?

My biggest problem with MP3s is the warbles you get on the high-end when the full audio spectrum is hit all at once, and the compressor doesn't know what to sacrifice.

They seem to suggest that the "compromised" aspect of the audio is a flat loss of high end and low end. This is not true. It actually changes the sound, adding warbles and such. This cannot be undone and fixed. You would just get super hi-fi warbles. What kind of improvement is that?

@ZIppyDSM,

What do you mean by filter? Do you mean filter out noise? I don't know much about audio editing and such.

I only know that mp3s make my ears hurt and I attribute that to the compression and loss of informaiton. It is hard for me to imagine that this thing can fix this.

JaguarGod
filter/remove noise I guess so,altho I have asked acuple audiophiles and they doubt very much the abilty of this gadget to do what ti claims and say beter to stick with a lossless MP3 format.

What is good about this device when you can only use it when plugged into a usb port. So much for portable devices. If they were going to make a device like this why did they bother making this a portable size, they should have made it bigger and just an addition to the hardware of the computer.

borhan9
10 to 1 it needs "software" if they sold it as a ture stand alone device and it dosent work...well... that would hurt there image but if they sale it as a iffy comp gadget then all is well.....0-o

CMSS 3D makes it sound like you're in a tin can and crystalizer is a joke on the xfi cards. You can achieve the same effect and better with some good EQ settings..

Ultimately, this device comes down to a guessing game of fill in the blanks. The device interprets the current quality of the sound, and quickly calculates where it *thinks* loss or degredation has occurred. It uses these calculations to change on-the-fly, what the output will be.

The problem is this device has no way to tell the difference between fluctuations in the actual TRACK, and the loss that occurs from MP3, etc. So, it ahs to guess based on a system of averages, similar to the way that low grade anti-aliasing worked when it was first introduced. Imagine a square that contains four squares. Two black, two white, like this:

B |W
--|--
W |B

Anti-aliasing assumes that the average between the black and white is grey. So, it would tint the white a little closer to gray, and lighten the black to make it closer to gray. The purpose being to make each pixel closer to it's neighbor. It eliminates jagged edges and rough spots. It's a great guess, but the two colors are SO different that it may not be correct. This is the same way the X-Fi would be working, and it creates a 'smoother' 'more even' sound, but not a more accurate or higher quality sound than the original file.

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I'd be happy with any improvement. I tend to store music at 128kbs just to save disk space so that may be worth a try.

@Handsom,

I like the way you describe the way it works. That was an excellent example!! I think I get the idea, and that was sort of what I was afraid of. If there is no data then the hardware just estimates what it should "sound" like.

Isn't there a difference between 16bit and 24bit something like 65,535 samples per frame vs. 16,777,216 samples per frame? This would be the "emptiness" it tries to fill no?

@KingNot,

I would highly recommend that you spend the $80 and get like a 300GB HDD. Just store your music in original wave.

I don't care what quality the mp3 is, you will damage your ears if you listen to it too much. If you have enough music where you need the space, then you are probably listening to a lot of music. Personally, when I do mp3, I go highest quality VBR and it ends up around 320kbs average. I still can't stand it, but I only use mp3s for my mp3 player, so that is the best I can get.

A 300GB HDD will cost the same as the xmod, only you can store the actual CD or music in wave format, so the quality will be much higher and it will not be as straining to your ears. Also, you can fit somewhere around 8,500 songs on a 300GB HDD, so that is more than enough.

handsom
my crude understanding of it its a basically...a equalizer preset to "fixing" mp3s.

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i saw one of these in action at a friends house, and trust me, its worth every penny. the quality of music will imporve so much you wont settle on anything else. WARNING: Hearing this will cause you to lose interest in your ipods or zen vision m's becuse they dont work with this.

solargame
not realy,now unless this a USB sound card you can make a cable for 6$ to power it off batteries,that is if it is not a sound card.

I agree with JaguarGod. What's the reason of upconverting audio-quality if the source is of inferior quality or if it's just 16bit like cd-audio?

Btw upconverting audio is also possible by software: check foobar. But these guys as well strongly disencourage it unless you really need that higher bitrate.

Using a decent cd-grabber (f.i. EAC) and an audio-encoder like Lame with proper settings will do for a lot of people...

The key thing to notice here is "The X-Fi Crystalizer indentifies areas of the audio file which have been truncated or damaged during compression". There are many MP3 codecs out there in the hands of millions of users that do a poor job of audio compression at times. It is not the fault of the MPEG folks (I worked with them many years ago during MP1 and MP2 development) as great codecs are written for specific DSPs but may not do as great a job on different DSPs. This thing just tries to fix the bad comprssion jobs out there. If you have a good MP3, WMA, or the like with no truncated values, this thing won't do anything.

hotdotdog
like most things I will need alot of reviews to debunk working fact from corporate fiction 0-o