Anybody own one of these?

[1puttpar]

Or know anymore about it?

http://us.creative.com/pr...ory=668&product=15913

Opinions wanted, hype or the real deal?

[E-A-G-L-E!]

Anybody own one of these?

Not me.

[TFT]

The X-fire cards are great.

I haven't seen that portable one though.

I'm having trouble thinking about how it works when an inferior soundcard has already output it's signal and then this one improves it somehow. 

Thanks, I've now got to spend the rest of the night looking at these.

 

If they work as they say it would be a sound card killer, portable is usually more expensive and this device isn't, soooooo....

I will come back later.

 

[1puttpar]

The X-fire cards are great.

I haven't seen that portable one though.

I'm having trouble thinking about how it works when an inferior soundcard has already output it's signal and then this one improves it somehow. 

Thanks, I've now got to spend the rest of the night looking at these.

 

If they work as they say it would be a sound card killer, portable is usually more expensive and this device isn't, soooooo....

I will come back later.
 

Thanks TFT.  I found a few good reviews on CNET, but I find that when someone actually buys something, they usually love what they purchase.

[TFT]

Apparently when you USB it in it makes it the default sound card, which sets aside my worry posted above.

So it identifies where compression might have taken down highs and fakes them back up to where it might have expected them to be on the original, in my nutshell.  It adds depth too.  These are standard confirmed effects on the X-fire cards.  Whether all the tech is in on this version is another thing and I don't think it can be because of it's small size and it's price point.

It has a lot of advantages for laptops that have crappy sound cards or just an audio chip, you can even plug it into your tv, car stereo, etc.

You can record the 'enhanced' playback (with the right software) and make permanent improved copies to play anywhere.

It seems to be a concensus that sound is 'better' but not to where the makers claim (shocker).

For the portability/crappy existing sound card aspects I think it's a good idea where you can just plug it into anything and improve the speaker output.  It's attractive in that someone that's wary of opening up their system and installing a card can just plug n play.

For systems that have a decent card already, not so much. 

There are wireless versions coming out soon which will make them even more interesting.

The price is pretty nice though.