Auzentech X-Fi Prelude

[Rob Williams]

Finally! We are beginning to see Creative's chipset offerings being used in other manufacturers sound cards. The first such product is Auzentech's X-Fi Prelude, which we have on the test bench today. Though it excels in some regards, we find out that it has a lot of room for improvement.

You can read Matt's full review here and discuss it here!

 

[Rory Buszka]

What speakers/headphones and electronics were used in the listening tests?

 

[madmat]

Logitech Z-560 4.1 speakers and Koss KEB24b noise isolation earbuds.

 

[Greg King]

Very solid review. Good read.

 

[madmat]

Thanks I'm just disappointed the card is still so green after all the time that it got pushed back. To me it still seems a bit beta which is why it garnered a 7, that and the cost compared to what the same money will net you in a Creative X-Fi.

 

[b1lk1]

Creative's attempt at building a decent X-FI has failed. Auzentech did a much better job. The drivers have worked perfectly for me, even under 64 BIT Vista. It does have digital inputs, not sure why you say it does not. While you have to spend more $$$ to get it, the Auzentech extension board gives it MORE flexibility than ANY of Creatives top line cards. Once they get DDL/DTS working then this card fully trumps Creative. Can't say I agree much with your review.

 

[madmat]

Well, I'm not running Vista (and I most likely never will) and the digital inputs aren't working in XP. Read Auzentech's list of upcoming fixes and you'll see where they detail that the digital inputs will be fixed sometime in Q4 2007.

Have you laid your hands upon the X-Fi Elite Pro? No? Well I've had the pleasure of playing with one and the functionality of it and the breakout box blows away the Prelude. It has full size mic inputs (which do not function on the add in card for the Prelude) along with RCA inputs and outputs that not only do normal line level chores but also feature RIAA equalization so you can hook a turntable directly to the box and rip your vinyl to high quality digital audio. A feature that the Prelude lacks, sadly. All this for a mere $10 more so, yeah, the Prelude is not a righteous card yet and for the price it's woefully under featured.

BTW, the passthru issue is outlined here as item 2 in their to-do list.

 

[Unregistered]

no dts on analog outputs? hahaha

Wow it stunned me when i read the part about no dts on analog outputs, and no mention of the support now of eax 5 on the card, hmmm, this was a poorly written review, what card out there actually supports dts with analog outputs, lol if u look at all the previous cards you use a coaxial or an optical to encode dts, hellooooo. And the drivers are far better than the creative ones that are filled with bloatware, and you have to switch to 3 different things. Its almost as if techgage is being paid off by creative to talk poop about auzentech, techgages review is all very suspect, and all the more reason why i never come to this site.

 

[Rob Williams]

Before you try to rip apart our review and website, it might be wise to take the time to properly construct your arguments and write like an adult. It's hard to take someone seriously who cannot bother to use proper English.

That said, we are most certainly not being paid off by Creative and even the assumption of such for facts that were overlooked in the review are ridiculous. I think you are just trying to make an argument for the sake of making an argument. You will never come to this site? Good for you. We prefer visitors who offer some sort of intelligence to their posts, instead of jumping to conclusions and making outlandish accusations for such menial reasons.

Matt can offer up his own explanations. I'm not an audio guy, so I can't speak for him.

 

[madstork91]

If you are here now... you've visited...

also, Poop?
lol? Yes, much, thank you.

 

[madmat]

Wow it stunned me when i read the part about no dts on analog outputs, and no mention of the support now of eax 5 on the card, hmmm, this was a poorly written review, what card out there actually supports dts with analog outputs, lol if u look at all the previous cards you use a coaxial or an optical to encode dts, hellooooo. And the drivers are far better than the creative ones that are filled with bloatware, and you have to switch to 3 different things. Its almost as if techgage is being paid off by creative to talk poop about auzentech, techgages review is all very suspect, and all the more reason why i never come to this site.

EAX 5 is available in Vista only. As for DTS all of the X-Fi's decode it to the analog outputs. That's part of what the hardware DSP is there for. I HAD a previous card, the Audigy Platinum and it decoded DTS on the fly.

As to me talking crap about the card, I was contacted by Stephan Bae (the president of Auzentech) personally about this card before it launched. This review has been in the works for months and months and I was honestly as excited as a kid at Christmas when I started the review. It was as things failed to work or worked oddly that I started becoming disillusioned with the card. In short I found out there was no Santa.

You say that Creatives driver are teh SuXoR, well no duh, we know this but sadly Auzentech is using those very drivers for the Prelude. As to the additional bloatware with Creative drivers, there is an express install option and a custom install option. I'm given to understand that you've never tried the custom option. Had you you'd know that you'd end up with exactly the same driver as I illustrated in my review.

Well, I hate to break it to you but no, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus. I'm not smearing the card, it just didn't do well. Should I take a product that works well in one respect but misses the boat in others and give it a glowing recommendation? Should I cheat our readers by telling them a lie? Oh hell no. Is the card worth having? Yeah if you don't mind there being missing features that won't show up until the unspecified (well broadly hinted) future. My biggest gripe is the cost. It's a bare card that has many features that do not work and yet it costs more than cards that have all the features working and feature FRONT PANEL inputs (the X-Tension is rear panel and is an extra cost option plus not everything works on it) so no, I don't see it as being a card that offers much value. You've got the same flaky drivers as the Creative X-Fi's so you're not getting away from anything on that front and there's only one switchable OPAMP so you're going to have the same sound on 75% of the card (80% if you include the input) no matter what you do. I just can't see how this is really a breakthrough.

Please enlighten me as to how the massive price difference between the Prelude and the Extreme gamer ($90'ish) is justified when the sound difference is going to be marginal.

 

[Rory Buszka]

Its almost as if techgage is being paid off by creative to talk poop about auzentech, techgages review is all very suspect, and all the more reason why i never come to this site.

Except for the fact that we have a grand total of, uh, ZERO product reviews of Creative products. You'd think if we were buddy-buddy, they could at least pony up a few samples.

 

[Unregistered]

EAX 5 is available in Vista only. As for DTS all of the X-Fi's decode it to the analog outputs. That's part of what the hardware DSP is there for. I HAD a previous card, the Audigy Platinum and it decoded DTS on the fly.

wow your dumb, dude this card encodes 5.1 dts with one digital cable, THE CREATIVE XFI DOES NOT DO THIS, it only out puts 2 channels, you really need to do ur homework.

 

[Unregistered]

oh wait before you guys get all proper on me, It does support it but the drivers arent ready yet. What you fail to realize is that dts to analog was only 2 channels. With the previous cards like the xmeridian, you can play games, mp3s, and movies all in 5.1 dts and dolby digital live, the audigy did not do this, nor did the xfi.

What you have to realize is that this is a huge step forward for the audio card industry. Everyone has been wanting creative to license out their eax 5 to other companies and finally it happens. You have a card now that can play eax5, encode dts, encode dolby digital live (waiting for the drivers to incorporate it), and upgradeable opamps. I have an Razer Barracuda AC-1, my card can encode in dts 5.1 by transcoding eax 2, that is awesome. Now it supports eax 5, can you imagine how happy gamers will be when they find out that encoding dts 5.1 and eax 5 coexist all one card. On top of that this card has excellent sound quality, and the ability to just play everything in 5.1 dts through a receiver on ONE cable, is sooo incredibly convenient. For guys like me that have a yamaha receiver, furman power conditioner, 32" lcd tv, 5.1 sound system, and rotel amp. Home theater enthusiasts like me are sure to love this card. My friend has one of these cards and i love it. These drivers that come with the card are bare bones compared to the ones that come with creative xfi. If you bother reading user reviews or forums from other websites you'd always notice users mentioning the same thing over and over: EAX 5 with encoding dts, striped down drivers with no bloatware, stable drivers, etc... Now you have it. To me this card is future proof, what else do you need? Except for the drivers that allow encoding of DTS.

 

[madmat]

wow your dumb, dude this card encodes 5.1 dts with one digital cable, THE CREATIVE XFI DOES NOT DO THIS, it only out puts 2 channels, you really need to do ur homework.

It doesn't encode DTS yet and it does not decode DTS MOVIES (I suggest that you re-read the review) to the analog outputs AT ALL. The Creative versions decode DTS from movies to the analog outputs. So, in short you're the one left looking like the jackass you are.

oh wait before you guys get all proper on me, It does support it but the drivers arent ready yet. What you fail to realize is that dts to analog was only 2 channels. With the previous cards like the xmeridian, you can play games, mp3s, and movies all in 5.1 dts and dolby digital live, the audigy did not do this, nor did the xfi.

What you have to realize is that this is a huge step forward for the audio card industry. Everyone has been wanting creative to license out their eax 5 to other companies and finally it happens. You have a card now that can play eax5, encode dts, encode dolby digital live (waiting for the drivers to incorporate it), and upgradeable opamps. I have an Razer Barracuda AC-1, my card can encode in dts 5.1 by transcoding eax 2, that is awesome. Now it supports eax 5, can you imagine how happy gamers will be when they find out that encoding dts 5.1 and eax 5 coexist all one card. On top of that this card has excellent sound quality, and the ability to just play everything in 5.1 dts through a receiver on ONE cable, is sooo incredibly convenient. For guys like me that have a yamaha receiver, furman power conditioner, 32" lcd tv, 5.1 sound system, and rotel amp. Home theater enthusiasts like me are sure to love this card. My friend has one of these cards and i love it. These drivers that come with the card are bare bones compared to the ones that come with creative xfi. If you bother reading user reviews or forums from other websites you'd always notice users mentioning the same thing over and over: EAX 5 with encoding dts, striped down drivers with no bloatware, stable drivers, etc... Now you have it. To me this card is future proof, what else do you need? Except for the drivers that allow encoding of DTS.

Um, I hate to break the news to you sunshine but it's swappable OPAMP, no "s" there. You can only swap the one for the front L-R channels unlike the X-Meridian which allows swapping them all out for the outputs.

Now, for someone like you that runs their card through their HT audio rig then yeah, it's nice but sadly you're the minority. Most guys run their PC's through computer speakers with many running cards in machines for LAN gaming. For those doing such there's zero benefit aside from a slightly improved signal chain. Now, if paying $130+ more for a card that offers around 10db greater s/nr and about the same in dynamic range makes a lot of sense to you then go for it but I can't really see the benefit versus the X-Fi Fatal1ty Extreme Gamer which is the card the Prelude competes against directly.

 

[madmat]

BTW before anyone else comes looking to whine about the score, remember it's based on what the card features at the time of the review. The card has a ton of potential (as I stated in the review) but RIGHT NOW it's untapped potential and I can't score something based on what may or may not happen in the future. They pushed the card back month after month in a vain attempt to hammer in the driver support for everything the card should do yet it never made it in the release version. Who's to say that the DTS encoding support will ever be there? Or that it'll be there on time? I can't see the future and neither can any of you, all we can do is wait and see what transpires.

That said, had the card had all the features working properly and not been giving me degrading errors in RMAA during the audio benchmarking it would have rated a 9 but as it stands now it's not worthy of it. If you think that a piece of equipment that's half finished and doesn't do everything it should do deserves a 9 or 10 please go to another site that gives everything a "kickass" award no matter what it is or does but don't expect that shit here. If it upsets you that we're honest about what we review, well baby, the truth hurts.

 

[b1lk1]

Wow it stunned me when i read the part about no dts on analog outputs, and no mention of the support now of eax 5 on the card, hmmm, this was a poorly written review, what card out there actually supports dts with analog outputs, lol if u look at all the previous cards you use a coaxial or an optical to encode dts, hellooooo. And the drivers are far better than the creative ones that are filled with bloatware, and you have to switch to 3 different things. Its almost as if techgage is being paid off by creative to talk poop about auzentech, techgages review is all very suspect, and all the more reason why i never come to this site.

OMG!!! This is the stupidest comment I forgot to read so far in this thread. Creative was payed off by Auzentech to use their chipsets. Auzentech is not in direct competition with Creative since Creative has a virtual monopoly on gaming sound cards. I am thankful Creative actually gave another company their chipset and allowed them to do things and not be forced to used a reference board and Creative only drivers. I am not overly happy with the review BUT, I do not question the integrity of the reviewer or the site. 90%+ of all review sites out there only give favorable reviews no matter what. The honesty here cannot be bought. You do not have to agree with the reviewer, as I do not, but that does not for a second make me question his integrity.

 

[Zeee]

I just read your reviews and I know it was a few months ago for the two reviews. First let me say when I see the Chief Ed posting responses like "adult, proper grammar" this shows your age. Well the classic is to call the person a kid or say something about spelling, grammar. You guys should be alot better than that. Remember this is nothing more then typed words. I mean what are you NEW at this? After one or two post you guys are getting pissed. Its a review you should KNOW people are not going to agree, not like it, hate it or kiss your ass and say its the best.

Anyway tho the reviews were good yet maybe let someone that is into music to the review. I am sorry but your doing a review then do one. You compare the cards with older cards not newer. You gave one a 9 and that was WOW. Do you even know what chips both cards use and what they do for a sound card? No sorry you dont there is NO way the Asus card gets a 9 lol it does not come close to a X-FI and those are not the best. Your just one of MANY that seems to be running up hill with this one. Its like someone plugged in the speakers and headphones played a movie or two then some games ran a little benchmark and then wrote what they think. But if your doing a fast review then say that. Sorry I wont be coming back either. I see how you react when you dont agree with some post that maybe worded wrong or the person is just acting like a kid. See theres that word lol.. Your just very young at this stage and if some of you aren't then you should look into getting better people. See you WANT more viewers not happy they leave. Later..

 

[Rob Williams]

"Remember this is nothing more then typed words."

I understand that completely. However, if someone is to come into our forum and accuse us of being paid off my some company (something that will never happen), I take offense. In that instance, I took the gloves off and threw an insult right back at him. If the complaints were genuine, then I would have reacted differently. You show us respect, we show you respect.

"You compare the cards with older cards not newer."

The reason for this is that Matt didn't have access to all of the current cards, so he worked with what we had. Unlike sites like AnandTech, we don't work all under the same roof, so compromises sometimes have to be made. It's not the best way to do things, but we don't always have a choice.

"You gave one a 9 and that was WOW."

Matt reviewed the Auzentech while Rory reviewed the ASUS card. Neither card were in the same building, so again, no one was able to make a direct comparison. However, while Rory found nothing to hate about the ASUS card, Matt had a bullet-list of issues with the X-Fi. I am confident each card earned what they deserved. I have great confidence in all of our editors judgment.

"See you WANT more viewers not happy they leave."

There are many here who enjoy our reviews. If you don't, I'm sorry to hear it, but we are doing what we can to deliver concise, honest and enjoyable content, and I feel we've done well so far.

 

[Unregistered]

An Update possible?

I must say I found this review quite refreshing and useful...
The bashing in these comments is definitely undeserved.

This review seems a whole lot more honest than the "all praise the glory of the untapped promises this card has" reviews out there....

But after these months, with the hubbub of creative pissing off its userbase once again, I could certainly use an updated review of this card using the latest drivers (which promise Dolby Live and DTS playback)...

Because this and a rare few other reviews left me wondering if Dolby Digital or DTS movies are now once again possible as "passthrough over SPDIF" (optical or coaxial) with the drivers...
(at least I understood that when the card came out it would decode on the card and then just output to analog, had no 7.1 spdif passthrough?)

And is EAX-5 still a vista only affair??? (another utterly lame idea by creative to force "new" Vista hardware on customers imo)

And finally, I am left wondering, is the Dolby Live implementation custom programmed by Auzentech? since the creative cards do not seem to support this? (or did I miss something somewhere and have the creative cards had this from the start?)
If Auzentech came with the solution things look a whole lot better for the people who want to get rid of most of the creative influence as possible, perhaps there'll be better drivers out there some day!