Home > Consumer Reviews > Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1

I bought this sound card from Amazon to use with my Logitech Z5500 5.1 surround speakers and my HP laptop. I am using the system mostly for high-quality (lossless) music and movies, but never tried with games. At the moment, the sound card simply works with all functions it is advertised for.

The only lie on the advert of this product is the EASE to set it up. Yes, I agree that it is pretty easy to get analog sound from this sound card (taking about 10 minutes or so). But it took me a week to pass "true" digital 5.1 DTS/Dolby sound through TOSLINK optical port of this card from the laptop to the speakers. (For those who care about tackling this SPDIF issue, the trick I figured out is so simple: go to Creative support site, download and install ALL updates available.)

I see some users complain about the CMSS 5.1 sound simulation of the card. Yes, most of the time it works quite okay, but sometime it provides distorted and unbalanced sound when used to upmix stereo to 5.1. But I really don't care much about this CMSS function, as I don't need "fake" 5.1 sound coming from low-quality stereo MP3s but always use high bitrate .dts files or DVDs.

So, if you have a good 5.1 sound system and a laptop, just buy this sound card. It is really cheap though, for the price of about £35.

Make sure you look at the dates of the 1 star reviews, autumn 2008, Creative have obviously fixed the problems these people were having back then, because mine sounds great!

Using it with some creative T6100 speakers and it sounds fantastic. The crystalizer and the CMSS3D are very effective and noticeable.

In case anyone was unsure, a 3.5mm jack to phono plugs convertor is supplied.

Great product,very sleek and stylish.Had external Creative Soundbaster Audigy 2 NX until i poured apple juice over it - Doh ! which was very similar. However when i tried to use it with Vista ran into problems as no support for Audigy 2 .
The beauty of the X-FI is that i have used it with both Vista and XP and works flawlessly with both operating systems . Joy to install and sat on desktop makes it so easy to connect or disconnect from external sources . Use mine in front room ,connected into my Amp so i can play films in my pc ,signal sent via projector and 5.1 sound to amp and quality is excellent . Remote unit seems to work well and has an excellent range from all angles . Overall would recommend this product in every respect , very satisfied !

I bought this soundcard from Argos for £39.99 a week ago for my Logitech X-530 speakers. I was worried about buying the soundcard as I have read many reviews saying that it did not work with Vista. I downloaded the drivers and software from the website, that installed all items for me. Since then, it has been an experience. My music and films sound incredible! THe crysalizer especially makes a difference. I am glad I have upgraded my laptops soundcard, and will never regret this purchase :)

To be short it does its job as per mentioned by creative company, and
To be brief,
Many people said it takes lots of memory and CPU performance but it didn't do anything like that. If you install the components properly and follow the steps they told then I am sure it'll work properly. Crystalizer and CMSS 3D are running in a good way and does provides DTS and Dolby Digital for 5.1 audio in 24bit and 98Khz Volume Signal and has a mic in, headphone and line in connection in the side. Provides SPDIF Optical connection also. A good replacement for my Laptop, my desktop and comes with a remote too. what more you want compact, trendy external sound card in here in the world. Good effort by creative. Pretty Cheap a must buy for the laptop user who need good music.