It’s been quite a while since we have seen any major activity in the sound card arena. It was around 15 years ago that Creative came out with the first SoundBlaster product and completely changed the way we experienced audio on our computers. Since then, SoundBlaster has gone through multiple iterations and has been improved numerous times, but even the most recent sound cards are based on a platform derived from the original SoundBlaster Live! which debuted approximately seven years ago. In the meantime, motherboard and chipset manufacturers have completely revolutionized integrated audio for the most budget conscious users.

With the advent of the 925 and 915 chipsets from Intel, integrated desktop audio has gone from the plain vanilla 2-channel audio to thumping HD compliant substance with 7.1 channel onboard along with SPDIF and other functionalities.

If your motherboard has such a seriously high-end audio solution, for all practical purposes, you need not invest in a separate sound card (unless you are a finicky audiophile). This is exactly the problem that designers at Creative labs took with them when they went to the drawing board to come up with a completely new chip design; they decided to come up with something that will be suitable for everyday audio tasks in addition to being the superior sound card for professional tasks. The result was the concept of eXtreme Fidelity (which gives it the name X-Fi). With X-Fi (at least with the high-end variants), Creative attempts to bridge the gap between a desktop audio solution and a low-end audio editing/mixing system with some of the deviations featuring a jackß for electronic guitars and ancient vinyl record players, so you can rip that music and store it in the nearly everlasting digital format.

Lets delve inside the X-Fi to see what makes it tick…

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