you still not understand....every sound card can served as gaming or listening music or whatever audio activity...no sound card in the world that will only limited either on music or gaming...the fact is X-Fi bundle the powerful DSP that will work very well in gaming but not mean that it will worse in music...

so, if your budget allow, just go ahead for your X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro, no need to think about its for what purpose...

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Added on June 30, 2008, 8:45 pmall the X-FI series has internal(onboard) DTS decoder...so for your X-fi Xtremegamer fatality as well...

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Added on June 30, 2008, 8:58 pmyap, if you already connected all the appropriate connectors to the speaker terminals respectively and it sound correctly, then that means left it hanging is doesn't matter....from your pic, i guess the hanging yellow cable if for extra front center(if your black is for subwoofer)...

This post has been edited by coolkwc: Jun 30 2008, 08:58 PM

you need the speaker that have build in amp...


absolutely right...

This post has been edited by coolkwc: Jun 30 2008, 09:45 PM

yap, they are nice bulk, go ahead and report back here when you get it...

your speaker support coaxial digital connection....so no need to use I/O panel...

and once again, i won't suggest ppl buy X-Fi for only as digital output device, you waste the onboard DAC, EAX in gaming...unless you can prove that your Z-5500D build-in DAC is better than X-Fi DAC...

This post has been edited by coolkwc: Jun 30 2008, 11:36 PM

my mod will start 2-4 weeks later, stay tune, just let this thread die first...

EDIT: i'm so surprise yesterday when i soldered the output cable directly from opamp 1, 7 pin, the background noise was so huge....i can heard the mouse movement and HDD activity noise so clearly...i think the SMD cap and circuit after opamps done the noise elimination job...

This post has been edited by coolkwc: Jul 4 2008, 12:45 PM

yap, direct from DAC no problem....

my opamps? Xtreme Secret start with OPA and AD...

This post has been edited by coolkwc: Jul 4 2008, 12:52 PM

i think 10uf will alter the bass roll off point...don't know whether apply in your case or not, maybe RMAA can prove it...

hehe, will order soon...

now my opamp + 'several' brand and series caps cost me around....will update after i done my mod before end of this month...you might faint if you know the cost...

# X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS (SB0466)
# X-Fi Xtreme Gamer - Fatal1ty Professional Series (SB046A)
# X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion Series (SB046A)

I open the thread HERE to ask about this thing, and i think i got the answer adi...

Hey, any of you got the hardware review of X-FI Titanium? can't find it yet, maybe my googling skill is suck ...i really interested to know what hardware 'hidden' under the shield...

This post has been edited by coolkwc: Jul 12 2008, 12:45 AM

after i read the chart, i concluded that any model number end with 'A' won't have driver level DTS/Dolby decoding, so just buy Fatality SB0466 rather than SB046A....

they still can output DTS/Dolby surround even they don't have driver level decoding, just use the appropriate software such as AC3 filter and power DVD

if your mobo is Nvidia chipset, then this thing might happen...

just type what you want in google, 'it' will help you...

not enough juice? you are using X-FI sound card in 'SLI mode' or what?

next time try using different PCI slot if BSOD occur, since PCI compatible issue is a 'fun and interested' knowledge that waiting you to explore by yourself...

Hey, long time didn't saw you in this thread...still pairing AL ACS45.1 with your ElitePro? don't lah...

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Added on August 3, 2008, 10:02 amHey, formula1 fan there...

hmm, i want to know the DAC and opamp under the mystery shield...

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Added on August 3, 2008, 10:03 amI will try it now....


This post has been edited by coolkwc: Aug 3 2008, 10:03 AM

Without Dolby Digital Live/DTS Live, the card SPDIF only can output 2 channel uncompress PCM or output compress multichannel sound which is 'pre-encode' and store in DVD...and if you want to get the multichannel sound from the card for multichannel sound game title, you only can output from analogue terminal, SPDIF only can output stereo sound because the card can't encode the DTS/Dolby on fly...

Dolby Digital Live/DTS Live encode multichannel sound on fly, that means now you can get multichannel sound from game through SPDIF terminal, final thing is now you can output multichannel sound from SPDIF according to the speaker setting in the driver, without Dolby Digital Live/DTS Live your SPDIF terminal can only give stereo even you set your speaker to multichannel format...

one thing, according to the creative official forum announce, Dolby Digital Live/DTS Live will charge money and won't bundle inside the driver, and the driver you saw was only the 'regular' driver which unlock DTS/Dolby in Vista, not the advance 'live' feature...

BTW, welcome back thread starter, you have lost since long time ago...lol...

This post has been edited by coolkwc: Aug 5 2008, 08:35 PM

This thread dead?!!?

Hmm, let me share some X-Fi mod info here...for those component you want to bypass/shorted, you must removed the component completely and not just shorted with wire....i discover this problem in the main channel high spikes...from RMAA test, i shorted the muting transistor, the left channel spike still remain the same, the spike just removed when i also shorted the SMD resistors after the opamp, this lead me to believed that the spike was due to faulty resistor...but my thought was wrong. That day i removed the muting transistor completely and noticed that the spike was totally gone, and not due to SMD resistors.

So conclusion is shorted the DC path with wire is not a problem but not the AC path especially in audio stuff.

This post has been edited by coolkwc: Aug 16 2008, 10:09 PM

Yap, the driver can't detect your sound card....reinstall the driver....uninstall old driver before new one...

for vista user, the new driver included the volume panel adi, so you can switch the mode and open console from taskbar as in XP, great work...

This post has been edited by coolkwc: Aug 19 2008, 08:00 PM