C
hances are, your Windows PC
speakers come with terrible,
audio quality. Even if they’re
decent, they’re not good enough to
truly enjoy the music or games you
spend time listening to.
Cue the Creative Sound Blaster
X3. It’s a USB DAC (digital-to-
analogue converter) with a
headphone amplifier that can
produce virtual 7.1 surround sound,
and it offers a variety of ways to
enhance the audio coming out of
your PC or game console.
It’s like an external sound card,
and has the added bonus of
harbouring SXFI, Creative’s audio
technology that simulates 3D
sound in stereo headphones. It’s a
solid audio upgrade, but is it worth
£110? Well, yes and no.Design and setup
Creative has found a way to keep
things simple, yet provide different
avenues to pursue all at once. The
primary input is the large knob inthe middle that controls a couple of
different things, depending on
setup. The three buttons laid out in
front of it mute the microphone,
change audio modes and toggle
Super X-Fi on or off.
On the rear, there are no less
than seven ports. USB-C is the
power port, whereas the rest are
all about audio variety. The
Toslink optical output is there if
you want to set up your TV or
game console that way. A
3.5mm line-in port is perhaps
the easiest and most common of
them all. Then you have four
lines-out for sound systems.
There is no power brick in
the box, so the idea is for the
connected device to power the X3.
Plug it into a computer or console
and it will draw power from there. It
will work with a wall adapter,
though sound would have to then
come in from the line-in port.
On the front are separate
microphone and headphone jacks,which can work independently, or
together, if you’ve plugged in a
gaming headset that uses both
plugs. The crowning feature is
Creative’s own Super X-Fi audio
holography, the company’s
impressive virtual surround
sound technology.
We didn’t find the Sound Blaster
X3 difficult to set up, though we
should also note that there are
several different configurations and
settings. You also need Creative’s
Sound Blaster Command app on
iOS or Android to help facilitate
some of the features, especially
Super X-Fi. For example, if you’ve
never used Super X-Fi before, you
would need to download that
app to map your face and ears
and create a personalised profile.
If you already have a profile, it’s
easy to link it to the Sound Blaster
Command app, which then applies
it to the X3.
There’s also a Sound Blaster
Command desktop program toCreative Sound Blaster X3
£110 | $120 http://www.creative.com
An attempt to tackle multiple audio concerns at the same time
Images : Creative84 |^ |^ March 2020