36 OCTOBER 2019|COMPUTERSHOPPER|ISSUE 380
CREATIVE SXFIAir
★★★★★
£150•From uk.creative.com
OVER-EAR HEADPHONES
VERDICT
Theseheadphonesuseinnovativetechforathrilling
3Deffect,butitdoesn’tworkwitheverything
HEADPHONESSUBTYPEOver-ear•PLUGTYPE3.5mm•
WEIGHT338g•CABLELENGTH1.2m•WARRANTYTwo
yearsRTB•DETAILSuk.creative.com•PARTCODESXFIAir
SPECIFICATIONS
CREATIVES’SLATESTWIRELESS
headphones are the first to use its ‘Super
X-Fi’ technology.Instead of settling fora
regular two-channel stereo signal, Super X-Fi
uses acoustic modelling to simulatea
multispeaker surround-sound experience
by using just two 50mm neodymium drivers.
The result, Creative says, is atangibly
three-dimensional listening experience.
It’s quiteaclaim, but with some clever
technical wizardry,Creative makes it work
astonishingly well. Youcan even get Super
X-Fi working through athumb-sized amplifier
forAndroid phones and tablets, intowhich
you simply plug in your own headphones, but
the SXFI Air have it built-in.
The apparent downside is that these
headphones are alot less portable,not just
than an amplifier,but than quiteafew other
over-ear headphone sets. The SXFI Air weigh
338g, 104g more than the Bose QuietComfort
35 II (Shopper362), and their bulkyall-plastic
design is alittle clunky, with no option to fold
or swivel the sizable earcups. Still, the large
ear pads are breathable and have plenty of
padding, meaning they’re not unpleasant to
wear in general.
OUT OFTOUCH
Colour-wise,the SXFI Air come in either black
or white, with acircular RGB light strip on
the driver housing, which can be
customised through the SXFI AIR
Control app.This is simple,but it
would have been neater to integrate
this intothe main SXFI app,which is
used to set up Super X-Fi.
Built-in touch controls on the left
earcup let you control media and
answer calls, although we found the
touchpad somewhat unresponsive,and
had to forcefully move one or two
fingers across the plastic pane to
activateacommand. Along the
leftedge,there’s aprotruding
NanoBoom microphone,
which can optionally be
removed and replaced
with aplastic cover.
There’s also aBluetooth
pairing button and a
dedicated Super X-Fi toggle.
Youget plenty of
connectivity options, too.
The USB Type-C charging
port can also be connected to a
PC, Mac, PS4 or Nintendo Switch,
while a3.5mm jack lets you
listen to analogue sound
sources, and amicroSD
slot enables standalone
music playback. Naturally,
there’s also Bluetooth for
wireless streaming, but it’s
disappointing that this is
limited to the lowest-
quality SBC codec,
especially since
Creative offers
cheaper headphones
that support both the
higher-quality AACand
aptX codecs. When using
Bluetooth, you can expect
around 10 hours of playback on a
single battery charge.
Super X-Fi is easily the most interesting
thing about these headphones, but it’s not
exactly plug-and-play. Once you’ve
downloaded the SXFI app,created an
account and paired the headphones, you’ll
need to take three photos of your head, so
the headphones can process and model the
sound appropriately.The best results are
achieved if you can get someone else to
take them. If you wish to share your
headphones with another person, you’ll
need to set them up with aseparate
profile and their own head map.
MAKINGWAVES
The fuss is worth it, though. Super
X-Fi is an immediately stunning
achievement: on songs where we were
used to hearing certain vocals or
instruments at the centre of avirtual
soundstage,with the SXFI Air they
sounded as if theywere being played
right in front of us. It’s an
astonishingly well-realised effect.
This can give even old
favouritesongs anew lease
of lifecompared to any
regular stereo headphones,
and that includes
electrostatic and
audiophile-grade open-
back models. It’s like
having 7.1orDolby
surround sound in agaming
headset, but without any
perceptible loss of quality or
frequency response.Somehow,
Creative pulls this off.
It must be said that the effect doesn’t work
in all scenarios. When using the SXFI Air while
watching avideo podcast, forinstance,the
odd reverb and echo didn’t match the
presenters’ voices, and there were also some
lip-sync issues, where the audio wasn’t
perfectly in time with the video.
If you come across such aproblem, you
can always switch back to astandard stereo
presentation at the press of abutton.
However,inthis mode,the SXFI Air aren’t that
impressive.All the space is instantly sucked
out of songs that sound lively with X-Fi
enabled, with recessed vocals and abloated
low end. We also experienced some songs
dipping in the upper mids. Forregular stereo
listening, the Audio-Technica ATH-M50XBT –
by no stretch of the imagination aflawless pair
of headphones –doafar better job.
FRESH BEATS
No doubt about it, Creative’s Super X-Fi
processing is something special. If you’re
looking formore reliable,general-purpose
stereo performance,there are farbetter
options out there,such as the fun-sounding
Audio-Technica ATH-M50XBT or the noise-
cancelling Plantronics BackBeat Pro 2
(Shopper362). However,ifyou want to
broaden your horizons, the Creative SXFI Air
provide agenuinely unique music experience.
ChristopherMinasians
