Got my Prelude....First Impressions! :)

[Miwo]

I spent a lot of time listening to music today and I must say that the Prelude completely outclasses my modded X-Fi XtremeMusic w/LM4562 opamps in every way possible when it comes to music. To be honest, I really didn't think there would be much change over my XtremeMusic and that the improvements of the Prelude would be subtle at best. However, once I started listening, I was pretty much grinning ear to ear


My setup:
Receiver: Sony STR-GX900ES
Speakers: Boston Acoustics CR67 Bookshelves
Subwoofer: JBL PS120
Headphones: Sennheiser HD595
Source: Various High Bitrate MP3s / FLACs

Nothing very high end, but a modest budget setup consisting of some good HiFi deals I've gotten over the years. I mostly use the 2.1 for music/games, and headphones in online FPS and late night computer use.

No pics of the board due to it being in my computer right now, but here are some general pics of my setup.


ok ok I just had to rename it...




Rightmark Audio Tests:

According to the RMAA X-Fi setup guide, X-Fi chips should be set to test at 24bit, then match the freqency on the sampling rate from Audio Creation Mode. Check here: http://audio.rightmark.org/downloads...MAA%20v5.5.pdf

The cable I used for the loopback test is identical to the one listed here: https://www.cablesforless.com/index....D&ProdID=15338

16bit, 44kHz (only to compare to XSReviews review)



24bit, 44kHz


24bit, 48kHz


24bit, 96kHz



RightMark Comparisons:

X-Meridian, Prodigy 7.1, X-Fi Elite Pro, Xonar D2 - 16bit 44kHz: http://sg.vr-zone.com/articles/Asus_...ts/5135-3.html
X-Meridian, Prodigy 7.1, X-Fi Elite Pro, Xonar D2 - 24bit 44kHz: http://sg.vr-zone.com/articles/Asus_...ts/5135-7.html
X-Meridian, Prodigy 7.1, X-Fi Elite Pro, Xonar D2 - 24bit 48kHz: http://sg.vr-zone.com/articles/Asus_...ts/5135-8.html
X-Meridian, Prodigy 7.1, X-Fi Elite Pro, Xonar D2 - 24bit 96kHz: http://sg.vr-zone.com/articles/Asus_...ts/5135-9.html
Stock XtremeMusic @ HotHardware 24/96: http://www.hothardware.com/printarti...?articleid=735
Modded XtremeMusic @ Head-Fi boards 24/48 24/96: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3235872


Subjective Music Listening Test: Auzentech Prelude vs Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic

I listened to a wide variety of music ranging from trance, female vocalists, symphonic metal, classical, hard rock.


Low Freq Extension
Holy bananas! The bass on this card clearly extends MUCH lower than the XtremeMusic. In comparison to the Prelude, the XtremeMusic sounded very muddy and pretty bloated. The bass is nice and tight on the Prelude. This was really noticable when listening to Trance and other bass heavy music. A lot of the Tiesto tracks I listened to really highlighted this difference.

Midrange / Vocals
Vocals on the Prelude are pristine. I think the Prelude excelled while playing Female Vocals. Very pleasing to my ears. There were a lot of times when the XtremeMusic sounded sibilant in comparison.

'Microdynamics'
By Microdynamics, I am referring to the subtle sounds in Music from background instruments, etc. My Boston Acoustics were able to present these much easier using the Prelude. I find myself listening to a lot of my music over again because I am picking up subtle sounds that I just havn't noticed or picked up from the XtremeMusic. The prelude really unlocked some potential I never knew my Boston Acoustics bookshelves had.

Soundstage / Imaging
I think this is probably the biggest area of improvement. The Prelude offers a very nice and wide soundstage and has really opened up my music. Stereo seperation is vastly superior and instrument details are much more present. Imaging on the Prelude is far superior and I am able to pinpoint where the sounds are with ease. Imaging on the XtremeMusic was quite poor and narrow in comparison.

Final Thoughts:
Overall, I am very happy with my new Prelude. I can't comment on how this stacks up against the X-Meridian, but I imagine that the Analog on that is just as good. I don't think that the Creative XtremeMusic or other X-Fis are bad cards, its just that my standards have now been raised after listening to the Prelude. The XtremeMusic is still certainly much better than onboard, and I honestly don't know if you will be able to reap the benefits of the Prelude with Computer Speakers. Its definitely the better bang/buck card, whereas I think the Prelude is more of a Niche product. I also don't know how the Prelude stacks up against some good external DACs, but those can usually be a good deal more expensive.

Please, please, do not use purchase this card if you somehow think that this will improve sound quality on your computer speakers connected through Digital Coaxial or Optical connections. If you use Digital/Optical, you are completely bypassing the AKM DAC on the Prelude and using whatever is in your speaker's amp for Analog conversion. Anyone using Z-5500s/Creative/Klipsch PC offerings with a Prelude connected via Digital/Optical needs to be beaten to death IMO.... . Besides, DDL/DTS support is nonexistant until a driver update Q1 '08 , so that means 2.1 is the max you will get out of coax/opt unless your source is pre-encoded. Auzentech's Analog output + Creative's hardware games support is why you buy this card!

Drivers are supposedly a mess in Vista, though I havn't had any problems in XP. I do miss a system tray icon where I can change between Entertainment/Audio/Game modes. Other than that, its pretty much identical to Creative drivers minus an Auzentech stamp on it.

Also I would have to say that decent opamps don't necessarily mean decent sound quality. While they can certainly improve the sound to a degree, its the circuitry that matters most. The parts used and the design of the Auzentech is far superior against my modded XtremeMusic w/LM4562s. Despite using the same opamps as the Prelude, there was no contest when discerning which card had the better Analog output.

As always YMMV, since we all have different audio setups and listening tastes. I know a few of us have real high-end HiFi setups and would love to hear your opinion on the Prelude vs external DACs / Data Transports / etc. I'm also curious if Logitech/Klipsch/Creative speaker users can tell a difference while using the Prelude.

Still need to test games.... lol.

[TomodaK]

Thanks for the review, was hoping so whoever posted a review of this would have an idea of what they're talking about . Well I was like 97% sure I was gonna buy this and now it's 100% . Gonna pick this up and some HD600s (maybe 650s) with the new comp.

[Lev]

more importantly... i dont really know if this was mentioned earlier since i have not been following the card, but are the drivers creative? and does it support the full EAX?

i hope the drivers are not creative

[TomodaK]

It has full EAX support that one of the main marketing points of it, it's essentially a modded X-Fi. As for the drivers I believe they are Creative drivers (yay! -_-). If only Creative would let other companies use Eax 3/4/5 so Auzentech could just make their own card without horrendous drivers.

[Miwo]

more importantly... i dont really know if this was mentioned earlier since i have not been following the card, but are the drivers creative? and does it support the full EAX?

i hope the drivers are not creative

Yes, they are Creative Drivers. I don't know what exactly is different about them, other than the Auzentech logo...

Keep in mind that the advertised features the Prelude was supposed to have at launch is not there. Mainly being DDL/DTS encoding (like their Oxygen chip cards) with EAX. They say it is supposed to be in with a driver update sometime near the end of the year.

In my proccesses tab, I have Cthelper.exe, ctxfihlp.exe, ctxfispi. Pretty sure those are all the same as with my XtremeMusic

[ranker]

Any snap, crackle, popping on the card at all? I'm only upgrading to the Prelude because my Fatality card doesn't seem to want to play nice with my new rig even though it got along fine with my 2 previous rigs.

[Miwo]

I havn't heard any snap crackle popping yet. I had a similar issue as well with my XtremeMusic. If my Master Volume was set too high, I got very bad staticy sounds. My solution was to lower Master Volume to about 45%, but occasionally I would still get crackling/popping (it almost sounds like its clipping) in some games including the Bioshock demo at times where the volume would increase a lot (like during a scripted event).

Happy to say I have not come across any of these issues with the Prelude yet. I've left the Master Volume at 50%. No sound artifacts in Bioshock either

[AndyM]

Thanks for the review...you pushed me over the edge to blow more money on my computer!



Good review, looks like its upgrade time for me as well, I like my X-Mystique (sounds great analog), but I want to check EAX 3+ out, so it's Prelude time. I also ordered a set of HD280's for good measure.

[karateo]

great review!
thanks

i currently own Z5500 and I have connect them with my P5b dlx through optical.

Will i notice any different if i move to analog and this card?
I care mostly for movies (xvid through net ) and games

I am a bit confused as I don't rent movies anymore and I don't know if the sound of the downloaded one is good enough to let this soundcard make the difference

[jtf2]

thanks for your review.
my card arrives this week from ncix!!
i have a set of klipsch promedia ultra 5.1s and am looking forward to the card,for gaming and music.

[Miwo]

thanks for your review.
my card arrives this week from ncix!!
i have a set of klipsch promedia ultra 5.1s and am looking forward to the card,for gaming and music.

Very cool, let us know if you can tell the difference between the Prelude and your previous card (which is..?). I am very interested to know if Computer Speaker users (upper end Logitech/Klipsch/Creative products) will experience an improvement with the Prelude as well

[jtf2]

Very cool, let us know if you can tell the difference between the Prelude and your previous card (which is..?). I am very interested to know if Computer Speaker users (upper end Logitech/Klipsch/Creative products) will experience an improvement with the Prelude as well

my present card is an xfi-xtreme gamer,which compared to my aud2 zs
was a huge leap in quality,imo anyway!!

[Soulburner]

Great review. Looks like this is what Auzentech promised, and what we had hoped it would be.

I'm going from an Audigy 2 (not even a ZS) to the Prelude so there should be quite a large improvement in sound quality. Mainly I'm hoping the sound seperation will improve greatly and the muddy bass/lows will be a thing of the past. For example in Tool - Vicarious, at the climax of the song the sound just turns into a muffled mess. Never have got this setup to sound quite right.

I have both the Klipsch ProMedia 4.1 set and the Logitech Z-5500 set to test as well. I'll let everyone know how each sounds before I move on to some real speakers. Those Boston Acoustics above look really nice.

[zoob]

On your modded X-Fi, was it just the replaced opamp or did you also change the power filter cap?

[Miwo]

just the opamp on the XtremeMusic

[Repoman]

Damn, I didn't want to spend any more money on this rig, but my music is the most important thing that I use it for If it beats a modded X-fi by that much I would like to own one eventually. I can't justify $200 when a headphone amp would make a bigger difference so I'll wait until I can find one used.

[fractus]

How did you connect your receiver to the sound card? S/PDIF or ...?

[Miwo]

Analog inputs. you don't get any of the Preludes benefits when using S/PDIF / Coaxial since Digital to Analog conversion just gets done at the receiver end. You either buy the Prelude for Analog output, or DDL/DTS support with Creative EAX, which will be added at a future date. So for now, its biggest and only benefit is Analog output.

A Chaintech AV-710 outputting bit-perfect data using SPDIF/coax would likely sound no different than a Prelude, X-Fi, Meridian, etc etc for that matter. This is why you see users with hundred dollar external DACs using el-cheapo soundcards like the AV-710. The reason is because all bit-perfect digital output sound the same in 2ch.

[JAG87]

Nice review dude, makes me wish I posted pics of my system too

very nice headphones... I only had the pleasure to use HD280s.

I fully agree with everything you wrote. You split up the review in mids highs and lows, while I split it up by usage. But essentially we are saying the same thing, the lows are lower, the highs are higher, and the mids are unveiled.

BTW you forgot to say that AC3/DTS pass through is broken in XP, so if you use SPDIF for connection (with the Z5500s for example) you are really screwed. just a small correction

[Kobalt]

Have you ever tried a standalone DAC (digital to analog converter) for your 595s?

[Miwo]

Nope I havn't

Been spending too much time at AVSForum

[Kobalt]

Nope I havn't

Been spending too much time at AVSForum

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/index.php is better for headphones. I doubt the headphone amp section of any digital receiver is that great. You should look into something like this.

[Miwo]

maybe I should have been more clear, I spend more more time at AVSForum because I prefer speakers over headphones. As comfortable as Senns are, I still do not like wearing things on my ears for extended amounts of time. Don't get me wrong, I love the way they sound, but speakers are my current thing

My receiver is strictly Analog, no digital inputs. It is a very good receiver from Sony's older ES lines. A bit dated (13 years old), but it has surprisingly clean and neutral sound, and plenty of power. It got high marks from Stereophile in 95' aparently for one of the best sounding stereo receivers. Gotta love handmedowns

[evoic]

sib·i·lant

adj.
Of, characterized by, or producing a hissing sound like that of (s) or (sh): the sibilant consonants;
a sibilant bird call.

n.
A sibilant speech sound, such as English (s), (sh), (z), or (zh).

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....Got it. Thanks for making me break out the dictionary. It's been a while.

*Nice review*

[Miwo]

ok I added some Rightmark tests. My results are very different from the XSReviews findings