Reviews Creative Sound Blaster AE-X
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User Reviews
Marek, Ostrava - Petřkovice
Rated 05/10/2026, variant Creative Sound Blaster AE-X
Verified purchase
I have to put it this way: "What a peculiar card". 1. Although it's a PCIe card, internally it uses an ASMedia USB 3.1 Host Controller. 2. In terms of playback quality, it's quite capable. But for now, it has one big, fundamental BUT. And that's a popping sound whenever you seek in any media that has audio. Stream active ↔ idle state. Public tests have measured it at up to 30dB. It's also related to the sampling frequency, where everything above 96kHz has a "double pop"; the bit depth doesn't matter. It's quite infuriating when Tidal/Spotify pops when switching from one song to the next. And believe me, on high-quality headphones that can be very detailed, it's downright unpleasant. Creative supposedly knows about the problem (they've been notified), but in the month or so that I've had it, they've released 3 new FWs and 2 new drivers, and they haven't fixed anything yet. It could be a capable card, but this is killing it for me. And to dispel any doubts, I've tried it on two different computers. I've got a good old Xonar from Asus in my drawer, and I'll probably return this one for a refund. I'm fed up of waiting, and the popping sound is unbearable. This is definitely not what I expect from a card that costs 4690. Even the onboard Realtek doesn't do this.
When it's actually playing and not cracking, you can tell it's capable of clean and detailed sound.
Crackling/popping sound when switching between active stream ↔ idle
The Creative Nexus control software is quite chaotic for me.
It's probably not a fault, but the DSP can't handle the maximum sampling frequency. 384kHz is too much for it and forces Direct Mode.
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