Sound Blaster Z acting up. Return it?

[Juusuhako]

I was listening to music and everything was fine, then someone called me on Google Hangout... As he started speaking the sound was all messed up. He sounded like a robot cracking up. All system sounds were extremely loud (even at 0%), and it was all "broken" (crackling, screeching, static...) It was like the headphone speakers had exploded.

I restarted PC and as it was at "Shutting Down" an EXTREMELY LOUD constant beeping began in my headset so I had to unplug worrying it would damage them. After a restart the sound is fine, but I dont really know how I feel like this happening out of the blue.

I have a 14 days right of returning it (had it for about week along with headset). Should I return the whole bunch? (unfortunately I didnt record it).

 

[Dicehunter]

Please for the love of all things PC, Return it, Get a refund and get ANYTHING else, I have had a Soundblaster ZX and it was crap, Do your ears a favour and invest in an Asus Xonar card the D2X is brilliant and around the same price as the Z/ZX, The difference is night and day in quality

 

[tinytomlogan]

Or get one of the Xonar Essence sound cards tbh - the one you have atm needs to be killed with fire tbh

 

[Juusuhako]

Please for the love of all things PC, Return it, Get a refund and get ANYTHING else, I have had a Soundblaster ZX and it was crap, Do your ears a favour and invest in an Asus Xonar card the DXor D2X, The difference is night and day in quality

Or get one of the Xonar Essence sound cards tbh - the one you have atm needs to be killed with fire tbh

Hmm :mellow:. I dont really mind the sound quality I get, I find Crystalizer to work quite well, but then again I cant compare to Asus since I havent tried one.

My problem though is that im using headphones (no mic.), and SB-Z came with an external mic. that works wonders (and no, I dont find Zalman clip-on to work wonders).

But if this is a driver issue its just typical Creative to not get it right... I just dont wanna sit and wait for the next big crackdown and me jumping 10 feet off the chair from the loud sound lol.

 

[Dicehunter]

Or get one of the Xonar Essence sound cards tbh - the one you have atm needs to be killed with fire tbh

This right here.

Honestly bud if you care at all for audio quality you'll get a refund and go with a Xonar, The Essence cards that TTL mentioned might be a tad overkill unless your using excellent speakers of headphones, And I do mean excellent i.e very high end.

 

[Juusuhako]

This right here.

Honestly bud if you care at all for audio quality you'll get a refund and go with a Xonar, The Essence cards that TTL mentioned might be a tad overkill unless your using excellent speakers of headphones, And I do mean excellent i.e very high end.

I dont. Like I said I use a pair of Aurvana Live 2, thats not very high end, but they're alright for me. But like I said, it leaves me without a mic. And with desktop space being limited as it is, I try to avoid a desktop mic. (and the ModMic price is ridiculous )

 

[tinytomlogan]

Even the £40 Xonar will be better than what you have.......

 

[KING_OF_SAND]

Creative is known for having terrible drivers. For the most part the hardware is okay but the drivers do funky things when doing multiple things and especially in any kind of VOIP chat or Flash application.

Do yourself a favor and get a Xonar card.

 

[Warchild]

Creative is known for having terrible drivers. For the most part the hardware is okay but the drivers do funky things when doing multiple things and especially in any kind of VOIP chat or Flash application.

Do yourself a favor and get a Xonar card.

Well coming from someone who owns an essence STX. The Xonar drivers arent very good either.

I use a 3rd party driver that fixed most bugs ASUS neglected to address. Unified Xonar ftw.

But yes. Get a Xonar card for sure.

 

[KING_OF_SAND]

Well coming from someone who owns an essence STX. The Xonar drivers arent very good either.

I use a 3rd party driver that fixed most bugs ASUS neglected to address. Unified Xonar ftw.

I was about to say, the drivers for the Xonar cards are also terrible but at least they work.

 

[SuB]

Bin the creative zx and go and find either an old X-Fi card, or get an Asus Xonar (pretty much anything and everything in their current offering is better than the card you have now)

 

[Dicehunter]

Bin the creative zx and go and find either an old X-Fi card, or get an Asus Xonar (pretty much anything and everything in their current offering is better than the card you have now)

Agreed.

The last good cards Creative made were the X-Fi Titanium range i.e X-Fi Titanium fatal1ty Pro And Titanium HD, Anything after those is pure garbage using cheap components with crappy drivers, Creative sadly have gone way downhill.

Here you go, The Asus D2X would go very well with your current headset -

http://www.asus.com/dk/Sound_Cards_and_DigitaltoAnalog_Converters/Xonar_D2X/

 

[Juusuhako]

Thanks for all the feedback. Im not sure what all the hate towards Creative is about, but im keen on trying Asus.

DX/D2X doesn't have a headphone amp. though, and isn't D2X more suitable for speakers? (I read some about it).

I know DGX has the headphone amp., but its waaay cheaper making me think it doesn't have as good components. Honestly im not even sure I need an amp. in the sound card? I just assume it must be better than not having one, right?

 

[Warchild]

Thanks for all the feedback. Im not sure what all the hate towards Creative is about, but im keen on trying Asus.

DX/D2X doesn't have a headphone amp. though, and isn't D2X more suitable for speakers? (I read some about it).

I know DGX has the headphone amp., but its waaay cheaper making me think it doesn't have as good components. Honestly im not even sure I need an amp. in the sound card? I just assume it must be better than not having one, right?

Its not hatred towards Creative at all. Since you should be used to these forums, you will get to know that there are MANY audio enthusiasts/audiophiles, and what we have found out is that when it comes to soundcards, The Xonar series are excellent performers and have a card that caters to every group in the PC community (low budget, casual, enthusiast,professional)

Even if you were to begin asking about DAC, eternal devices, amplfiers, monitors or speakers. I guarantee you will get good feedback from these guys.

 

[SuB]

It's not hate, it's fact. Compare this (X-Fi):

or even this!!(Sound Blaster Audigy)

to this (Sound Blaster ZX):

And tell me it looks like that has the same capability and quality of components without some showy bollocks chip cover.

Creative moved from using hardware to process the sound to software and it shows. Pretty much anything based on their latest Recon3D chips are a load of crap, and yet they charge the earth for them. Anything with X-Fi in the name is fine, the titanium stuff was a later, more polished release but even the early cards were boss.

 

[Juusuhako]

Okay. Yea I can see alot ...more, on the previous cards.
I used to have an X-Fi Music until the input broke.

Any feedback on the lack of amp., and D2X for headphones/speakers?

 

[Dicehunter]

Thanks for all the feedback. Im not sure what all the hate towards Creative is about, but im keen on trying Asus.

DX/D2X doesn't have a headphone amp. though, and isn't D2X more suitable for speakers? (I read some about it).

I know DGX has the headphone amp., but its waaay cheaper making me think it doesn't have as good components. Honestly im not even sure I need an amp. in the sound card? I just assume it must be better than not having one, right?

As others have said bud it's not hate it's just honest feedback, I had the Soundblaster ZX and it was no better than my onboard sound, I got an Asus card and it was like someone just opened my ears so to speak.

 

[Warchild]

As others have said bud it's not hate it's just honest feedback, I had the Soundblaster ZX and it was no better than my onboard sound, I got an Asus card and it was like someone just opened my ears so to speak.

Yes, we had lost respect for you but then you were reborn with "common sense" hehe

 

[Dicehunter]

Yes, we had lost respect for you but then you were reborn with "common sense" hehe

Hahaha ^_^

It was a dark time when I had the ZX, Luckily a quick refund fixed it

 

[Juusuhako]

Okay okay.
I found a used DX for half the price (assuming its still up for grabs). Then I should have some leftover for an external mic.

But I still need my curiosity set with:
DX doesn't have a headphone amp. though[...]

I know DGX has the headphone amp., but its waaay cheaper making me think it doesn't have as good components. Honestly im not even sure I need an amp. in the sound card? I just assume it must be better than not having one, right?

Im gonna keep the Aurvana Live 2, they are 32Ohms.