INTRODUCTION

   The other day i was going through some very old things and found the user manual of my very first audio card, the Shuttle Sound System 48. This was 16-bit stereo audio card and what made it somewhat special back in 1994 (where i used to live at least) was that it was Sound Blaster compatible. Back then Sound Blaster cards where the ones supported by most game titles but since Creative Labs wasn't available everywhere compatible models were the next best choice (also their products did cost more than compatible ones). Almost 3 decades later Creative is still going strong and recently released what could be one of their best USB audio cards/DACs to date, the Sound Blaster X5.

   Creative is a worldwide leader in digital entertainment products. Famous for its Sound Blaster® sound cards and for driving the multimedia revolution - which established a user base of 400 million - Creative drives digital entertainment with cutting-edge audio solutions that include premium wireless speakers, wireless headphones, powerful audiophile-grade digital amplifiers and next-generation home-theatre systems. Aiming at the new mobile networked generation by bridging the worlds of the computer, smartphones, and tablets, Creative continues to reinvent the Sound Blaster, with its ground-breaking Sound Blaster Roar series and USB-audio class of products such as the Sound Blaster X7.

   Just like the Sound Blaster X7 released almost 9 years ago the brand new X5 model is also an external USB model which this time over is equipped with dual CS43198 next generation, low power audio DACs by Cirrus Logic (digital-interpolation filters with support for five selectable digital filter responses, DoP128, DSD256, 600Ω impedance, 130dBA dynamic range, -115dB THD+N rating and inter channel isolation of >110 dB) which can deliver 32-bit/384kHz high-resolution lossless playback over PCM (virtual surround via HRTF is also supported) with a total harmonic distortion rating of just ~0.00018%. Just like past models Creative has once again equipped their latest model with an Xamp discrete headphone bi-amp (each audio channel is individually amplified via 3 stages of amplification circuits) which even supports studio-grade headphones all the way to 600Ω impedance and sensitive IEMs all the way down to 1Ω. In terms of connectivity the Sound Blaster X5 supports Bluetooth v5.0 (receiver) and sports numerous connectors including 4.4mm 5-pole (balanced), 3.5mm mic-in and 3.5mm headphone out (unbalanced) ports at the front and RCA stereo in/out, TOSLINK optical in/out, USB-C and USB-A host (for wireless audio transmitter) ports at the rear. Finally, via the Creative App software you can change audio modes, adjust the equalizer, enable/disable the acoustic engine features, enable/disable crystal voice, direct mode and scout mode, adjust audio quality, setup your speakers, adjust recording parameters, set display brightness and perform firmware and software updates. So, time to see what Creative has created almost 9 years since their last flagship USB audio card.