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Nate I may be interested in buying a final product off you come summer

Well about creative they claim...


"Creative’s Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio gives an experience beyond studio quality with MP3 music and movies! Featuring award-winning X-Fi technologies, X-Fi Crystalizer restores the details and vibrance lost during MP3 and DIVX compression, breathing life back into any audio, while X-Fi CMSS-3D expands stereo music and movies into amazing surround sound. Effective over virtually any speakers, including stereo speakers, Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio even provides unbelievable surround sound over normal headphones!"

That's what I was saying... it's not entirely 100% true, but it does effect, the cpu changed the modulation, it kinda makes the bass sound lower frequency and the highs sound very high.
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The question is, why are you listening to MP3's in the first place? FLAC or GTFO.

It's just a matter of sound quality across the line from the source to the output peripheral of choice, if you have something that can render out a Flac in a faithful way, then you would notice the difference, otherwise you wouldn't notice a huge difference between that and a 160hz sampled mp3.

On the other hand it also matters what kind of music you listen of course.

and all my stuff gets put on my ipod too, along with photos of my penis. mp3 ftw. i'll use flac after I get this in a few weeks time.

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=211&products_id=17422

FLAC pulls the data off the CD perfectly. FLAC = CD quality. MP3 is only about 1/3 the bitrate of normal FLAC but it's done in a way that makes it seem good.

Visual example for a comparable concept of loosing details in a block of data, no matter it being an image, a sound clip, or even text, for what it matters.

Starting only with the image on the right, do you think you can precisely take back any detail (even 1 pixel) of the original image on the left? You can't, because you just don't have the data. You can even fake or do a process called pixel binning to simulate a more accurate representation, but it's where all it ends. You can fake a wider representation of a sound clip but it will sound for what it is, a distort rendition in comparison to the original.

Vintage Sony amps are fantastic if you ever have the chance to listen to one.

As far as modern materials in speakers, I don't know what the advantages are but I do know that modern speakers don't sound as good as vintage ones. It's a fact. It's why 40 year old speakers cost so much. A lot of the JBL speakers from back then were built without a budget. Meaning, the best they could possibly make. What manufacturer does that now? It's all about Made in China at a low budget. I challenge you to try and find a modern speaker that's made in the USA, not just assembled in the USA with Chinese components.

Why would you crank headphones that high on a receiver? That's just abuse.

If you ever have the chance, try a real stereo setup. None of this multichannel crap. Somehow get a hold of some 3-way vintage speakers and an amplifier capable of driving them properly. I KNOW for a fact that your Logitech system is highly lacking mids. Those little satelite speakers are fine for highs and the subwoofer puts out bloated lows but you're not getting mids from anywhere. I know, I had a Logitech setup and it's absolutely night and day difference between it and a real speaker & amplifier setup.

I had a HUGE 5.1 Dell setup where the amp/subwoofer was larger and heavier than a desktop computer:

I hated it, even after using it for a week trying to get used to it and tweaking it. I was using my X-Fi card at the time too. It was way too loud and those satelite speakers just can't output a decent dynamic range at all. When you have good speakers, you don't need a subwoofer. They're really only for multichannel home theater enthusiasts that need the big boom and BIC makes some pretty good subwoofers for that purpose.

I'm really not trying to sound all high and mighty and that MY WAY IS THE BEST WAY. I'm just simply talking from experience. I've had a lot of those "gamer" components and I don't have any of them anymore. I've reached a point where I'm 100% happy with my audio setup.

I hear details in music and games that I've never heard before. One minor silly example is how the M16 shot in AA echoes on for several seconds after you fire. I hear things with great clarity. Properly placed and angled speakers allow you to have an experience that I can only describe as up front and personal. You don't have to crank the volume to hear details, it's like the audio is being piped directly from the speakers into your brain. It doesn't sound like it's coming from any specific direction. That's the only way I can describe it.

I'm glad you believe what you do Guily. It leaves the quality products for the rest of us that enjoy them.