A surprising card that topples our previous best. Hats off to Creative for producing a stellar soundcard.
On paper, the X-Fi Titanium HD has plenty of highlights, with a Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) rating of 0.001%. The biggest problem with these figures is that they are numbers lacking context. The real tests come from listening and computational analysis. We rely on RightMark's Audio Analyser for this task. We used a selection of 24bit FLAC audio, from Sevendust's "Cold Day Memory", Nine Inch Nails "The Slip" and Peter Gabriel's "Scratch My Back".
We coupled some Tannoy Mercury F1 Customs to a Harmon Kardon HK 3490. Sevendust played first. Cymbals jumped off the sound stage and hit us in the face. Hard. We put it back to an integrated Realtek output for sake of comparison, and we found it hard to define them in the wash. Back to the Titanium HD, and it slammed home just how good the card is. We pushed through the NIN tracks and sure enough, we got that same wonderful 'whoa, I didn't hear that last time' feeling that first put the Auzentech Prelude 7.1 so close to our hearts. Complex sound effects and unusual nuances of digital noise (unintentional in the recording or otherwise!) were all there in front of us. Plenty of bass colour, but it is balanced. Mid range is no longer sullied by exaggerated highs and lows that are an affliction of many Creative cards. We popped in the Peter Gabriel release and were taken back by the definition of the strings, the tiny sibilances and plosives from his voice and the overwhelming sense of 'here in the room'.
We tested the card in 16bit, 24bit and 32bit sampling resolutions at 192kHz. We don't report at 44.1 kHz, as that isn't really what this card is intended for. At 16bit, the frequency response (from 40Hz to 15kHz) is close to the quoted specifications. Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) quoted on the front channel output at 0.001% is bested by real world results of 0.0005%. The mighty Auzen measured at 0.0011%, back in 2008.
At 24bit, things became more pronounced with this card starting to really flex some muscles. An unbelievable dynamic range of 130.3 dB(A) and a THD that was immeasurably low. Unsurprisingly, this was replicated at 32bit, stat for stat.
Creative has finally done what they set out to do and knocked the king from the throne. Gripes? Connectivity options are minimal and purist. You won't find HDMI or other interfaces here. All copper, gold and optical. That being said, this will suit the budding audiophile just fine. As a final note - we've reached a point in SPU design and integration where market differentiation is very difficult. With vanishing THD and near impossible frequency response capabilities, it's really your amplification and speakers that will now hold you back. We'd swap some ultra high end Op-Amps into this card and let it fly.
Issue: 133 | February, 2012