Creative Labs Xmod USB Sound Card for PC & Mac

Average customer rating: 3.5

Worth the Money
Complete waste of money, and mis-sold to boot
excellent!
glorified equalizer?
Wise Purchase

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Creative Labs Xmod USB Sound Card for PC & Mac

Manufacturer: Creative Labs
Product Group: CE
Binding: Electronics
ASIN: B000IZ96LQ

Related Categories:

Sound Cards

Sound Cards

Computers

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Product Description

Turn your MP3s into your own personal concert. Hear your movies in virtual surround sound over stereo speakers or headphones. Plus the Creative Xmod Module for PC & Mac is truly plug-and-play. You can use it right out of the box-no software installation needed. X-Fi 24-bit Crystalizer Restore the details and vibrance your music and movies lost during compression. X-Fi technology intelligently enhances the highs and lows so you'll hear it all-crisp cymbal crashes, wailing guitar solos, screeching tires and booming explosions. Slip on your headphones and X-Fi technology moves the sound away from your ears into the space around you. You'll feel like you're sitting in with your favorite band or in the best seat at the movie theater. Connect the Creative Xmod to your USB port and speakers to start listening to your music in seconds. There are no drivers to install for both PC and Macintosh. Restore the details and vibrance that your music lost during MP3 compression

Customer Reviews:

Worth the Money.......2007-06-05

My first impression of this product was disappointment, given how Creative Labs raises your expectation to deliver equal or better to studio quality sound, which is dishonest. At that moment I thought of jumping online and give it one star ratings, but I am glad I did not do it, because inaccurate ratings and comments is irresponsible for both, consumers and companies. Now, after a week of listening through Xmod, I have come to the conclusion that it may not be what the maker claims but it helps enhance the sound some and that improvement is what I can't live without from now on.(...)

For those thinking about using it in your car, you can buy a USB car charger to power Xmod. I have not tried but I am planning to buy one of those 6 in 1 car kit (USB charger, FM transmitter, ipod charger, holder....).

Also, you can increase or decrease the X-Fi crystalizer and the 3D sound effect by tapping (gently) on the 3 LED area (two taps activate X-Fi crystalizer to +/- the volume and the third tap will activate the 3D selection). The reason I mention this feature is that some, like myself, do not bother to read the manual and the design of the Xmod makes this feature not so obvious to the eye as it has no buttons.

As other reviewers said, if Creative Labs somehow can integrate this technology into their MP3 or digital players, it would gain great advantage over its competitors--and I suspect the next generation of Visions will feature this technology.

Complete waste of money, and mis-sold to boot.......2007-05-28

This item hooks up to a computer and it does provide some, possibly beneficial sound processing when used that way. But the advertising suggests it can be used with an iPod--my primary intended use. It can be, but only if you buy a $35+ AC adaptor, and, being tethered to the wall, it makes the whole concept purposeless for me.

I'm not going to buy the adapter, I am going to take my satisfaction by tossing the unit, as hard as I can, at a brick wall.

A note worthy of considering. I bought a Creative Nomad with a hard drive must be 6+ years ago. The size of a CD player, it had only 4 or 6 GB of drive space, so I've moved on since then. BUT IT DID HAVE (still does, I checked) AN EXCELLENT SIGNAL PROCESSING UNIT FAR BETTER THAN THAT INCLUDED IN THIS PRODUCT.

A second note, unless you have a computer built before 1995, it has a soundcard that can handle software up-processing much better than this. An example is DFX for Musicmatch, which costs the princely sum of $10.00

The packaging is splendid, obviously intended to be reminicent of an i-Pod. The packaging is, but what is inside is NOT.

Tom Hurley

CREATIVE LABS: WHY ARE YOU SLUMMING IT WITH THIS pos PRODUCT?

Thomas F. Hurley

excellent!.......2007-04-22

have been enjoy creative products many years, this little xmod sounds so good, first time I tried it in my car with car usb charger, noticed a big difference, my mp3 sounds better than cd for the first time, bass is deeper, richer, trible is more clear, I decided to keep it in my car and brought another one for my laptop.

glorified equalizer? .......2007-04-20

i'm a music freak w 10K Cds and a really nice sound system. i've got a lot of songs ripped to AAC so that i can enjoy jukebox capabilty, though i still much prefer cds if i'm going to listen to a full album for audio quality reasons. i'm an audiophile but not a technically savvy one (in other words, good sound is important to me but i dunno much more about it than what my ears tell me). i bought this after hearing about it and reading some good reviews here. first thing to point out is this is not a device that will work well wired into a conventional audiophile stereo component system, it just doesn't hook up that way.

regardless, i thought i'd test it out for ipod/headphones use since i certainly would appreciate better fidelity there. After A/Bing the device for a few different types of songs (i tried to go with songs that had a lot going on and were good headphones tracks - Mercury Rev, Phil Lesh and Friends, Steely Dan, Yes), i'm going to return the device. I didn't like the "3D" option at all-it just made the songs sound unnatural. the "crystalizer" i liked to some degree. it definitely makes the highs crisper. but i didn't feel strong enough to decide to want to have this additional device dangling from my ipod cord on a plane or beach.

at the end of the day testing this device just reminded me of the way i used to like to use an Equalizer when i was younger. it was often hard to decide if i really liked something better Equalized or if it was just because equalizing rock tends to make it a bit louder and when you a/b you respond to the volume, and decide that the equalized sound is better. as i got older i stopped using eqalizers because i felt it was making the sound unnatural.

other things to note- i did notice a difference more when testing 128kb rips vs 192's. i think a case could be made that the 128s were improved - but at the end of the day i can just set my ipod or itunes Equalizer to do the same thing. Still i can't slam this product. it's not for me, but i have the feeling a lot of less-audiophile music listeners will end up liking this. i could see it punching up pop and hip-hop the way a lot of people like to listen to it etc.

Wise Purchase.......2007-03-16

At a cost of buying 3-4 CD's, you can enhance the quality of ALL your ripped CD's, downloaded or recorded music, and music put on any digital devices.

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