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Creative Announces X-Fi Notebook Soundcard. Again.

Paul Lilly — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:12:24 -0500

Creative this week unveiled its Sound Blaster X-Fi Notebook, which as the name implies is an add-in soundcard for (cue the drum roll) notebooks. But wait, doesn't Creative already offer an X-Fi geared towards road warriors? The answer is yes, and the X-Fi Xtreme Audio Notebook has been available for some time now, but this re-release sports a slimmer profile, a new color scheme, and the ability to transmit wirelessly.

That's right - when paired with the optional Creative Wireless Receiver, the X-Fi will have the ability to beam music to your speakers rather than remain tethered. The new soundcard supports up to 4 wireless receivers, and each one can be placed up to 100 feet away from the notebook.

The slimmed down peripheral fits into both ExpressCard 34 and 54 slots (previous version is 54 only), and brings the usual assortment of goodies to the table, including CMSS-3D, EAX Advanced HD, and Creative's Crystalizer technology. You get a pair of headphones bundled in, along with a free download of PowerDVD with full DTS and Dolby Digital decoding support.

Look for availability by the end of month, with the X-Fi Notebook priced at $80 and optional receiver commanding $70.

Creative Finally Releases Vista Functional X-Fi Soundcard Drivers

Paul Lilly — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:05:11 -0500

We were beginning to wonder if Creative would ever update its X-Fi soundcard drives to work properly in Vista, and after the whole Daniel_K fiasco, we were about ready to throw in the towel. For those that stuck it out, Creative has finally released a new driver package that fixes the hardware Dolby Digital and DTS decoding in its X-Fi cards running under Vista. The company also added DVD Audio playback, a feature that previously went by the wayside when upgrading from XP to Vista.

The new driver also addresses a niggling bug that causes system crashes when switching to an unsupported sampling rate in the Audio Creation Mode while Dolby Digital Live is enabled.

All X-Fi soundcards except the Xtreme Audio version are supported with the driver update.

Daily News Brief: Can You Trust Local PC Repair Shops?

Paul Lilly — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 19:24:01 -0500

Undercover team challenges computer repair shops to diagnose dislodged RAM, Dell and HP putting XP on extended life support, a DNF update, and much more!

Tritton Audio Xtreme 360

Michael Brown — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:28:23 -0500

Tritton’s headset delivers true surround sound, just like the Turtle Beach Ear Force HPA2 we recommended in June. It also offers a feature that the HPA2 doesn’t: a powered Dolby Digital decoder module with optical and coaxial digital inputs, plus a port for plugging in a second set of Tritton headphones. Cool!

Click Read More for more.

Audioengine A5 Speaker System

Michael Brown — Tue, 22 May 2007 18:41:20 -0500

The Audioengine 5 Speaker System has us all giddy. It's the closest thing to perfect we've seen--er, heard--in awhile.