Listen in X-Fi anywhere, at a price
First INQpressions Creative Aurvana X-Fi headphones
Product: Creative Aurvana X-Fi headphones
Price: $300, £180
creativelabs.com
WHILE WAITING FOR X-Fi PCI-Express cards to appear Creative has used the time to focus on high-end audio accessories.
Here we look at the newest and most expensive of them all: Aurvana X-Fi headphones.
Creative's ultimate headphone is meant to create 'uber' hi-fi sound - or X-Fi as they call it - from nearly any device, in any environment, be it on a train, a plane or in the middle of a crowd of screaming football fans.
To do all this, it needs to be big - and it is. Measuring three inches by four, the ear covers would envelope even the biggest lugs. The set, which weighs in at 245g, comes with a standard set of stereo plugs, as well as an airline adapter. Detachable cables make packing the unit very easy - simply disconnect the wires and stow them separately.
The headphones have three enhancement capabilities - noise cancellation, X-Fi crystalizer (for enhancing the sound quality) and X-Fi CMSS 3D (virtual surround). The idea here is to apply these capabilities to whatever you're using as a source, be it an Ipod, one of Creative's Zen players, or even an airline entertainment system. The set comes with two AAA batteries which can last up to two hours if you don't use the X-Fi sound effects.
We tested the headphones on three platforms: a test PC with an Asus Xonar D2 audio card; a Creative Zen media player, and an in-flight entertainment system.
The PC test was interesting as the Asus card has its own sound enhancement and surround features (Dolby and DTS), so there was no benefit from turning on the CMSS or crystalizer features - in fact, when both the Xonar and Aurvana features were activated, the sound felt distorted and unnatural, even a bit shrieky. But with just one set of enhancements activated, the sound quality was astounding.
On the Zen player, the difference was huge - turning an eardrum-popping noise into proper hi-fi quality sound, especially when in a noisy surrounding.
The benefits were best shown on the plane, where the -20 dB noise cancellation really seemed to work without affecting the sound. While it still won't match a true hi-fi surround speaker system, the sound quality was vastly superior to that normally found on airplane headphones - in terms of both clarity, dynamics and stress on the ears.
From a technical point of view, Creative has done a great job with the Aurvana X-Fi, the only question is whether it is worth nearly £200. If you travel frequently, whether by train or plane, and you like to listen to music, it may make sense - even at that price.
After all, it's about time we dropped the 1960s-quality sound so familiar to the Ipod generation and started really 'feeling' the music again - just like we did back in the 80s. µ
The Good: About as good as it gets from headphones
The Bad Size. It's not the most portable of accessories
The Ugly Price - what else?
Barboy's Verdict
Comments
For that much?
For that kind of money there are much better audiophile cans to be had. Akg 601's, Grado Sr-225's, even Sennheiser HD 600's will make them sound like a child's toy. These are not true ho-fi headphones and shouldn't be billed as such. I will put my $60 Grado SR-60's up against them any day.Bah
Bah, if you were to spend $300 on headphones, get something studio quality, ie, MDR-7509, it'll own anything consumer-oriented.nandro is a fud
well done nandro, what you actually said there was, "I'm tighter than mother theresa (excluding anal) and I'm trying to diss these headphones because I can't afford them while saying that I don't want them because they sound s&&&&&&& even though I've never actually touched them never mind listened to them."Jai's comment doesn't make sense
Jai's comment doesn't make sense. Studio oriented headphones are surely not going to 'own' anything consumer oriented. These are 2 different markets and have completely different requirements. I admit I'm not an audiophile and have tried neither nor will anyone convince me any headphones are worth $300 but it seems to me fairly obvious that studio oriented headphones are intended to accurately reproduce a high quality signal. In the studio, you need to know precisely what you've recorded sounds like. You have extremely high end equipement as well so you don't have to worry about the signal either. Also studios have excellent existing noise proofing so primarily you rely on this combined with the ear coverage. On the other hand, these Creative headphones have a completely different purpose. They're intended to be used with potentially poor quality signals and in noisy environments. Therefore they have noise cancellation and a variety of stuff intended to try and improve the output. You don't actually want to accurately reproduce what you receive...This doesn't mean the Creative headphones are worth it or even that they're good. Simply that it's fairly obvious they have different purposes
"About as good as it gets from headphones" ?
Stax anyone?And you're ignorant
Don't be stupid, thechevron. First off, you shouldn't assume that Nandro only has and can only afford $60 headphones. He could have more than one set, especially if he's a 'head-phile'. Secondly, while many "non-hifi" companies have made outrageously expensive cans, none of them have *ever* failed to disappoint compared what you can get from Sen, Grado, Beyer, AKG, etc. for a lot less money. And compared to the high end products from the aforementioned companies they *are* child's toys. For example My HD650's cost me 50 bucks more than these Creative can's -- I *highly* doubt that Creative's can are even in the same neighborhood SQ wise.Again, I haven't heard the cans and I can't say anything for certain, but if history is any indication (and there is a long, long history that all points to the same thing) these cans are a rubbish value proposition
Virtual Surround?
For Under $250 (US) you can get True 5.1 Surround Sound Wireless 2.4GHz from these guys:http://www.ltbaudio.com/qhomeac3fx.html
What the hell?
----------------- well done nandro, what you actually said there was, "I'm tighter than mother theresa (excluding anal) and I'm trying to diss these headphones because I can't afford them while saying that I don't want them because they sound s&&&&&&& even though I've never actually touched them never mind listened to them."---------------------Well, Creative has the reputation of making nice product boxes with average overpriced stuff inside. Heck, you would believe that the headphones of a company selling multi-hundred bucks multi-channel speakers made with plastic enclosures sound good? The headphones look like plastic stuff as well. Look at some Grado or AKG headphones in the >$100 range, you won't see plastic enclosures. The Creatives look cheap. The $300 tag is probably due to the fact that they had to make an other X-Fi chip that consumes less power. When Creative releases new products, they always sell them for 3x the price they'll have in two years.
5.1 Headphone
@that price, it's a shame that Creative doesn't support multichannel. There are some multichannel headphone, common one is 5.1.Please do read the article
Actually, the overall sound in a noisy environment may be better with these headphones than with usual closed hi-fi ones due to noise cancellation. When there is a strong noise outside, it is absolute nonsense to speak about hi-fi anyway and using open headphones like HD600 is absurd. Listening in quiet surroundings is another matter though, but that's not what the article is about, isn't it? Another point is, that connecting HD600 or equivalent to sources like an iPod or other run-of-the-mill MP3 player is also quite innovative in itself, especially with usual 128-160kbps MP3's. Let me remind you that the article is not about using Aurvana 'phones with *real* hi-fi source. It is about connecting it to lo-fi sources like iPod. So I encourage you to *read* the article and to *think* before posting.