Creative Sound Blaster E5

Advantages: 1. good sound from computer (very good) 2. decent via bluetooth aptX 3. easily connects to computer. 4.line-out (can hook to home hi-fi) 5.optical input

Disadvantages: 1.It is not worth taking for the sake of improving the sound of the phone (compared with galaxy s7, s3, galaxy note 1). the difference is not significant. or maybe not. 2. inconvenient connection to the phone. (a sandwich of 4 components: a composite cable + two devices) 3. When outputting sound by digital, the phone quickly has a battery. for an hour 50% in my case. in two hours it puts in 0. 4. it is impossible to output streaming audio by digit. and for offline files there are players.

Comment: A very controversial purchase. initially the device was bought for the s7 phone (exynos rostest), including for playing streaming audio (google play and, first of all, yandex.music). But! 1. it turned out that officially the phone is not considered compatible. OK. took a chance. seems to work 2. to play by digital, you need to collect a sandwich. Phone-> OTG adapter -> USB cable-> SB E5. when connecting according to the Phone -> micro USB -> E5 scheme, some kind of incomprehensible USB Audio mode is used. The sound is similar to a regular analog sound (one to one as from the phone itself). When connecting by digital, we try to listen to yandex music - it does not work. on what we listen: ears sennheiser hd 280 pro, sennheiser cx300 (yes, I love sennheiser), then on home receivers. yamaha r-s700 + heco victa 701, technics sa-gx 280 + speakers for 3t.r. yamaha ns-bp150 (all receivers are conventional analog stereo). we also connect it as a regular external sound system to a PC. ASIO drivers (listen to 192 Khz / 24bit). (computer + some sven (2 + 1) for 1.5 rubles) how it sounds: 1. it makes sense to connect only digitally. all variants of analog connections incl. USB Audio is indistinguishable from playing from a phone via a 3.5 mm minijack. our patient - e5 sounds a little better than s3 (when connected by digital) and s3 sounds better than s7 when playing flac. I could not output streaming audio through a digital in principle. When connected via a computer, everything fell on its rails. First, the computer immediately offered to output sound through e5 when connected. dancing with a tambourine? no, we don’t know. the sound in such a connection is juicy, uninhibited, wide. the way it should be. listening is nice. streaming audio - yes. no problem. in the end: left the card. the sound in conjunction with the computer mesmerized me (and the computer + cheap sven take a soul). for a phone is not worth taking. smoked a lot of internet before buying. but there was little information. maybe my review will help someone.

Advantages: I completely agree with the previous reviews. On my own I will add that this is one of only two (!) (More on that below) discovered by me on the DAC + Amplifier market, which have a BT 4.1 receiver with aptX support.

Disadvantages: Didn't find it.

Comment: The device is very good, simple, reliable and functional. Especially for your money. For me, its main advantage is a BT 4.1 receiver with aptX support, because it allows you to use it really in mobility mode (without wires getting tangled everywhere) in conjunction with a smartphone without the risk of missing an important call. An alternative to the device for this parameter is CHORD Hugo for 150,000 rubles, which, moreover, is more than twice as large and heavier, which immediately casts doubt on this alternative. An undoubted advantage is the presence of possibilities for adjusting the sound (they can not be used) for specific ears, headphones, recordings. A small digression: for some reason, almost all manufacturers of mobile DACs + Headphone Amplifiers place connectors for connecting to a signal source and headphone output from DIFFERENT SIDES of their devices. This circumstance does not allow putting a "sandwich" from a player / smartphone and a DAC in your pocket and, for this reason, completely multiplies their mobility by zero. SB E5 is no exception to this rule. But he has BT + aptX!

Advantages: Multifunctionality. This is a USB DAC and Bluetooth aptX receiver (as it turns out - lousy) and an effect processor and optical DAC and a real game sound card with OpenAL and EAX 5.0 in one bottle. A hardware effects unit a la Creative X-Fi in a portable form. Theoretically cool.

Disadvantages: At 44100, in my opinion, there is not enough detail - the sound is greatly softened. (possibly subjective). Bluetooth is clearly connected via analog !!! As soon as you turn on Bluetooth in the mixer, you hear a lot of noise! The impression is that they simply screwed on a cheap Chinese Bluetooth receiver by analogy !!! Where is the logic???? The built-in array of microphones did not please - I thought it would be possible for them to listen to neighbors, but it is the most ordinary and makes noise like an infection. Another output from bluetooth only to the speakers, you can't drive bluetooth recording to the mixer (I wanted to skip it through EqualizerAPO). And I also have a maximum frequency of 96 everywhere, where and in what mode there is 192 - it is not clear.

Comment: Most of all, the old toys with OpenAL were amazed ... Once upon a time, having sold X-Fi Platinum, I thought I would never again hear the same sound in games ... And then this box via USB gives the same hardware OpenAL! Fantasy! It's a pity the era of OpenAL has already passed .... Here they wrote about noise - only strangely screwed Bluetooth can make noise. If you hear noise, turn off Bluetooth in the mixer ...

Advantages: Great sound quality. Subjectively, the quality is simply outrageous. Not next to the Asus Essentials ST. The volume control is also a healthy mute button. You won't press it by accident, but you won't miss when necessary. It is very convenient to play sound via Bluetooth from your phone. He took it with him and went. The card remembers the settings, so there is no need to reconfigure anything when the phone is connected. Immediately two duplicating independent outputs 3.5 Jack. Divinely, if you need to connect both speakers and headphones. There is a built-in microphone and an external output. You can play the voice on the speakers or record it on the phone. The recording quality is not pretentious, but decent. But you need to try with a quality microphone.

Disadvantages: The built-in battery is weak, it lasts for a maximum of 4-5 hours. During autonomous operation, it gets very hot (somewhere around 50 degrees in winter in a jacket). I'm afraid it will overheat in the heat. Doesn't work as an external battery. A healthy minus - falls asleep when connected to a computer via a cable. For example, I turned on the video in the browser and paused it. After 10 minutes of inactivity, I continued watching, but there was no sound. I need to refresh the page or play some system sound before playing it (for example, I change the volume with the slider). Then the sound will be.Occurs only when playing in a browser, and regardless of the connected computer. Tried it on 2 hospitals (win7) and laptop (win10) - the same.

Comment: Once I tried to charge the phone from the built-in battery. Charging started, but then the card was no longer detected by the computer. Absolutely. Charging is in progress, but the computer does not detect anything. Two days later, it worked, but I will not charge anything more from it. Moreover, it is not possible to charge significantly from a weak battery. Bluetooth allows you to connect the younger version 2.1 from your phone and play sound normally. It is not clear why NFS is needed. They use unit labels, and this function, although small, eats battery resources.

Advantages: - Sound: smooth Hi-Fi sound, Hi-Res Audio, ASIO, Creative features for games and movies (Scout Mode, Surround, Crystalizer). - Functionality: DAC + headphone amplifier + Bluetooth 4.1 Receiver + NFC + built-in battery + USB host + built-in microphone + optical input-output. - Compactness.

Disadvantages: Appearance "gaming", for an amateur

Comment: The thing is wonderful. I switched to E5 with Asus Essence ST, did not notice any deterioration in the sound, and added convenience and functionality. Creative's driver and software are much more convenient than Asus's, ASIO works better. The sound via Bluetooth with aptX is also good, sometimes I connect a phone through it and output the sound to the speakers.

Advantages: + Virtual 7.1 in headphones, in games and movies works out to the fullest. + Two headphone outputs: I bought two identical pairs of DT 770 PRO 250 OHM from Beyerdynamic, now my wife and I watch movies with great sound when traveling. + works with iphone and ipad. But APPLE only gives out 44 100 Hz. + After a year, the battery holds 6 hours of charge. + when connected to a MAC or PC, it works as an excellent DAC (DAC), any speakers sound juicier. + The software on the computer and IOS is very functional, a lot of sound settings. + Can work on BLUETOOTH, turns any headphones into wireless.

Disadvantages: - quickly lost its presentation. - demanding for charging, you can not use high-ampere chargers - it takes a very long time to charge from USB, - sometimes the battery, after a long work from the laptop, is discharged in 2 hours. But with a full cycle of discharging and charging, then it works out all 6-8. - HF is too high, but this is probably a feature of the headphones. It is treated in the software settings - after 2 years the card began to produce background noise. Not nice.

Comment: A useful thing, I use it almost every day. More with a computer than with an iOS.

Advantages: High quality sound card.

Disadvantages: No.

Comment: There is also a Creative G 5 model. The filling and appearance are the same. But it costs less. And there is no bluetooth or battery inside. I saw recently on a yule they sell inexpensively.

Advantages: great sound, many settings, 2 independent headphone ports

Disadvantages: There is no bluetooth transmitter for headphones (i.e. it is impossible to transmit sound from the card to the ears via BT)

Comment: in general, it costs its money, despite a small drawback, the advantages overlap them with interest

Advantages: Great sound - much better than from the ASUS PRIME Z270P motherboard, I immediately found and installed the necessary drivers, the SBX sound settings program (settings out of the box, but they sound great!) - can be configured if the user requires it easily enough (but use force. . of course you will have to - you tune it by yourself) ....... the HyperX Cloud Alpha headphones from this card sounded differently from my son ....... I even took a chance .... listen to Andrea Bocelli - Vivo Per Lei. .... the gaming headphones gave the maximum in terms of music (of course you cannot compare with the Denon AH-GC20 headphones ..... on the wire ... there the base is wider and the sound picture is wider, individual instruments are heard ..) the card plays well. . what is needed - is caught up by the equalizer.

Disadvantages: I could not connect the above-mentioned Dennon headphones with this audio card via bluetooth - that is, wireless ears with a bluetooth card do not connect to any ... with any smartphones - yes! Maybe that's the only way for me .. but it's a fact .... do not find each other .... my headphones and a bluetooth card.

Comment: A very decent model with wide settings and excellent sound, the child is happy with them in games.