1. Introduction

In the audio field - as in many other areas - there's no shortage of announcements of pending revolutions and technologies that are supposed to usher you into a wondrous new world. It's often hard to distinguish between real advances, simple improvements on existing technologies, and pure marketing jive. We're pretty good at that here at THG, so rest assured that if we're telling you more about X-Fi, when products using it aren't even available yet, there's a good reason. We think that this new processor is indeed a kind of quantum leap in computer sound reproduction, whether for listening to music, screening video of all kinds, or playing games. And that applies whether you use headphones, stereo speakers, or a real surround-sound system.

Headphones Liberated!

Using headphones, whether with music, a movie, or a game, is often a matter of necessity - either when you need mobility, or simply to keep from disturbing the people around you. We've all experienced the disadvantages of this type of listening, with the accompanying lack of spatial sensation and localization of sound sources that's totally unnatural (often in the center of your head, or on top.) And of course, the reproduction of surround effects is usually awful. Yes, "surround" headphones do exist, but aside from their unconvincing performance, they're often too bulky and heavy to use for any length of time, not to mention expensive.

In contrast, headphone listening with X-Fi is genuinely mind-boggling, especially if you've never experienced this kind of acoustic phenomenon before. You immediately feel the kind of soundstage you sometimes get with a good set of speakers that are properly installed, with realistic, accurate localization of the various sound sources. And the key point is that you get that kind of experience with normal stereo headphones, though obviously they should be of good quality. Many sets of phones have a response curve featuring peaks and valleys with high amplitude but low bandwidth. Phones are capable of affecting our hearing system the way the external structure of our own ears does, and thus can significantly modify our perception of sound sources.

X-Fi provides true reproduction of a virtual 3D space using traditional headphones! This is true for music, films, and also games.

The difference between normal reproduction and what results from the X-Fi processing is amazing, and once you've heard it you won't want to go back. X-Fi listening is available both with a stereo source and with surround sources, such as movies in 5.1 or similar - in the latter case, you finally get believable reproduction of the original soundstage, as you do with a good 5.1 or better Home Theater installation. It is a true revolution, since the positioning of sound sources in a 3D space has always been problematic with headphones.

There is still a little impreciseness in the frontal positioning, judging by our experience, which is obviously still limited. We'll need to experiment with the final version of several models of headphones (see above) and possible configuration adjustments. There's a subjective element in the perception of space, which means that two persons listening to the same program with the same equipment can experience slightly different sensations. But without going into such refinements, the quality of the result is bound to surprise you, and it adds a new dimension to games because you're really thrust into the center of the action, with a realism of ambiences and positioning of sound sources we've only dreamed of until now.