Soundblaster (Live or XiFi) or external?

I have a SB Live, and an X-Fi Platinum.

The X-Fi is better in almost every way. I use it for games/music/movies. The way it is able to do the 3d sound off of stereo is much better than even the audigy 2 that I use for presentations at work. For anything with low bitrate audio 128 - 320kb/s the crystalizer is amazing. It isn't the true sound, but it adds stuff in and I personally love it. I'm guessing a lot of people would complain about it distoring the sound that your supposed to hear, but it sounds better so I don't care. The only downsides about it are that you have to switch between modes when going from gaming to movies/music, and that it doesn't encode surround onto the fiber lines. So if you want surround through fiber you need to a movie that is in surround and you need to set it to pass through, you can't play games in surround over the fiber.

Thanks for the info. I (begrudgingly (sp?)) took XiFi out of my XPS 600 and put in the HTPC good sound. Then I hooked up the ADS Instant Music (IM) and went digital-optical (toslink) to my reciever.

OMG Woooow!

I had to turn the reciever down! The the XiFi sounded good though it sounded a little muddy. It could be the Monster audio interconnects? ...but the ADS IM sounds great. Loud...crisp...extremely clear! That was $50 I'm glad I spent. I'll put the XiFi music back to sleep in the Dell. Now I know.