Creative Soundblaster AE-X Review

Design

• Two-tone white and grey colour scheme
• Solid metal finish
• Compact and easy to place in a PC

The Soundblaster AE-X works as a PCIe add-in card that you can slot into a vacant PCIe slot in your PC underneath your graphics card. These kinds of devices specifically for audio aren’t as common as they used to be, but it’s pleasant to know they still exist.

The card itself is compact and sits at a single slot wide, so it won’t take up much space in your PC internally. Connectivity is handled by a small PCIe x1 slot, meaning this card will fit in virtually any vacant slot you have on your motherboard.

The chassis of the Soundblaster AE-X is entirely metal, lending itself to a quality finish. I’m a fan of the two-tone white and black colour scheme, which gives this sound card a more professional aesthetic than something traditionally designed for the gaming crowd.

As well as the card itself, the brand also includes a 3.5mm splitter cable and a convenient quick start guide.

Features

• Beefed-up DAC against previous models
• Solid port selection for stereo listening
• Extensive PC software features

Inside, the Soundblaster AE-X features an ESS ES9039Q2M Sabre DAC, which is one of ESS’s newest DACs, and a big upgrade over the ESS E9016K2M Creative had employed on previous Soundblaster products.

This DAC allows the unit to support PCM playback up to 32-bit/384KHz. It also has native DSD playback, supporting up to DSD256 files, helping to reflect Creative’s positioning of this sound card as closer to dedicated hi-fi DACs rather than a conventional PC sound card.

It becomes clear Creative is positioning this sound card more towards headphone and stereo listening rather than any form of surround sound, as it has in the past. This is reflected in its selection of ports on the rear side, which totals a Toslink SPDIF input, a Coaxial SPDIF output, RCA line-out for left and right, a headphone out and a mic/line-in port.

The Soundblaster AE-X also has its own dedicated headphone amp inside, delivering up to 350mW at 32 ohms, while this unit is happy to drive headphones with up to 600 ohms of impedance. I know impedance isn’t the only thing that affects how easy a set of headphones is to drive, but it means this Creative unit can drive some seriously beefy cans without breaking a sweat.

The front of the card is home to something that resembles a USB 2.0 or HD Audio connector, but is instead a front panel audio hookup, so you can run your case’s front panel connector directly to the Creative’s DAC rather than the on-board audio. However, that only gives you access to the 3.5mm jack likely on the front of your PC, so you’re best using the rear ports.

Once installed in your PC, the Soundblaster AE-X works with the brand’s Nexus software that provides the opportunity for a wide array of tinkering. This includes a comprehensive multi-band EQ along with a good selection of presets, plus you can save your own, too. It also includes an AutoEQ that can be set with a range of specific headphone models to apply calibration curves to compensate for any anomalies in a set of cans’ frequency response.

In the software, you can also choose different sound modes – Direct Mode bypasses most DSP processing to provide the cleanest sound, while Acoustic Engine mode unlocks Creative’s DSP toolkit for this sound card, and Scout Mode is specifically designed for competitive games where you want the most precise audio possible.

Performance

• Lower noise floor than on-board audio
• Confident drive of hard-to-power headphones
• Detailed presentation with good bass extension and solid mids

The real benefit of upgrading to the Soundblaster AE-X over on-board motherboard audio becomes apparent almost immediately. By moving to a proper card with a strong DAC with real hi-fi credentials, the big change is that you move to a lower noise floor.

This essentially means that it lessens any background hiss, plus you get improved dynamic range and audio becomes more detailed. In testing with a set of affordable FiiO SP3 BT speakers, the Soundblaster AE-X provided audio that felt even more spacious and detailed, while the DAC itself didn’t tend to colour the audio too much. It provides a neutral and well-balanced presentation.

Moving over to a set of hard-to-drive Drop + Sennheiser HD6XX headphones (deliberately chosen for their more neutral, reference-like profile), this Creative sound card afforded audio that provides a tight and controlled low-end when delving into my usual suite of rock testing tracks from Rush and Marillion. Plus, it played completely nicely with an SACD rip of Genesis’ Abacab in DSD64.

As for the mid-range, moving to James Taylor’s September Grass, the Soundblaster AE-X offers some wonderfully detailed results, accentuating elements such as the distant drum shuffle and the intimate combo of Taylor’s voice and lovely fingerpicked guitar.

The top-end presented by this card isn’t so much particularly harsh, but rather provides more meat on the bone and detail. The competing percussion intro on Steely Dan’s Do It Again provides a formidable test, which this Creative card handles with panache, offering a rich and wide soundscape with plenty of detail retrieval, and without verging on harsh.

This also lends well to the Soundblaster AE-X’s Scout Mode, which is ideal for FPS gaming. When paired with the right set of headphones or a gaming headset, details such as footsteps and enemy movement are much wider and clearer than with on-board audio, with greater precision. While it isn’t going to be a substitute for using a lower-grade headset, it can certainly help you position enemies in a more optimal manner.

That said, the Scout Mode can tend to accentuate those details a little too much, skewing the overall sound signature somewhat. The default tuning of this Creative soundcard still helps for excellent directional accuracy.

Should you buy it?