Creative company has released a very creative gadgets

Creative is known primarily for its gadgets for the digital industry, so often the main priority for products is compactness and advanced interface – which, however, does not interfere with the quality. Once again I was convinced of this when Creative recently introduced new gadgets in three categories – speakers, headphones and sound cards.

The hexagonal “post” has a touch-sensitive “remote control

No exception and a new product – acoustics the new line of Sound BlasterAxx, – which is a “three in one” – a monoblock stereo system, speakerphone and sound processor.

The Sound BlasterAxx line comes in three models – the SBX 20 and SBX 10 are wireless via Bluetooth and differ only in power and size, while the SBX 8 can be connected to a PC or Mac via USB only.

Each system is a hexagonal “column”, with a touch-sensitive “control panel” on top.

Interestingly, all Sound BlasterAxx systems are equipped with the SB-Axx1 quad-core processor for sound and speech processing and a dual microphone.

The SB-Axx1 chip is proprietary, and Creative says it adapts very easily and effortlessly to any audio scenario, whether it’s the world of mobile devices or PCs. As the guys themselves say, “With the amazing technology in the SB-Axx1 chip, the Sound BlasterAxx improves our two key aspects in the world of sound: Listening and Speaking.

If it’s more or less clear with a simple game or movie ‘soundtrack’, then everything is not so simple with a speakerphone. When using the system as a microphone you can activate the sound processor, which can remove unwanted echo and background noise and automatically adjust the volume of the voice, keeping the volume at a constant level – for example, you can move around the room, and the person you are talking to will hear the voice “smoothly” – as if you were sitting in front of the system.

Another interesting feature, – the ability to change the voice with a variety of effects. This is made for gamers, whose own voice does not match the image of the selected character – turn on your imagination.

If you want you can connect an external microphone – there is an appropriate jack, and then the system turns into a vocoder.

Smart speakers can be controlled from PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android phones and tablets.

All Acoustics will be available in mid-October.

The recommended price for the Sound BlasterAxx SBX 20 is no Dollars 10,000., Sound BlasterAxx SBX 10 – 7,499 Dollars., And Sound BlasterAxx SBX 8 will cost 4,499 Dollars.

Sound Blaster Tactic3D Rage headset has learned to catch up with the sound

For the gamers who can’t get away from their surroundings by blasting away at the screen, Creative has introduced a new line of gaming headsets – or, more simply, headphones with a microphone.

The line is called Sound Blaster Tactic3D Rage and consists of two models, one wired and one wireless, which provides communication via Bluetooth. It’s no secret that the “blue tooth” slightly delays the signal – which, incidentally, is well known to owners of some home theaters, where one or more channels are connected via Bluetooth.

Creative managed to reduce the latency of the wireless model to 16ms, which is not a bad result.

Battery life is also 16 hours.

Of course, there are many gaming headsets on the market, but the main features of the new Sound Blaster Tactic3D Rage models are the ability to provide audio for games – in the words of the creators “going beyond standard surround sound 7.1” and, again, the presence of an audio processor.

At first glance, the idea of providing headphones with multi-channel sound seems like a good subject for skeptical speculation – but recall that back in the 80-90s, the company’s new Sound BlasterAxx SBX 10 headset line.g. In our country were released experimental headphones with quadrasound.

And “just like that”, as we know, nothing was produced in America.

As for the sound processing processor – its talents are similar to those of the Sound BlasterAxx speaker, – it is able to restore the quality of the compressed signal, improve bass, highlight the voice, reduce the number of sudden volume drops and – most interestingly – change the voice of the playing.

It remains to add that the microphone can be disconnected, and the headset with a slight movement turns into a multichannel cinema on your head. True, the cinema sound will be pseudo-volumetric.

Wired version of Sound Blaster Tactic3D Rage headset costs without 10 Dollars 4000 Dollars. Those who want to be completely “unbound” from the computer will have to pay a thousand Dollars more for their freedom, which is how much the wireless version costs.

Both models will also be available in America this October.

Z-Series sound cards: plug and play!

The third group of new gadgets, introduced by Creative Technology Ltd today, are Z-Series sound cards with PCI-Express interface – as well as speakers, represented by three models.

Of course, the main group to whom it will be interesting are gamers, but audiophiles will also be something to savor. According to representatives of the company, each of the new sound cards is a full-fledged audio system.

All models offer a Signal to Noise Ratio of 127dB, up to 192kHz, and have gold plated connectors and a built-in headphone amplifier that can drive high impedance models up to 600 ohms. In addition, each card uses a Creative Sound Core3D quad-core sound processor – as the name suggests, also an in-house development.

In fact, the junior model Sound Blaster Z and the “middle” Sound Blaster Zx, are the same card. The difference is that the Sound Blaster Zx is equipped with an additional external control module ACM, which has a built-in dual microphone and a connector for headphones and an external microphone. Built-in microphones focus on voice communication, which is primarily for gamers and useful for IP telephony.

The flagship model Sound Blaster ZxR, in addition to the external module ACM, is equipped with a connector for an additional board DBpro, which is included in the kit.

DBpro has an optical output and an optical input, and is equipped with an analog-to-digital converter and RCA connectors.

As the character of the film “The Nutty Professor” said, “If you think hard …”, the block structure, which audiophiles take for granted – “but there is another way?”, came to the computer as well. The fact that the Sound Blaster ZxR card is truly audiophile level – say the “creative team” themselves – read the exclusive interview, which will soon be available to us.

Coming in Q4 2012, make sure you get the letters right when you buy them. The more of these in the name – the better the card is and, accordingly – the more expensive.