This effectively makes it useless for a speakerphone setup and seriously limits my use of it in the office. One thing that I find really annoying on the Omni Surround is that it doesn’t support Acoustic Echo Cancellation. Overall, I like the Omni Surround better - only for the fact that it has the dual-mics and volume knob (the push buttons on the Recon3D is a bit ridiculous). I just wish that either solution was more portable. Even at max, the sound is distortion free and immersive. It’s nice to be able to get a 100% range from my sound card. The SNR on the Recon3d is 90 DBA (20kHz Low-pass filter, A-Wgt) vs 100 DBA for the Omni Surround. I’m impressed by both the Recon3D and Omni Surround 5.1. I’ve been listening to some 24-bit 96 kHz (new studio remasters of some Jazz albums that I bought from ). I updated my headphones to Beyerdynamic DT880 Premiums (600 ohm). I will write more when I upgrade my headphones. The beam microphone on the Omni Surround works really well. I like the dial on the Omni Surround better than the buttons on the Recon3D. To be frank, I can’t really discern between the Recon3D and Omni Surround 5.1. Most people coming here are probably looking for my impression on sound quality. In fact, the pages for THX® TruStudio Pro™ and SBX Pro Studio are eerily familiar. The prevailing belief is that Creative did not wish to pay the licensing fee for THX. From what I can tell, the software is identical. The Recon3d USB and X-FI 5.1 Pro both support “ THX® TruStudio Pro™”, whereas the Omni Surround 5.1 supports “ SBX Pro Studio“. The addition of the MAX97220A headphone amp is a common addition to the new Z-line Sound Blaster products after complaints that the onboard 600-ohm amp offered by the Sound Core3d processor (SB-AXX1) received poor reviews.While this is disappointing, keep in mind that sound processing requires minimal CPU time and the resources of today’s computers and consoles greatly exceeds many people’s needs. The Omni Surround 5.1 and the X-Fi 5.1 Pro do NOT contain any hardware audio processors–everything is done in software.One thing I found troubling about the Omni Surround 5.1 is that there was no advertised Sound Core3D chip (or SB-Axx1™ chip), yet it supported all the same features of the Recon3D. It also supports all the same software features as the Recon3d USB. In addition to Mac OS X compatibility, it offers a dual-noise-cancelling microphone and a 600-ohm headphone amp (the X-Fi’s amp was designed for low-impedance headphones). The Sound Blaster Omni Surround 5.1 (SB1560) is the spiritual successor of the X-Fi 5.1. So it’s been sitting in its box for about 6 months. ![]() Minimal research showed that it was compatible with Mac OS X and would be a good addition to my office setup at Kobo. So I bought the Sound Blaster X-Fi 5.1 Surround Pro (SB1095)–it’s an older USB card with similar features and had just been updated with Windows 8 drivers. Impressed by the sound quality, I searched for second, but wasn’t able to find a supplier. In 2012, they rebranded the chip to the SB-Axx1™ chip. ![]() It’s powered by a Creative’s Sound Core3D chip–a quad-core DSP that also integrates a USB Digital Audio Converter (DAC), an Analog Digital Converter (ADC), a separate 600-ohm Headphone Amp, a digital microphone interface, S/PDIF inputs and outputs and General Purpose Inputs and Outputs (GPIO). It was a good buy at $40 CAD (many stores were liquidating them at the time). I first bought the Sound Blaster Recon3D USB (SB1300). It was frustrating enough for me to just dump the modified onboard sound kexts and look for a properly supported USB sound card. One thing that has always troubled me is that sound would be continually borked. ![]() I am part of a small community of people who build and maintain Hackintoshes (I’ve been doing it since the early versions of Boot-321). I wanted to capture some thoughts as there isn’t much written about these cards. They are all part of the Sound Blaster line of sound cards from Creative. I’ve bought 3 from the same manufacturer. I am a bit nuts about external USB sound card / DAC /AMP combos. : Added a pretty big caveat to the Omni Surround. Update : I updated some thoughts below on sound quality. USB Sound Cards: Omni Surround Pro 5.1 vs.
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