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To test the Sound BlasterX AE-5, I used it as my go-to audio source for around 1 week. This included listening to music, watching videos and playing games.
Software
To start things off, let's look at the included software:
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There are four mains tabs in the software suite: home, EQ, voice and lighting. Each does pretty much as you would expect: ‘home' gives a variety of presets and quick options to choose from, ‘EQ' lets you tinker with a graphical EQ, ‘voice' has all the settings for your mic input, and ‘lighting' allows you to control the RGB LED strip (should you install it).
The software doesn't blow me away with how in-depth it is, but it has a number of useful settings to play around with. I'm not really one to enable different sound effects or EQ the audio extensively – so I went with the ‘neutral' preset which essentially turns all of the extra settings off. For those of you who like to play around with the sound, however, you can do that.
Listening experience
With a look at the software out of the way, it is time to turn to the core element of the AE-5 – the audio quality and listening experience. This is obviously the most important part, as no matter how good the software may be, if a sound card does not actually sound good then it is not going to appeal.
First of all, I want to touch on the AE-5 and its ability to drive headphones. The AE-5 has an in-built discrete amplifier called Xamp, and it actually amplifies each audio channel separately. Creative lists the recommended headphone impedance level at 16-600Ω.
That being said, I was sceptical how well a PCIe sound card could drive a decent pair of headphones. I plugged in a pair of Sennheiser HD 650s – with a rated impedance of 300Ω – and I was actually very surprised how much power was given to them. Even at ‘normal gain' (recommended for 49-149Ω headphones), I found the HD 650s were more than loud enough and I did not go above 50% volume.
I don't have anything on-hand with a higher impedance – I would've liked to test the AE-5 with some planar magnetic ‘phones as they are notoriously hard to drive – but I would say for the vast majority of people, the AE-5 will provide more than enough juice for your headphones. Certainly, if you are just connecting a gaming headset like the HyperX Cloud II or something similar, then the AE-5 could even be considered overkill for that task.
So, the AE-5 gave my HD 650s more than enough juice to drive them properly. But was the sound any good?
The answer to that is an emphatic yes! But before going into details, it is perhaps worth touching on what I will be comparing the overall sound to.
My daily driver amp/DAC setup is actually the Schiit Stack, comprising the Magni 3 (mains powered) amp with the Modi 2 DAC. I have also extensively used the Fiio E10K, a well-regarded budget amp/DAC combo that is USB powered. Lastly, I will compare the AE-5 to my MSI X99A SLI Plus' on-board audio (Realtek ALC892 codec).
So, with that out of the way, let's begin to fully dissect the audio quality. I will start by saying the overall quality is very good for a £130 PCIe sound card. Compared to my Schiit Stack, I would say the overall audio presentation is slightly smoother and less forward – so the bass is slightly more prominent while the high-end has been tamed a little bit. I don't think the overall differences in sound are huge, but if you are a keen music junkie then you should be able to spot the difference between the AE-5 and what you normally use.
Compared to the Fiio E10K, however, the differences are much more subtle. I already think the E10K is warmer than the Schiit Stack (which is ever-so-slightly bright in its presentation), so to my mind the AE-5's sound is quite similar to the Fiio. With the HD 650s I was testing with, that means the overall sound is very fun and enjoyable, definitely not analytical or overly harsh.
I do like a bit more detail in the high-end, though, but the benefit of a PCIe sound card (with software) is that you can tune the sound to your liking using EQ. As such, I was able to just add in a slightly more forward sound to the AE-5, which just helped break through the HD 650s veil.
The differences between the AE-5 and my motherboard's on-board audio was much more pronounced. For one, my motherboard came nowhere close to being able to drive the HD 650s, as even at 100% volume the sound was weak and lifeless. There is also a lot more detail and clarity to the AE-5, with the on-board audio sounding very flat in comparison.
My motherboard's codec, the Realtek ALC892, isn't the best out there – so users with more modern boards that use something like the ALC1150 codec will likely get better results. Still, even the best on-board audio is not going to beat the AE-5, that's for sure.
Moving onto gaming, obviously this is more dependent on your headphones, but the virtual 7.1 is worth touching on. This can be enabled through the software, and I think Creative has done a pretty good job with the surround-sound. You can set a value between 1-100, with 1 being ‘no surround' and 100 being ‘full surround'. In practice, I think the virtual 7.1 is slightly reverby for my liking, but the overall soundstage is definitely more expansive. It does come with a slight loss in detail, though, but compared to many other virtual 7.1 solutions I have tried, the AE-5 delivers an overall pleasant experience.
One last area to touch on is the playback settings. The AE-5 actually supports up to 32-bit 384Khz playback, something which is frankly overkill for a gaming-centric PCIe sound card. For reference, a CD recording would be 16-bit 44.1Khz, so you are unlikely to get the full benefit of the 32-bit 384Khz playback ability of the AE-5. It's not a bad thing that such a high sample rate is supported, it is just unlikely that typical users would make use of it.
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