Review on Enhanced Metallic Gray Creative Sound Blaster AE-9 by Micha Kamierczak ᠌

Name: Enhanced Metallic Gray Creative Sound Blaster AE-9
Item: Enhanced Metallic Gray Creative Sound Blaster AE-9
Rating: 5

May 03, 2023

It's the best purchase I ever made, I will definitely do it again.

I listen with Sennheiser HD 600 (open) and HD 820 (closed-back). The power of the amplifier is enough, including for HD 820. I don’t see any reason to buy some HDV820 for a PC that costs more than 170 kilorubles, especially since there can be a greater sound delay through usb than through pci-e. Of course, I will buy a separate amp for the HD 820 someday, but it will be a custom tube amplifier, and not a diode combine like the HDV820. I ordered an opera LT1469CN8 + OPA627BP from the states, which should additionally reveal the potential of the DAC.
: LT1469CN8+OPA627BP came, installed, I really liked the sound with them, the separation of instruments is better, and the bass is denser. Added a photo of new operas, DAC and interconnect connector from the side of the board. Somewhere I read an opinion that such isolation of the soldering place with some kind of insulator is a sign of repair, I'm not sure, I took a new card in a chain store in St. Petersburg, the packaging was closed with seals, there were no signs of use, there was not a speck of dust on the plan, as with factory.
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Pros

- sound quality (both the DAC part and the headphone amplifier); -no noise/background/extraneous sounds that would be transmitted from the video card* (for example, maya44 eX in games transmitted different sounds to the headphones depending on the FPS in games) - convenient software and driver (there are two ASIO devices in jriver, normal and DSD); -possibility to change operational amplifiers; -full XLR with 48 volt phantom power for a normal condenser microphone; - the price for such performance characteristics and sound quality is adequate, and maybe even low.

Cons

-interconnect cable does not inspire confidence and requires a very careful attitude, especially the entrance on the card itself; - the only quartz multiple of 48 kHz in theory reduces the quality at 44.1 kHz (only in theory, I didn’t notice a difference in top ears by ear, according to Creative, ASRC / DPLL processing on Saber 32 is of such quality that a separate quartz under 44.1 is not needed . but there is certainly a place for a negative placebo effect :-)