Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi I/O Drive Upgrade Kit ( 30SB025100000 )

List Price: $130.56

Features:

• Get front panel connectivity and remote access for your Sound Blaster X-Fi equipped PC
• Dedicated headphone connectivity and control on the front of your PC
• Additional audio inputs and digital I/O give you the flexibility to connect to and record from other audio devices
• Control music, movies and pictures with the X-Fi wireless remote and Entertainment Center software
• 5.25-inch drive bay with comprehensive inputs and outputs

Customer Reviews:

Has potential, but the product support kills it [Posted on 2007-09-14]
When you buy this kid, you expect to be able to do 3 things. Use the front panel, use the control remote, use the software, sadly, under windows vista, only the front panel works, everything else is forgotten by the Creative Labs team, and their customer support does nothing to solve it.

adds more versatility! [Posted on 2007-09-15]
bought this for the extra headphone jack and possibly the optical in for further upgrades to my sound... does its job, and the amped headphone output is decent for headphone listening to music on higher-grade headphones!

problem [Posted on 2007-12-08]
Buy it for my x-fi fatal1ty, and I took the surprise that the drivers do not work well, only works the front panel, but not the remote control and other functions. this happend in windows XP, and dont have solve from creative....

Inexpensive Option for Home Recording [Posted on 2008-04-07]
I've had this for several weeks now and it seems to be working as described and is doing a fine job. I'm using it with a SoundBlaster XFI EXtreme Music edition that came stock in my Gateway 510XG. I'm making recordings of several of my friends playing acoustic guitar and singing, and I wanted more mic inputs so that I could record two separate tracks at the same time.

I'm very satified because it doesn't seem to generate much line noise (it's mic input/aux inputs actually have less hum than the mic input on the card itself, which is also minimal.) I'm more than satisfied because provides one additional mic input as described, but you can use the Aux In L and R for mic inputs also...some inexpensive adapters may be required depending on the type of mic your using, though I don't believe you can adjust the gains on those channels--still working on figuring that out for sure. So if you are creative with your use of inputs, you can have a total of 4 separate mic tracks recording live simultaneously.

I was able to use it externally (it was designed to go inside you computer, but I didn't have a free drive bay, so I modified it, using a case from an old CD drive for a cover, so that it could sit on top of my tower. (I don't recommend doing this if you don't have some working knowledge of electronics.)

Should I get more seriously involved in recording, I will eventually outgrow this, but so far it seems like it should grow with me for a little while. I think it's well worth the money if you are looking to get your feet wet without spending hundreds or thousands on "front end?" for digital recording.

Works Perfectly [Posted on 2008-10-31]
Thank you Amazon for carring this product that creative didnt have in stock most of all. For doing business with you guys for the very first time. Well done. As for the product works great on upgrading your Sound Blaster X-FI Fatal1ty Xtreme Gamer. Nothing wrong everything works great. :) Thanks amazon. for sending it to my front door. On perfect timing.

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