Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

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Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

2005-06-12 19:48:51

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor:

If this really works it could be an unreal way to make your .mp3s and other lossy codecs sound like the original. Anyone have any thoughts on the effectiveness of this new processor. This early preview from IGN seems to suggest it works wonders.

http://gear.ign.com/articles/617/617336p1.html

"The way the processor works is that it rebuilds sections of audio that are lost during compression or conversion to lower bit rates. By looking at the sound envelopes, the processor figures out where the missing pieces are, where sound should be in other words, and fills it back in at 24-bit/96KHz. The processing tech behind this is called the Crystalizer."

"We sat through a demo of the processor playing various bits of music and game audio with and without the Crystalizer enabled. The difference was simply astounding. Before switching on the Crystalizer, the audio would sound perfectly fine, seeming to contain nice bass and clear highs. Switching on the Crystalizer was like pulling out a set earplugs that had been dampening our ability to hear correctly. Bass was extremely full and deep, highs were crystal clear and "extra" bits like reverb and presence were given much more life. Again, the difference that the Crystalizer process makes is simply astounding."

"After the demo, it was confirmed that there was zero EQ tweaking involved in the demo. Cranking up various bits of the audio spectrum via an EQ usually makes for a more characteristic and colored audio stream, though none of that was happening here to help with the demo. Every bit of improvement made to the audio quality was done via rebuilding the audio stream and opening up the sound stage, and not due to a change in the overall EQ."

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #1 – 2005-06-12 20:00:09

Nero Burning ROM's audio editor has a similar feature since 2000 that adds additional harmonic overtones to the audio signal.

With using decent audio codecs like MPC, LAME presets or OGG, this creative snake oil is absolutely useless to me ... they won't persuade me into buying resampling crap.

Envy forever !

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #2 – 2005-06-12 20:07:47

Sounds like the resampling actually replaces lost audio data which may justify the degrading associated with resampling if it indeed works. Any thoughts on if this really can really replace lost data from compression?

From Creative:

http://www.creative.com/press/releases/welcome.asp?pid=12090

"Xtreme Fidelity sets a new standard for audio by supporting a combination of 24-bit quality, stunning audio clarity with a minimum of 110db SNR and the new CMSS® (Creative Multi Speaker Surround) 3D headphone and surround speaker technology. Consumers will be able to upgrade their existing CD and MP3 music to the Xtreme Fidelity standard, using applications that can run on the Creative X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio processor. Being able to upgrade an existing library of music to Xtreme Fidelity differentiates it from other high-end music standards such as DVD-A and SACD, which offer limited selection and require consumers to repurchase their music in that specific format. When consumers upgrade their CD or MP3 music to the new Xtreme Fidelity standard, they will be able to experience playback that sounds better than its original CD recording."

"Xtreme Fidelity is the result of our vision of a new audio standard which would provide a dramatic improvement in MP3 music, PC game play and digital movies, thereby setting the stage for a whole new platform for digital entertainment in the home," said Sim Wong Hoo, chairman and CEO of Creative. "To deliver on the vision of Xtreme Fidelity we created the Creative X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio processor, which makes a quantum leap in quality, power and performance that cuts across the entire audio space. The Creative X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio processor is truly awesome, and the experience of Xtreme Fidelity will astound people."

"The Creative X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity Audio Processor
The Creative X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio processor has more than 51 million transistors, and is capable of 10,000+ MIPS. The Creative X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio processor is 24 times more powerful than its predecessor, and is designed with multiple engines, so it can dynamically direct resources through a modular architecture to completely change the way audio is managed for any application. The Creative X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio processor provides key modes that are optimized for experiences with MP3 music, gaming, movies and audio creation. Each mode is configured to dynamically dedicate the processor's power to deliver only the features, quality and capabilities that the user requires."

"CD and MP3 Music
All CD music is in 16-bit resolution, which is typically compressed from an original 24-bit studio recording. When converting CD music to MP3 format, the music is compressed yet again. These types of compression result in a compromise of audio quality and clarity. The Creative X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio processor drives new applications that can enhance MP3s by bringing them back to 24-bit quality, and allows the user to upgrade the music to multi-channel surround sound. This enhancement enables virtually all MP3 music to sound even better than it did on the original CDs."

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #3 – 2005-06-12 20:15:25

Yes, sounds like dried frog pills

NCTU (the guys with the vastly improved lame encoder ) implemented a similar algorithm in 2003, called "high frequency recovery".

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #4 – 2005-06-12 20:27:05

Discussed already: thread 1, thread 2.

Basically it's nonsense. Stay away from Creative.

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #5 – 2005-06-13 00:04:16

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All CD music is in 16-bit resolution, which is typically compressed from an original 24-bit studio recording. When converting CD music to MP3 format, the music is compressed yet again. These types of compression result in a compromise of audio quality and clarity.

What exactly are they referring to here? quantization noise or something of that nature? isn't that the whole idea behind lossy compression!?

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The Creative X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio processor has more than 51 million transistors, and is capable of 10,000+ MIPS. The Creative X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio processor is 24 times more powerful than its predecessor

Good lord. Gamers are going to jump all over this one

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Basically it's nonsense. Stay away from Creative.

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #6 – 2005-06-13 07:36:30

http://stereophile.com/news/051605xtreme/

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Get out and educate your nearest teenager about audio reality and this too shall pass.

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #7 – 2005-06-13 12:52:11

You can't just magically restore audio data from an mp3, the information is gone. It's like dumping your luggage out of your car to get better mileage and then trying to get it to reappear in the boot when you arrive at your destination.

You could potentially create something that would do a reasonable job at estimating what data was discarded, but there's no way it will be higher quality than CD. All this seems to do is resample the Mp3 to 24 bit.

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When you Super-Rip, Sound Blaster X-Fi uses the 24-bit Crystalizer & CMSS-3D features to permanently reconstruct and enhance your recording! Instead of a low-quality MP3 file, you'll get an XtremeFidelity 24-bit WMA file!

Kill me now. If I didn't know better I'd say it's simply using Windows Media Encoder to create a 24 bit 48 kHz WMA Pro file.

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #8 – 2005-06-13 13:28:47

They couldn't come up with anything new in their product, so instead of advertising its technical merits, they insist on how everything audio today is crap, and how they can turn it into gold

I'm not convinced their marketing is innovative, but for sure, marketing is their product.

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #9 – 2005-06-13 13:48:50

When ha.org freaks as well as stereophile agree on something being nonsense, then it most probably is indeed bullshit in its purest form.

I agree with a previous poster: Stay away from creative. They're not about quality anymore since a long time.

- Lyx

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #10 – 2005-06-13 14:22:30

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I'm not convinced their marketing is innovative, but for sure, marketing is their product.

It seems, what they actually sell is marketing. The sound card is just a tool put together to serve it.

What a load of bull...

<edit>

But one has to admit: it's quite... creative...

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #11 – 2005-06-13 14:31:15

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But one has to admit: it's quite... creative...
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=305728"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I think there should be a photoshopped mockup of their next breakthrough product.... a photo of a package containing a soundcard, the "Creative Lies Xtreme".

- Lyx

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #12 – 2005-06-13 16:57:50

I still think this sort of thing should be possible... like interpolating a scanned image, or antialiasing fonts. You aren't reinserting lost information, but you are taking an educated guess at what SHOULD be there.

Is this not possible given the way humans preceive sound? Someone more educated able to enlighten me? I'm certainly sceptical that Creative has figured out HOW to do this with audio, but I know it is possible in the visual realm.

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #13 – 2005-06-13 17:09:04

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...like interpolating a scanned image,...
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=305761"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Well interpolating a scanned image to larger size isn't exactly the most elegant thing to do. While it might serve it's purpose in some situations it still would never reach the quality of an original scan at that size. And it certainly would not be better than the original.

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #14 – 2005-06-13 17:12:30

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...like interpolating a scanned image,...
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=305761"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Well interpolating a scanned image to larger size isn't exactly the most elegant thing to do. While it might serve it's purpose in some situations it still would never reach the quality of an original scan at that size. And it certainly would not be better than the original.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=305766"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I am sure that the the process of re-creating the audio data lost from compression would still not be as good as the original data. But the question remains will the rebuilt audo file be better sounding with the rebuilt data than the unaltered compressed version.

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #15 – 2005-06-13 17:18:54

If you think so then yes, that is a subjective question.

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #16 – 2005-06-13 17:22:34

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I still think this sort of thing should be possible... like interpolating a scanned image, or antialiasing fonts. You aren't reinserting lost information, but you are taking an educated guess at what SHOULD be there.

Is this not possible given the way humans preceive sound? Someone more educated able to enlighten me? I'm certainly sceptical that Creative has figured out HOW to do this with audio, but I know it is possible in the visual realm.
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I agree with this. I think image and audio restoration is possible, look at the Criterion collection DVDs: they restore and release classic movies whose originals are in rather bad shape. [a href="http://www.mathtech.com/]Mathematical Technologies, Inc.[/url] is the company behind it.
Yet, I believe in most of those cases the original information is not lost entirely, so that it's possible to reconstruct by some mathematical modelling -- a film might hold quite a lot of relevant information that aids recovery. Also when there's a scratch on film (after all dust, particles etc. is removed) one can edit the frame digitally and replace the missing part by guessing.

However I don't think such an approach is possible with lossy encodings or when we're talking about doing reconstruction over purely digital information (no film). In that case the information is probably lost beyond repair. It's not like there're some missing samples (like the scratched frame case) you can guess by interpolating. This is my naive guess.

However I sincerely wonder what X million transistors of that chip is really doing. Or why would Creative produce such a chip if it's purely placebo. It's costly, they could've just produced a cheaper chip but add slightly more bulls*** in their ad.

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #17 – 2005-06-13 17:22:45

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If you think so then yes, that is a subjective question.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=305770"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

The question is not entirely subjective because one could compare the compressed file which is rebuilt via the Creative processor against the original wav file to see how accurate the processor makes its guesses at the missing data. There is therefore indeed an objective way to measure the accuracy of the purpoted rebuilt data.

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #18 – 2005-06-13 20:27:42

On the plus side, this seems to imply that AC97/kmixer resampling issues should be a thing of the past. That is, if they ever were an issue in the first place.

Creative's marketing department is almost as good as Bose's.

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #19 – 2005-06-14 08:38:12

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I agree with this. I think image and audio restoration is possible, look at the Criterion collection DVDs: they restore and release classic movies whose originals are in rather bad shape. Mathematical Technologies, Inc. is the company behind it.
Yet, I believe in most of those cases the original information is not lost entirely, so that it's possible to reconstruct by some mathematical modelling -- a film might hold quite a lot of relevant information that aids recovery. Also when there's a scratch on film (after all dust, particles etc. is removed) one can edit the frame digitally and replace the missing part by guessing.

However I don't think such an approach is possible with lossy encodings or when we're talking about doing reconstruction over purely digital information (no film). In that case the information is probably lost beyond repair. It's not like there're some missing samples (like the scratched frame case) you can guess by interpolating. This is my naive guess.

However I sincerely wonder what X million transistors of that chip is really doing. Or why would Creative produce such a chip if it's purely placebo. It's costly, they could've just produced a cheaper chip but add slightly more bulls*** in their ad.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=305771"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

It may be possible to create a reasonable interpolation algorithm for audio, but that's not what I see as the problem here. What Creative's diagram implies is that the compressed MP3 file when played using the X-Fi will actually sound not only transparent but actually better than the source (presumably CD).

I'm very sceptical of this claim, no matter how much DSP voodoo is applied.

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #20 – 2005-06-14 09:40:22

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It may be possible to create a reasonable interpolation algorithm for audio, but that's not what I see as the problem here. What Creative's diagram implies is that the compressed MP3 file when played using the X-Fi will actually sound not only transparent but actually better than the source (presumably CD).
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=305968"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

It's quite clear that whatever extra stuff is automagically added by Creative's algorithms will *not* be the same as the data that was discarded during the MP3 encoding. Therefore it is highly likely that the results of the "reconstruction" will sound different to the original WAV file before MP3 encoding. It will also sound different to the MP3 itself. So now we have a situation with three *different* sounding files. Which one sounds "best" is a matter of subjective interpretation. In matters of personal preference, there is no absolute truth. Distortion and coloration can produce some peculiar responses. For example, some people think that MP3 sounds better than the uncompressed original. So in a legal sense Creative can easily say that their reconstructed file sounds "better" to them than the original.

Incidentally, lots of people are talking about interpolation as the mechanism for the reconstruction, but I don't buy that. Interpolation as we generally use the term refers to a time-domain operation, where samples are invented to replace missing or incorrect ones. In order to identify which samples need to be replaced, you need to see obvious discontinuities in the time domain. There are no such discontinuities in MP3 files. Rather, the missing information is in the frequency domain, and at very low level, to boot. I can't envisage any algorithm that could reasonably be expected to determine which low level frequency components had been discarded during the MP3 encoding phase. Therefore any such components that are "rebuilt" will probably be simple harmonics added according to a fixed formula. In other words, some kind of aural exciter.

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #21 – 2005-06-14 10:37:38

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It's quite clear that whatever extra stuff is automagically added by Creative's algorithms will *not* be the same as the data that was discarded during the MP3 encoding. Therefore it is highly likely that the results of the "reconstruction" will sound different to the original WAV file before MP3 encoding. It will also sound different to the MP3 itself. So now we have a situation with three *different* sounding files. Which one sounds "best" is a matter of subjective interpretation. In matters of personal preference, there is no absolute truth. Distortion and coloration can produce some peculiar responses. For example, some people think that MP3 sounds better than the uncompressed original. So in a legal sense Creative can easily say that their reconstructed file sounds "better" to them than the original.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=305977"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Creative's advertising is based around the premise that their product's sound is truer to the original than CD.

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All CD music is in 16-bit resolution, which is typically compressed from an original 24-bit studio recording. When converting CD music to MP3 format, the music is compressed yet again. These types of compression result in a compromise of audio quality and clarity. The Creative X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio processor drives new applications that can enhance MP3s by bringing them back to 24-bit quality, and allows the user to upgrade the music to multichannel surround sound. This enhancement enables virtually all MP3 music to sound even better than it did on the original CDs.

What Creative is saying is that their product's sound is truer to the original 24 bit studio recording (let's assume for a moment that studio recording is typically done in digital 24 bit) than a CD. Consequently, we are led to believe that the X-Fi can turn an MP3 file into something truer to the original than the source (typically CD). That is a claim which can be objectively disputed. "Better" may be subjective but "different" is not.

In theory, an objective test could be conducted by recording something digitally with 24 bit resolution, then mastering a CD. Using this CD, a 128kbit CBR Mp3 file could be encoded (I believe this is still the most common type of file found on P2P networks). The Mp3 file would then be played through the X-Fi hardware and software and the output captured before the DAC stage. The CD and the X-Fi output could then be compared to the original 24 bit recording to determine which is closer.

I suppose one could then argue that the X-Fi produces an output that is perceptually closer to the original, but you could objectively establish whether it is mathmatically closer.

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #22 – 2005-06-14 14:04:08

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http://stereophile.com/news/051605xtreme/

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Get out and educate your nearest teenager about audio reality and this too shall pass.

The best quote is:

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Who needs cumbersome high-resolution downloads—the future path for audio is clear: Download some MP3s, use Xtreme Fidelity to bring the music back to "better than CD" life and, presto, instant high-end sound at a fraction of the bandwidth! As Michael Fremer puts it, "Take a pile of hamburger and make a cow!"

GR8!

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #23 – 2005-06-14 15:22:37

There really is no need to make it that complicated. Creative's marketing department works quite simple:

Marketing-Guy: "24bit output! Thats the core idea on which our whole campaign has to be built - music just sounds better at 24bit - its THE future!"

Realist: "Umm, but no one could yet prove that this is the case. I doubt our customers will notice a difference."

Marketing-Guy: "Bah, thats just a minor issue. Our PR-department will take care of that."

Realist: "Hmm, okay - but most people don't have 24bit material for playback. So, most of our potential customers wouldn't be able to take advantage of it anyways. You know, today most of those teenagers mostly listen to MP3s and such stuff."

Marketing-Guy: "OMG, you're right - the horror! Well, then there's just one solution - our new product magically turns all that lo-fi crap into 24bit!"

Realist: "Well, would you believe that if i told you that?"

Marketing-Guy: "*sigh* You don't get it, right? Its the same as with that 16bit vs. 24bit - its MAGIC! Of course no one would believe that if you put it that simple - you need to mix that into lots of abra-kadabra-speak, and use lots of funky words which no one understands anyways. You know, when people don't understand it, then they asume that it has to be insanely powerful!"

Realist: "You mean - like star trek?"

Marketing-Guy: "Yes. Well those storyboard-folks actually sucked. We can do that much better than those amateurs. You know, we didn't pick the name Creative Labs without reason..."

Creative X-Fi Audio Processor

Reply #24 – 2005-06-14 17:40:16

Has anyone here had any actual "ears on" experience with this gadget? It may actually sound better than a run-of-the-mill harmonic generator. Who knows....

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