Gadgetory

soundcard they would the rage for years and then suddenly there was a war on the world gave up on them so creative didn't and today marks the release of a new sound card called the a5 which is single-handedly making sound cards cool again but just how cool is the a5 well let's find out welcome back to tech yes City this is Brian and today we have a sound card a PCIe sound card with AD active boast 122 decibel signal-to-noise ratio and has 0.0003 2% total harmonic distortion and has support for 32-bit 384 kilohertz playback extremely good and this is provided by the ECC es 9 0 1 6 k 2m c bar so this does all the digital conversions to analog for your ears however audio can still sound bad if the amp or amps on board are not up to par and this is where the sound card really shines your lamps one for each year creative a corner to xampp' technology I'm calling it I'm blown away by the numbers amp and here are the crosstalk levels that's the level of audio leaking from one audio channel into another of the lowest I have ever seen and then to further test the decamp combo here we have the sweep test to see the frequency response of the sound card and it was phenomenal so neutral so smooth and no bass roll-off at all absolutely none this is an area where this sound card will differ from onboard audio and cheaper audio devices where on inferior devices there will be the roll-off effect and having a line like the a5 has on this graph will give you richer bass for your headphones and if your headphones support it add a camp combo like this will give you a shaking bass because the lower frequencies can come through there is also 5.1 sound emulation at crystalizes bass enhancement smart volume and dialogue sliders the crystallizer snaps frequencies together and can make certain instruments more pronounced and I personally don't use it same with the bass enhancements bladder those are surround emulation I do like using it when playing role-playing games and it did work well in players unknown battlegrounds the smart volume and dialogue tabs are great for watching videos with unbalanced audio or watching movies at nighttime where you don't want to wake everyone up and only need voices to come through there's also EQ settings that have profiles preset for games like dota 2 and this is all done by the sound core 3d quad core digital signal processor this also functions as the ADC or audio to digital converter that processes your mic in or recordings and testing out the mic input it was strong as always though I will let you guys take a listen here's what the mic input will sound like with a BMO Debruyne probe plugged in with a volume level of 50 at plus 20 DB on the AE v with all effects removed so there's no noise reduction or anything like that there is also the ability to change your voice by the software to things like an orc or any other crazy profile there and there's also the standard noise suppression and echo cancellation available the Michael line imports also support up to 24-bit 96 kilohertz recordings and with 2017 being the year of RGB creative of followed suit was having the outer edge branding light up with RGB which is adjustable via the software itself and has many cool effects to change through and they've also included an RGB header and one RGB lighting strip where I feel this is questionable especially since you already need a molex connector on the rear of the card so having another set of wires coming out of your sound card did look a little awkward at least to me and most motherboards already have their own RGB headers nowadays anyway so ultimately the numbers for this sound card speak for itself the crosstalk levels the bar wasn't even moving output impedance 1 own supports 16 to 600 ohm and 10 headphones has lots of powerful music and I couldn't even go halfway up on my V motors without going near deaf and it features a dual amp designed with a DAC that is one of the best out there so all this comes in at a 150 USD retail so for the money it is really good if you are an audiophile and looking at somebody that doesn't take up any desktop space like an external DAC amp combo would and this honestly is a decamp combo killer for the money and sound quality you are getting and on top of that you get all the software too which is feature-packed firstly I would have liked to have seen no RGB header and no RGB strip included and reduce the price accordingly but 2017 is here and so is RGB so the sound blaster 85 is bringing sound back to those who need it and all want it and keep in mind that for the majority of people with sub $100 headphones onboard audio is still going to be plenty enough this is the sound card that is designed for those who want the absolute best audio quality for their audiophile headphones or speakers anyway guys if you enjoyed this review then be sure to hit that like button and let me know in the comments section below what you think of creative u85 sound card personally I've been impressed with what has been coming out of creatives labs lately and I'll catch you in another tech video very soon peace out for now bye