By Dave James
The words ‘Sound’ and ‘Blaster’ are as indelibly etched into our old-school PC gaming psyche as ‘autoexec.bat’ and ‘config.sys’. We spent unknowable hours configuring DOS-based games to make sure we got compatible audio out of them.
Sound Blaster basically became synonymous with PC gaming audio right from the outset.
And then onboard motherboard sound got good enough that we stopped buying discrete soundcards, plus USB headsets now bypass them both.
Chances are then that you don’t have a Sound Blaster in your PC any more.
And that’s a shame because Creative still make outstanding PC audio devices and this USB-based portable headphone amp is testament to that fact.
The Sound Blaster E5 is an HDD caddy-sized lump of audio loveliness, packing the excellent SB-Axx1 audio processor and a hi-res digital to analogue converter (DAC) into its unassuming package.
That sound silicon is the same as in Creative’s Sound Blaster EVO headsets and with the controller software you can tweak away to your heart’s content. From the equaliser to the Crystaliser, you can tailor the audio to suit whatever you’re doing with your machine at that moment.
Want super-clear dialogue? Tweak this. Want eardrum-shattering bass? Go ahead, tweak that.
At £145 / $200 …read more
Source: techradar.com – PC and Mac
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