On board sound will never match the impact you can get from a dedicated soundcard - not something you tend to find on a laptop. Till now one of the few options has been to slip Creative's Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio Notebook into a spare ExpressCard slot but with ExpressCards themselves becoming a rarity, the same team's come up with a USB 2.0 version.

The USB Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 combines Creative's X-Fi 24-bit Crystalizer with its 'X-Fi CMSS-3D'. The first aims to restore the 'details and vibrance' lost in MP3 compression with some clever tinkering with the highs and lows that are normally clipped from the file. The second takes ordinary stereo and turns it into 5.1 style surround, even when listening through headphones.

There's an optical out so it can be hooked up to a full surround sound system when at home - a slight step up from the usual tinny speakers when watching movies - and a remote for keeping control from afar.

It's launching first in its native Singapore for around £80 but we should see it here shortly.

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Viki   |17/05/08 6:49 PM Great to see a usb version for their x-fi cards I can now enjoy x-fi audio more conveniently. The USB version seems to make the audio product really portable to use Reply | Quote

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