So I have a bit of a love hate relationship with this sound card. Does it enhance your sound quality and better your gaming habits? YES, when its working properly.

But my god does this thing constantly have problems and the software is shoddy at best. Allow me to provide an example:

It was working completely fine and i was using it every day to enhance my FPS shooting experience. It became time for me to tear down my water cooling up for some small upgrades, and a cleaning. All the plugs in the case remained, just the exterior plugs were removed, that's it. Cleaned the loop and the system in 2 days time, reinstalled everything and plugged it all back in. No sound. Nothing, I've tried reseating it, downloading latest drivers, turning the software on/off... nothing.

I am sure it will decide to start working again sooner or later, i am just not sure when that will be.

Almost forgot what good sound was, you get used too fast to on board sound. Thanks Creative, this brings good old memories to when I got my first SB16 card.

I have a Dell Optiplex 9010 mini-tower. I'm running Windows 8.1 64-Bit. It came with an integrated RealTek Audio system. Pretty good but I felt my AudioEngine A5's with subwoofer might be even better with this card or the Asus. Went with the SB owing to reviews on its software. Had to enter bios and disable integrated RealTek integrated hardware as the Creative Labs driver install was telling me it could not recognize any Sound Blaster hardware present in my system. At first I went into devices and disabled the Realtek and restarted but this did not work so for those in a similar predicament - bios settings are your friend.

I did not install the DB Pro card as there's no more room in my mini tower and I do not need to hook this card up to a larger stereo as I have a stonking good one and anything I want to hear on it from my PC I can via iTunes bluetooth pickup by my amp. so I cannot attest to the DB Pro.

This card is really, really good. You have to play with all the software settings to get the right setup for your unique ...well, ..set up! The Stereo window is amazing. My monitors are finally singing with incredible clarity. Speakers are there on my desk and I think the sound is coming from them but if you couldn't see them you'd swear its the best stereo you've heard from such a small system. As someone else said it you are on the wall about this card, do for it. I can't speak to movies or gaming as I have only used it for music (the full range, rock, classical, Spanish guitar, soul, rap,...etc - but mostly rock) so far. Yes, it's a costly investment but I am so far very, very impressed.

As for the headphones. Spectacular but be careful as its uber loud and your ears might suffer...keep it really low to begin with until you get a handle on your settings. I have a set of really high end Sony Professional studio thingies. They were v. expensive and as you'd expect are very good irrespective of audio card but now they are insanely excellent!!!

Hope this helps anyone with uncertainties.

I wanted to improve the quality of sound sound from my computer, so at first I got the Soundblaster Zx and was amazed, but it fell short of a few options I really wanted. Instantly I knew I needed new speakers to support the improved sound. The speakers I chose had RCA inputs and my Zx card did not have RCA outs...only 1 3.5mm noted as headphone jack. So whenever I wanted to switch from headphones to speakers, I had to unplug 1 from the ACM and then plug in the other....kind of a pain. Also becaquse it was identifying my speakers as headphones, I did not have access to the Dolby settings.

I also may add that prior to the Soundblaster and used a Asus Xonar card and was not impressed with the sound or the software at all.

I looked up soundcards again and this model fit all my needs...even has better sound then Zx model. I now have my speakers wired directly to the card and headphones through the ACM module.

After installing and hooking up to my speakers and headphones I was amazed at the sound difference between the lower model Zx and the ZxR. Everything was much clearer, more defined, precise and there was no hiss between songs anymore. I found it best for my speakers to run without using the equalizer - much cleaner and no distortion to the sound at all.

Being able to connect to both my speakers and headphones through the ACM is awesome to. Now when I switch I just open the software and switch from speaker to headphone or vice versa.

I installed both cards because eventually, I will be connecting a digital amp via the optical output for my front speakers and a powered sub through the card as well. I will update once I am done with that project.

The only thing I was not happy with is there is no front jack connection on the card. I don't use the jacks, I just don't like unused plugs hanging around.

Overall this is a great card. The sound quality is definitely audiophile quality and the inputs and outputs are great for almost any setup you choose.
The ACM Module is nice as well, I like the volume control while using headphones and it has both 3.5mm jacks and 1'4" jacks. The ACM also has a microphone but I have never used it so cannot rate that in any way. So basically if want really want to hear a difference in sound quality, this is your best choice....it is well worth spending the extra money over the Soundblaster Zx and the latest Asus Xonar Essence card.

Update: I have my 2.1 system all done and it sounds great! I ended up purchasing the SMSL Q5 50 watts x2 Digital Amplifier and have it connected through the Optical output from the card. From the amplifier I am running speaker wires into a 10" Active Sony Sub Woofer and then into 2 Sony SBD !000 5.25" speakers using the speaker inputs/outputs from the sub woofer itself. I finally have all the bass, mids and highs I have been looking for. My setup is definitely audiophile set up with a lot of room for improvement in both the Sub Woofer and Speakers.

The combination of this sound card and the digital amplifier I chose is a perfect match. More then loud enough to hear throughout the house and even outside! The sound is full, clear, bright and I am using no EQ settings...no need to since it sounds best without them. Actually using the Optical port does not allow the use of the EQ to work anyways, no biggie since it sounds so perfect already for all types of music. This set up rocks so much you will always want the volume raised higher and higher the more you listen to it!

Soundcard and software are working perfectly. I had many reservations about the ZXR. There are some poor reviews floating around about certain issues ( none of which I have really ran into ).

Pros : Great sound quality , Lots of cool features , great input/output variety, accurate effective EQ !
Cons: Dealing with the one issue I am having. ( which is apparently no fault of the cards )
The issue is, I am receiving popping and crackling playback while listening in stereo direct mode at 24bit/192kHz. I can listen to 24bit/96kHz with pure clean (awesome) sound. But through 24bit/192kHz, I get nasty crackling and distortion. Apparently it is a motherboard issue or some other problem, not the card.

Would be 5 stars If I could figure out this 24bit/192kHz distortion. :)

It was explained to me via creative customer support, that in " Stereo Direct " mode, there is 0 processing being done by the sound card itself, therefore, any issue of distortion or static is coming from elsewhere.
Maybe one day I will figure out how to fix that issue.