Creative announces audio enhancing kit

 

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By Simon Aughton

Posted on 4 Oct 2006 at 14:36

Creative has unveiled a new device which, it claims improves music playback quality of MP3, WMA or AAC files to beyond the original CD quality.

The Xmod is based on the company's X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio platform designed to improve sound quality by upconverting the music during playback to the X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity, high-quality 24-bit surround audio standard.

It does this by enhancing the low and high frequencies while improving audio dynamics to create a cleaner, richer sound.

Xmod can be connected inline between a Mac, PC, iPod, Creative ZEN or any other digital music player and a set of speakers.

'There are more than 100 million people who listen to MP3, WMA or AAC music on their PCs, Macs or iPod or ZEN players, but the quality of these compressed music files are highly compromised,' said Sim Wong Hoo, chairman and CEO of Creative. 'The Creative Xmod enables them to listen to their music with audio that sounds even better than CDs.'

X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity provides two audio technologies, X-Fi Crystalizer and X-Fi CMSS-3D. The X-Fi Crystalizer upconverts MP3 music by analysing and identifying which parts of the audio stream have been truncated or damaged during compression. It intelligently and selectively restores the highs and lows of instruments such as the snare drums, basses, cymbals crashes and guitar plucking that are damaged during the compression of MP3s. Meanwhile the X-Fi CMSS-3D creates virtual surround sound, employing techniques designed to place specific audio elements in the virtual centre channel while ambience is played through virtual surround channels.

For more information go to x-fi.com.