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High-performance PCI-e Gaming and Entertainment Sound Card and DAC The Sound Blaster Z SE is the Special Edition of the OG Sound Blaster Z, and comes with updated features designed for effortless audio enjoyment! Not only does it feature the same high-quality audio specifications that have made its predecessor a long-time best-selling model, it has also been further boosted with gaming acoustic profiles and microphone EQ presets, all aimed to enhance your gaming and entertainment needs. For games: Get started instantly with our Gaming Profiles that have been optimized for the hottest games like PUBG and Fortnite, or tweak the EQ settings further to make the profile truly yours. For voice chat: Choose from our list of pre-tuned Microphone EQs that compensates for your preferred headset’s built-in mic so you sound more natural and clearer while communicating. It’s all meticulously engineered so you can get to the fun part right away! Pristine Audio Clarity Up to 116 dB SNR at an amazing bit rate of up to 24-bit / 192 kHz and coupled with ASIO support for low-latency and high-fidelity audio. Amplify Your Headsets’ Audio Featured with a headphone amplifier that drives studio-grade headphones of up to 600Ω with an expanded list of optimized headphone profiles for the latest headphone models. Other Features Various Surround Delivery On top of our raved-about Sound Blaster Surround Virtualization technology, Sound Blaster Z SE also supports up to 7.1 virtual on headphones and speakers alongside discrete 5.1 for speakers, as well as Dolby Digital Live, and DTS Encoding. Sound Blaster Command Software Access the full suite of Sound Blaster’s industry-leading audio processing technologies including Crystallizer that helps improve the dynamic range of audio, or Bass that provides bigger punch on the low end. All enhancements are fully customizable from the Sound Blaster Command software suite on PC. High-quality Audio Components Equipped with gold-plated connectors, speaker optimization technology, and digital content encoding capability for the best digital audio quality, as well as our multi-core Sound Core3D audio processor designed to deliver high-quality, pristine audio without overstressing your primary CPU.
PRISTINE AUDIO CLARITY – With up to 116 dB SNR at an amazing bit rate of up to 24-bit / 192 kHz, enjoy impressive audio quality for your every need. The sound card also features gold-plated connectors, speaker optimization technology, and digital content encoding capability for the best digital audio performance. Coupled with Audio Stream Input / Output (ASIO) support, Sound Blaster Z SE delivers low-latency and high-fidelity audio, even for your recordings
SBX GAMING EQ PROFILES – Emerge as the last man standing with our updated SBX Gaming Profiles for hot titles such as Apex Legends, Fortnite, Overwatch, PUBG, and more. In-house tuned and optimized to sound the best for the respective games, you can get started right away or further tweak the EQs, instead of having to create the profiles from scratch. Simply select the respective game from our latest Sound Blaster Command software’s menu, and be battle-ready instantly
IMMERSIVE SURROUND SOUND – Get fully immersed and stay focused on your games with our surround sound. The Sound Blaster Z SE now supports 7.1 virtual on headphones and speakers alongside discrete 5.1 for speakers. You can even switch between headphones and your speakers via the software for those times you want to pump the bass, or go stealthier with your headphones. For extra delivery options to your external devices, the Z SE also supports Dolby Digital Live and DTS Encoding
CRYSTAL CLEAR COMMUNICATION – Comes with a list of Microphone EQ Presets that compensates for your headset’s built-in mic so you can be heard clearly–whether it is to reduce the harshness of your tonality, sound more natural, or to increase the mids for vocal clarity. Together with our Sound Blaster Command Software’s CrystalVoice technology that helps remove echoes and ambient noises, the Z SE is perfect for games and even video conferences while working from home for better communications
This is my first add-on soundcard, and the experience has been pretty good when paired with my Audio-Technica ATH-M50x, except for a few things that I had to work out. Will be keeping the card, as it is a good upgrade, but here is some good stuff to know.First Problem:The drive power coming from the headphone port of the card is extreme, especially if you have low-ohm headphones, so much so that (Without software modifications) I had to keep the volume on windows around 10% or below (Without modification), and I did slightly worry that one day I'll forget that volume is at 100% and my headphones will explode.My Solution:Turn on the equalizer, set it to flat/whatever you like, move the overall sound volume (In the equalizer pane on the left) all the way down to -12db. I can comfortably go up to 50% volume now, I do wish that up to -24db was an option to ensure my headset and ears are safe from volatile audio.Second Problem:When I got the firmware and the Sound Blaster Command software directly from the website at creative.com/support/SBZSE, it recognized the card immediately and everything was fine, until I decided to do a driver update from 6.0.102.75.The device stopped being recognized from the SBC application, but I still was able to pick up the device firmware in device manager.My Solution:I reinstalled the SBC application from the website, and that fixed the issue. Probably a app-firmware compatibility issue, no big deal for me, but this might be quite the headache for somebody less tech-savvy who got this card to immediately try to update, and find that it doesn't get recognized by the software for some reason. Maybe it will work on somebody else's computer, but for me doing an update caused a minor fixable firmware problem.Overall I do like this, and I find the included software pretty user-friendly, but the descriptions for the SBX profiles could be more technical in what surround, crystallizer, bass, smart vol and dialog+ do.I'll quickly describe what those settings do for me here, they are all essentially post-processing audio overlays:Surround makes noise more spatially oriented, it attempts to simulate a good surround sound speaker setup/interior environment.Crystallizer kind of sharpens the audio, which can be good or bad based on preference, based on what you listen to.Bass is pretty self explanatory, the deep beats being boosted, if your audio setup can handle it.Smart volume is a audio normalizer, it adjusts the audio range of what you are listening to to be more or less extreme. This is good for preventing large audio shifts in media on night setting, which I find very useful, because many YouTube videos and some musical pieces aren't normalized properly, and it is easy to get blasted by sound randomly.Dialog+ is just a equalizer/booster for the human vocal range at 350 to 3400hz, with a heavy focus on 400hz (I'm guessing) to make speech more audio-legible. This is a pretty nice feature, especially for some movies where the actors mumble/say things quietly.Also nice is the fact that you can turn those features on/off through SBC software, highly customizable.One last good feature I like, that I didn't know about is the scout mode. I have my scout mode set to ALT+CTRL+F12 for quick activation, and just program my Keychron V6 keyboard's extra buttons with VIA to have it activate on one press. It does enhance some of the frequencies associated with footsteps, and far-thrown noises to enhance audio spatial info, but the change is subtle. Good for when you need a little extra awareness in-game.
