The Sound Blaster Omni Surround 5.1 (SB1560) is the spiritual successor of the X-Fi 5.1. So it’s been sitting in its box for about 6 months.
#Sound blaster x fi surround pro mac os x#
Minimal research showed that it was compatible with Mac OS X and would be a good addition to my office setup at Kobo. So I bought the Sound Blaster X-Fi 5.1 Surround Pro (SB1095)–it’s an older USB card with similar features and had just been updated with Windows 8 drivers. Impressed by the sound quality, I searched for second, but wasn’t able to find a supplier. In 2012, they rebranded the chip to the SB-Axx1™ chip. It’s powered by a Creative’s Sound Core3D chip–a quad-core DSP that also integrates a USB Digital Audio Converter (DAC), an Analog Digital Converter (ADC), a separate 600-ohm Headphone Amp, a digital microphone interface, S/PDIF inputs and outputs and General Purpose Inputs and Outputs (GPIO). It was a good buy at $40 CAD (many stores were liquidating them at the time). I first bought the Sound Blaster Recon3D USB (SB1300). It was frustrating enough for me to just dump the modified onboard sound kexts and look for a properly supported USB sound card. One thing that has always troubled me is that sound would be continually borked. I am part of a small community of people who build and maintain Hackintoshes (I’ve been doing it since the early versions of Boot-321). I wanted to capture some thoughts as there isn’t much written about these cards.
![sound blaster x fi surround pro sound blaster x fi surround pro](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ebn3jbaN4no/maxresdefault.jpg)
They are all part of the Sound Blaster line of sound cards from Creative.
![sound blaster x fi surround pro sound blaster x fi surround pro](https://www.picclickimg.com/d/l400/pict/273673465046_/Creative-Sound-Blaster-X-Fi-Surround-51-Pro-External.jpg)
I’ve bought 3 from the same manufacturer. I am a bit nuts about external USB sound card / DAC /AMP combos. : Added a pretty big caveat to the Omni Surround. Update : I updated some thoughts below on sound quality. USB Sound Cards: Omni Surround Pro 5.1 vs.