Included in the box was the typical fare. There was the card all neatly tucked away in an anti-static bag, a quick reference setup poster, a setup CD that we'll dive into later, and a color-coded sticker to place onto the card itself. Think of the sticker as a failsafe for those of us who don't know what audio jacks to plug our sound system into... like me.

Setup and Installation
This is simple enough if you've ever installed any PCI card into your computer before. I won't get into the details of installing a PCI card here, because knowing me I'd leave something out and BOOM ... the world explodes when following my instructions.

For the sake of argument, let's say you firmly seated the card in a slot and you've successfully booted into Windows. The fun really begins now! No, not the sort of fun you'd have with a pack of rabid badgers, a tube of toothpaste, and a cheese log but it's incredibly close!

You pop in the CD and let it load up. Included on the CD are a multitude of drivers, applications, and other bits and pieces you'd be led to believe actually needed to be install. In my case, I installed just a few of the available applications (including the THX console) and the included driver.

Huzzah! I encounter problems already when the included driver didn't actually work for me! I had no sound through any of my speakers, and with everything else hooked up and configured correctly it was time to find another solution. I actually had to download and install a newer driver from the SoundBlaster website. Nothing major, but you'd expect a driver to work that was included on a CD.

You should make sure that the Windows has your default sound playback device set to the newly installed sound card. If you really wanted to get a little crazy you can hop into your system bios on your next boot and disable your onboard sound device, provided that was what you were using for your sound previously. Once you have everything working it's time to get down to business. What do you need and what don't you need in terms of included software?

Overabundance of Software
Well, it should come as no surprise that you won't need every last piece of software bundled on the installation CD. As I mentioned I only really use the THX setup console and a few others. I did install more to give you a little visual representation of what to expect in these. Naturally, you will want to install the driver itself.

There is an extra music player, music organizers, audio converters, this, that, and the other all included in the package deal. I must admit, outside of taking screenshots of the program for use in this review I haven't touched the programs since. Speaking of those screenshots, take a little gander below. Go on, they don't bite.

[ad]Menus and Settings
When you're done mucking around with the unwanted programs it's time to get into the meat of the X-Fi control panel. Single clicking on the tray icon will yield a "volume panel" with a number of installed programs listed as well as shortcuts to other commonly used areas of the X-Fi options. You'll most likely only use the "Mode Switcher" option and the THX setup shortcut while on this menu.

That "Mode Switcher" I mentioned allows you to switch between three different audio modes. These include the Entertainment mode, Audio Creation mode, and the Game mode. Each mode offers their own benefits in the areas they're named after. Entertainment is for casual music listening, movie watching, or general PC use.

Audio creation features a robust means for mixing and recording your own audio that is recorded via some input device (a microphone for example). I got a little dizzy just in looking at it so I quickly exited out of this mode as soon as I took the screenshot. Certainly, this mode would be of greater use on the more expensive models that feature more audio inputs.

The game mode actually adds the benefit of EAX 5.0 support, something that isn't present when using either of the other two modes. Given that, the game mode console is like an all-in-one deal that has most of the entertainment mode options rolled into one area. The game mode essentially provides better 3D positional audio and much better EAX support compared to the other modes.

[ad]Sound Quality
I had started using Winamp and then migrated to iTunes for my music listening needs. The tweaking on the songs is a never-ending process, but I think I've come across a good balance. I use the Rock equalizer preset in both iTunes and the volume control panel for my sound card. The bass setting in the control panel is set at 55% and the treble is at 57%. Anything too much higher on the bass and the songs become very bass heavy. This is probably due to my speakers that are already bass heavy as it is.

Further setup included setting the CMSS-3D at the Stereo Xpand setting at 100%. The 24-bit crystalizer was set at 50% for just the right balance of quality and improved sound. Accessing the THX menus there are a few more options that needed some tweaking. Ensuring the proper speaker distance is a must. It can actually throw off the balance of the audio if incorrect values are given providing you with muffled sounds or sounds that always seem to be more to one side or the other.

After correctly adjusting the distance the angle of your speakers in the THX calibration menu, it's on to the bass management. For those with speakers less than a foot in height, you'll want to go with the "small" speaker selection. This will allow you to enable the bass redirection feature that lets you remove some of the bass to the subwoofer where it should be. I generally keep this at 80 Hz, sometimes pushing it to 90 Hz depending on what the main bass setting is. Tweaking this slider slightly can have a great impact on your music. Speakers that are already bass heavy may want this above the 80 Hz standard, those with little bass support may want to go slightly below.

The card can be picked up for a sum of about $130 from most retailers. That is assuming you don't want to spring for the more powerful models that can hit prices of nearly $385. That'd certainly put a little dent in your wallets, that's for sure. If you're like me and you have been neglecting an upgrade to your on-board sound because it "doesn't really matter," you should think again. I had that mentality until I bought this card and experienced some amazing sounds. It was like hearing for the first time.

The setup was a bit of a pain in the ass. You should figure as much given that two out of the three pages for this review were nothing but setup and minor tweaking. Trust me, there is a lot more you could do with this card in terms of adjustments than I hit upon. You should be thanking me that I held back, really. This card is certainly worth the purchase if you're without any stand-alone card, or if you're merely looking to upgrade from an older piece of hardware.

Positives

• Fairly low price for all that you're getting. Given how future proof sound cards generally are, you know that it will last you for potentially years to come.
  
• EAX 5.0 brings to the table a lot of new sound effects that the latest games are only starting to incorporate. Over time, more games will feature such support and the audio tricks presented will add a new level of immersion.
  
• A great number of tweaks can be done to get the sound perfectly suited to your own tastes. With the slew of EAX effects, THX support, DTS, Dolby, and more at your disposal, you can turn your PC into your own personal home theater if you so choose to do so.
  
  Negatives
  
• There are too many options and programs. The casual user won't have a need for probably 75% of the bundled software, and just as many may be confused by some of the tweaking options presented to them.
  
• While there is RAM embedded in the card, it's only 2MB. The top two bigger brothers to this card sport 64MB of RAM. Right now, it really isn't much of an issue as no games really need that much RAM, but in the future there may be a greater need and those cards with 2MB of RAM may begin to show why there is such a difference in price from card to card.
  
• A lack of games that really make use of EAX 5. It really is an infant technology in this respect, but given another year or two more games will be cropping up that support this technology.

• Buy the X-Fi ExtremeMusic from Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000AY7A1I/ref%3Dnosim/csnation-20)
  
• Official X-Fi ExtremeMusic Page (http://www.soundblaster.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=208&product=14066)
  
• Sound Blaster's EAX Page (http://www.soundblaster.com/eax/)
  
• Buy the ExtremeMusic from Best Buy (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7293813&type=product&id=1118841152655)