Creative has announced a new set of headphones, the Aurvana X-Fi Noise-Canceling, uh, Headphones. They’re $300, which is a bit ridiculous for a set of non-audiophile cans, but they’re marketed to the same business class travelers who blow fat stacks on those Bose units which are also priced beyond what a rational person would spend.
The thing that makes the Aurvana units noteworthy is Creative’s addition of its “X-Fi Crystalizer,” a bit of real time DSP magic that adds back in some of the high and low frequencies chopped off during the process of MP3 compression, which originally showed up in Creative’s aftermarket sound cards for the PC.
I bought an X-Fi for the last computer I built, in search of some mythical 3% more awesome framezzzz in videogames or some crap instead of just using the perfectly capable onboard sound. And you know what? The crystalizer actually does a pretty bang-up job of making my music sound better. Sure, it could probably be done in software, utilizing some of the latent multi-core power at my disposal, but what’s the fun in that?
I’m not suggesting you dash out and drop three bills on these immediately, but unlike most overpriced noise canceling units, these actually have a couple of extra tricks in there.
Creative intros Aurvana X-Fi Noise-Canceling Headphones [iLounge]
