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The Creative Aurvana X-Fi headphones offer an average wear experience. Though we thought they were comfortable initially, they grew more and more uncomfortable the longer we wore them. If you plan on wearing them for long stretches, you should definitely give them a test run before you decide to keep them (double-check your store's return policy).
With the extension, the X-Fis' cord is long enough to connect to a system across the room. Without it, the X-Fis will connect to your pocket iPod without a lot of slack. That being said, the X-Fis are over-ear headphones, so they'll never be as portable as a pair of in-ears.
The X-Fis also have a few neat options that alter your music playback. |
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Comfort (7.00)
We test comfort the way anyone would test comfort: by wearing the headphones for a while. For the purposes of this test, we customize the headphones to have the best fit, then wear them for an hour. After the hour, we didn't have any real issues with comfort. The ear cups are soft and didn't press against our head too tightly. At the end of the hour, we could definitely feel the band putting pressure on our head, but it wasn't particularly uncomfortable.
Extended Use (4.00)
We thought either the cups or the band might get a bit uncomfortable after the six hour mark in our wear session, and we were partially correct. We didn't so much have an issue with the cups being tight on our head, but the band became slightly aggravating. The problem with the band is its padding. The foam between your head and the band's hard interior feels like it's made out of Tempurpedic-esque material. Once all the air gets squeezed out of it, however, it feels a lot like the hard stuff underneath it.
These big, cushy ear pads are great, but the thin,
not-so-cushy padding on the band hurt our soft heads.Cable Connectivity (13.60)
The Aurvana X-Fi's main cable measures just under 4 feet, 11 inches (just about 1.5 meters) and is detachable. You can also opt to add an extension cord to the mix, extending the total length of the cord to slightly more than 10 feet (a bit over 3 meters). This is a good range for cable connectivity. The 4 foot-long cord will allow you to connect to a media player in your pocket with too much slack, and the 10-foot cord will let you hook up to a stereo system across the room. Also, as a pro-tip, if you plan on using the extension cord, it makes more sense to connect them to the headphones and use the normal cord to connect to the media source. The normal cord has that right-angled plug, so tacking on the extension cord will give you a cable with a bend in it. Connecting the extension cord to the headphones ensures a straight cord, which is optimal.
There are also two adapters included: a 1/4-inch adapter and an airplane adapter.
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| The extension cord (left) and normal cord (right). |
The 1/4-inch and airplane adapters. |
Portability (3.00)
Over-ear headphones are never all that portable because they're big. In-ear headphones can easily get shoved in a pocket when you're not using them, while you'll need a backpack to stow a pair of over-ears.
For some reason every pair of noise-cancelling headphones comes with a case that looks identical to the ones Bose came up with. In a pleasing bout of irony, it looks as though Creative has chosen to jump on the unoriginal bandwagon as well. The good news is all these companies have chosen to rip off a good case design. This case will keep your Aurvana X-Fi headphones and all their fixins safe and organized. Of course, since this case isn't a bag of holding, it doesn't do much to reduce the amount of space your headphones will take up.
The generic "I can cancel noise!" case.
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| An empty case. Note the handy pouch on the left side. |
The case with all the X-Fi fixins included. You could probably toss the plastic bit and keep your cords and adapters in the pouch on the left, but we prefer it this way. |
These headphones are slightly more portable than the average pair of home theater cans, however, since there's a 4 foot-log cord option: the perfect length to reach that tape deck in your pocket.
Customizability (4.00)
There really aren't many options to customize your wear experience. The cups can twist and tilt a lot, and the band can extend. While these features are a big help for customizing fit, they're standard. The Aurvana X-Fis do come with an extension cord, which will allow you to take them out for a walk without having too much slack and also let you hook up to your home theater system.
Maintenance (3.00)
As with most headphones with fancy electronics inside, the Creative Aurvana X-Fi headphones are a bit bashful about letting you see them naked. You could probably get the screws out with a 1/16-inch Torx-head (looks like a six-pointed star) screwdriver, but not many people have those lying around. Also, the cup padding is glued on. This makes it hard to pry off and, once off, hard to stick back on (although the glue does keep a lot of its stickiness).
Once you have managed to pry off the cups, you can ooh and aah over the innards of your headphones. Being able to get down to the circuitry is good if you like keeping a meticulously clean set of headphones, or if you just like disassembling your gadgets from time to time.
Overall, however, the Aurvana X-Fis aren't the easiest headphones to maintain.
Other Features (7.06)
Battery Independence
These headphones will still work even without batteries, which is awesome. They do, however, require batteries to run the noise cancellation and other features. Therefore, they aren't 100% battery independent, since you don't have access to 100% functionality without batteries. Still, it's nice that, when the batteries die out, they'll still pump out your tunes -- they'll just do so at a diminished capacity.
Active Noise Cancellation
The noise cancellation feature is fairly basic. You hit the button, it turns on. Hit it again, it turns off. The Sony NC500D let you choose from a few different noise cancellation curves, and while they weren't all that different from each other, it did allow for a small amount of customization. We're huge fans of the ability to shut off noise cancellation: why this isn't a standard feature of all headphones, we'll never know. Take notes Bose: although Creative totally stole your case schematics, you could stand to learn a thing from their "on/off switch" technology.
We also tested the battery life of noise cancellation. With it engaged, you should be able to squeeze about 18 hours, 44 minutes of battery life from a pair of AAA batteries. This isn't bad -- it should last you a flight to Japan and then some -- but it's not particularly amazing. Also, you'll have to keep pumping out cash for AAA batteries as they die. The bright side? You can carry spare batteries with you, or buy them in stores. With proprietary batteries you live and die by the availability of power sockets.
Crystalizer & CMSS-3D
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Pictured above: Creative's depiction CMSS-3D feature in action. Notice the sheer bliss it causes. |
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You may have noticed two other buttons next the one that toggles noise cancellation. These buttons turn on the Crystalizer and CMSS-3D features respectively. The especially bold can turn on both at once, even while the noise cancellation feature is on.
What exactly do these two buttons do though? According to the manual, the Crystalizer "dramatically restores the quality of compressed audio tracks such as MP3 or poorly mastered CDs." The CMSS-3D button "delivers a more natural audio playback," whatever that means. Poor showing, instruction manual. The X-Fis' site corroborated the Crystalizer's function, adding that the CMSS-3D button "expands your stereo MP3s and digital movies into virtual surround sound over the headphones. Voices are centered in front of you and ambient sounds are moved all around you." The site even provided a helpful graph of what the X-Fi did. Since we're pretty sure that graph they portrayed is pure witchcraft, we did a few tests of our own. Below is a veritable four-square of science. Behold: frequency response graphs for every function the Aurvana X-Fi headphones can perform.
| Normal playback, nothing fancy turned on. |
Active noise cancellation on. |
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| Crystalizer on. |
CMSS-3D on. |
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Without these buttons, the features discussed at right could never be activated. |
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Warning: these frequency response graphs only partially explain what's going on. We would've posted distortion graphs as well, but the line just went straight up off the graph and didn't come back down again. Plus, even if we showed the distortion graphs, they wouldn't describe much about how the sound had changed, just the amount by which it had changed.
In any case, the Crystalizer tends to have a middle ground in terms of bass activity, then follows the same curve as noise cancellation, meaning anything from mid-range sounds on up will sound a bit on the quiet side. This is interesting, since the website claims the Crystalizer enhances the highs and lows. We're not 100% sure how they're enhancing them, but it certainly isn't with volume augmentation. If anything enhances the highs and lows, it's normal playback, without any bells or whistles enabled. The CMSS-3D just emphasizes every other frequency band and hopes for the best. In terms of a general curve, it has a bass response similar to normal mode. It also has a bit more life in its higher-mids than the Crystalizer or noise cancellation do.
Volume Dial
Adjusting your volume levels can be a real hassle. You need to reach down into your pocket, then attempt to find the volume keys by touch, all while your slippery media player darts around your pocket like a cornered cuttlefish. Who has the time or patience to even bother? Thankfully, Creative has created a creative solution to all your volume-altering needs: a volume dial! Now changing the volume is as easy as gently stroking your earlobe.
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