Let me get straight to the point: in terms of raw power and overall sound quality, the Sound Blaster X5 is the best Creative sound card I've tested to this date. Thanks to its dual-DAC, dual custom amplifier, and fully balanced topology, it produces a clean and engaging sound, and it's fully capable of making your headphones shine - including more expensive, hi-fi ones. This is an audio enthusiast product much more than your default gaming sound card, but one that has much more versatility than an ordinary hi-fi DAC/headphone amplifier. While you do get a capable DAC (two of them, to be exact) and a powerful amplifier, the Sound Blaster X5 also provides you with a microphone input, a system-wide 10-band graphic equalizer, a feature-rich DSP, and a host of usable buttons and knobs, that allow you to control the unit without drivers, or a connection to your PC.

Connectivity is another area where the Sound Blaster X5 shines. It works as a PC/Mac/PlayStation 4/PlayStation 5 sound card, and it can be accessed and configured through a mobile app, which saves you the hassle of ever having to connect it to your computer if you purposefully bought it for your console. It offers balanced and unbalanced headphone outputs, a microphone input, RCA line inputs and outputs, optical (TOSLINK) input and output, a USB-C input port (also used to power it), and even a USB Type-A host port. The latter can be used to connect USB headsets, which you can then control through the sound card. You can also utilize the Type-A port for wireless receivers to further expand the functionality of the sound card.

My main issue with the Sound Blaster X5 is that it doesn't look or feel anywhere near how it performs (or costs). The all-plastic, light case would be better suited on a no-name sound card bought on Aliexpress rather than be a part of one of the best USB sound cards released in recent years. The Sound Blaster X5 also feels oddly out of place within the Sound Blaster X line of external sound cards, not only because of its looks but also features; it omits the Super X-Fi headphone holography technology, which Creative leaned into heavily in 2022 with all of their gaming sound cards. I'm also disappointed by the Bluetooth implementation. Connectivity quirks and some apparent issues with Windows, which I described in detail in the performance section of this review, make it annoying to use. Hopefully, a firmware update with a fix is already on the way.

In the end, the Sound Blaster X5 has me sold because of its sound quality. Creative made no mistakes both on the output or input front of its latest sound card, and that's why I'm happy to recommend it to anyone looking for a powerful USB DAC/headphone amplifier that also offers a microphone input and a plethora of other useful features. However, a fair share of quirks prevent me from attaching an award badge to the end of this review.