I changed the OPAMPS on my Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty a year or two ago and thought you may well be interested in seeing some pictures of the mod in progress. A very worthwhile upgrade if you’re reasonably competent with a soldering iron. When I say reasonably anyone could perform this mod by watching a few online soldering tutorials and practising on an old circuit board.

I’ve since bought a Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty Titanium and performed the same mod with equal success.

Click on the images to enlarge.

The aim of this modification is to bring the sound quality of the X-Fi somewhat closer to that of cards like the Auzentech X-Meridian, meaning you will end up with a card with excellent sound quality and retain good gaming performance. Although listening tests are obviously subjective, I have yet to meet anybody who’s performed this mod who has not been bowled over by the quality improvement. If you take the time to do it properly, it is unlikely you will regret it. It goes without saying that this mod is irrelevant to anybody using only the digital output of the card, since the DAC + analogue stage will be in the target device and those on the card go unused.

Full article and instructions on how to achieve this mod and obtain the necessary parts can be found here