Sunday, August 27, 2006
Member since:
April 2006
April 2006
Fist off I would like to state I have never typed a review, but this sound card warrants it. As I’m sure some people here will enjoy its features. Now before getting into this too far I should state for the full features of this card you would need your computer near enough to your theatre system, computer speakers will not take full advantage of some of the features. Granted you get a long enough S/PDIF cable and you could run it from different rooms, but that would get tiresome fast. So onto the features, what they do, and how well they work.
DTS Connect
Well if someone was even looking at this sound card this would be the reason why. It is the first and at the moment only card that has a DTS encoder. It will take any source and encode it into DTS 5.1 sound. Of course you would need a S/PDIF cable (coaxial or optical) for it to work, hence why you need to be near your theatre system, but if your computer speakers have a S/PDIF input then you wont need to worry.
Now how does it work out, amazingly. It works best with movies, but also very well with music. I have noticed a great increase in sound quality on movies with only a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track. They obviously don’t really get any new sounds put in, but when it converts it to DTS everything gets a lot clearer and not as muffled. On top of that you have the 10 band EQ to tweak the sound a bit more. So if you like it with less bass or more you can tweak it that way. Of course the 10 band EQ isn’t anything special especially if you have a top of the line theatre system, but as I don’t, it’s a nice little thing to get the sound to my liking. It doesn’t really improve a DTS track thats already on a DVD though if you are wondering, but you can still tweak the sound with the 10 band EQ.
DTS:NEO
Then there is the improvement in music quality, it takes a 2 channel CD and puts it into a 5.1 DTS track. Which does sound a lot cleaner and clearer, but puts out all the music in all 5 speaker, so it does sound a bit funny when compared to a true 5.1 mix on music DVD’s. Now this is where DTS:Neo comes in, what this does is fakes the true 5.1 mix in a way. So vocals come out of the center speaker, some symbols and other instruments come out of the rear and the rest out of the two front ones. This does have its faults though, more specifically 2 of them, well at least for me. It doesn’t work well with some songs, mostly live songs as the crowd can mess with it and is just unbearable to listen to sometimes. It was really bad on the Pink Floyd Pulse CD, it actually kept cutting out the rear speakers because of the crowd. While other live albums like Robin Trower Live was fine and actually almost comes out sounding like the DVD’s 5.1 mix, but that one the crowd wasn’t loud during the music. That brings me to the next problem, sometimes during the music if there is a lot of changeups in the song, its as if its searching for the best setting. This is hard to explain, but if you listen to the vocals it easiest to hear, its as if they fade in and out on the speakers going from center to front and back until it finds the right setting for the song. That doesn’t really ruin most songs just a few here and there, and not as bad as the live song thing, but if you listen to songs that don’t have a lot of change ups it shouldn’t be a bother.
As this card is mostly meant for movies though you shouldn’t rate it all on the music area, which really does make the music sound quality improve a lot. Its just that it still has its problems as the software is in its “younger years” . I’m sure AuzenTech is working on improving these things for their next card. As I said though this really shines in the DVD department. I put in King Kong and was really impressed, as I switched back and forth from its original audio to it in the DTS form. It was the T-Rex battle that I was testing it at, on the original DD track it did sound pretty good with decent bass and a good amount of sound, but there is a lot of low muffled sound that you cant really make out. Once on the re-encoded DTS track all that muffled sound came forward as I could now hear trees branches breaking and leaves being brushed up against. With the 10 band I could also raise the treble a bit to my liking, and get the mid range and bass all to where I wanted it. In short though it was a completely different sounding movie after all the tweaks I did, and yes its going to take some tuning of the card to get things where you like it.
Dolby Digital Live
Next to the DTS 5.1 encoder there is also a Dolby Digital Live 5.1 available on this card, but I didn’t really bother as I like how clear the DTS sounds. I did mess with it a bit though and everything comes out just the same as the DTS encoder but a bit muffled and not as clear. This is mostly there for people who like the sound of DD, as I know some argue that DD sounds better and others DTS. Its also a throwback to the nForce 2 motherboards with SoundStorm sound on them that encoded in DD Live but has gone AWOL in more recent nForce boards. All in all its still a good feature that in my opinion is a much better feature than most the stuff on Creative sound cards.
Playing PC Games
Well this part is a mixed bag, on one hand you have the fact that you can play games in 5.1 DTS, and on the other you have a few gaming issues and the fact that there is only EAX 2.0. I’ll keep this part short since this is a DVD community. Since I like the idea of DTS games better than EAX that doesn’t bother me, but on a few games there are problems. As I’ve heard some people complaining of noises repeating and then the game freezing, but as my experiences go, I haven’t his a single problem. No freezing or repeating noises. Although I have played a few games that didn’t have hardware sound acceleration which meant that it didn’t sound as good, but I could still have the DTS. I’ve also had a few games that didn’t want to work in the surround sound department, but that was a lower budget game and so didn’t really bother me. If you do buy this card and have a problem with a game though, AuzenTech does accept e-mails and will try to fix the problems with games with a patch.
Parting Thoughts
So if your looking for a PC gaming sound card or one that has all the inputs for instruments like this may not be the card for you, but if your looking for one for the Audiophile in you, than this is it. That is if your computer and theatre system are near one another. Once you do have it all set up it will be a joy to watch some of those DD movies in DTS like King Kong, Dark City, Fight Club, Serenity, Batman Begins, and what ever other movie you would like to hear in DTS. On top of it the card is pretty cheap when compared to other sound cards that run $200 or more and don’t have either DTS or DDL encoding abilities. It runs for $115 to $135 depending where you buy it from. This is another downfall it really isn’t sold in stores, mostly online. The two stores is its sold in are not that wide spread, and only a few computer place build computers with this sound card. Given time though I do believe that these line of sound cards will give Creative a run for their money. Seeing as this is AuzenTech second card I’m really impressed with how few problems there are. I know I’m won over with the sound quality of this card and will be for a long time, as for the rest of you. All I can hope for is some of you check it out and keep the company in business to make new and improved ones.
With that I would be happy to answer questions on here if you are actually interested in getting the sound card and just want to know something before doing so. Also sorry for bad grammar, I’m that that good at it. maybe writing some will improve that.
DTS Connect
Well if someone was even looking at this sound card this would be the reason why. It is the first and at the moment only card that has a DTS encoder. It will take any source and encode it into DTS 5.1 sound. Of course you would need a S/PDIF cable (coaxial or optical) for it to work, hence why you need to be near your theatre system, but if your computer speakers have a S/PDIF input then you wont need to worry.
Now how does it work out, amazingly. It works best with movies, but also very well with music. I have noticed a great increase in sound quality on movies with only a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track. They obviously don’t really get any new sounds put in, but when it converts it to DTS everything gets a lot clearer and not as muffled. On top of that you have the 10 band EQ to tweak the sound a bit more. So if you like it with less bass or more you can tweak it that way. Of course the 10 band EQ isn’t anything special especially if you have a top of the line theatre system, but as I don’t, it’s a nice little thing to get the sound to my liking. It doesn’t really improve a DTS track thats already on a DVD though if you are wondering, but you can still tweak the sound with the 10 band EQ.
DTS:NEO
Then there is the improvement in music quality, it takes a 2 channel CD and puts it into a 5.1 DTS track. Which does sound a lot cleaner and clearer, but puts out all the music in all 5 speaker, so it does sound a bit funny when compared to a true 5.1 mix on music DVD’s. Now this is where DTS:Neo comes in, what this does is fakes the true 5.1 mix in a way. So vocals come out of the center speaker, some symbols and other instruments come out of the rear and the rest out of the two front ones. This does have its faults though, more specifically 2 of them, well at least for me. It doesn’t work well with some songs, mostly live songs as the crowd can mess with it and is just unbearable to listen to sometimes. It was really bad on the Pink Floyd Pulse CD, it actually kept cutting out the rear speakers because of the crowd. While other live albums like Robin Trower Live was fine and actually almost comes out sounding like the DVD’s 5.1 mix, but that one the crowd wasn’t loud during the music. That brings me to the next problem, sometimes during the music if there is a lot of changeups in the song, its as if its searching for the best setting. This is hard to explain, but if you listen to the vocals it easiest to hear, its as if they fade in and out on the speakers going from center to front and back until it finds the right setting for the song. That doesn’t really ruin most songs just a few here and there, and not as bad as the live song thing, but if you listen to songs that don’t have a lot of change ups it shouldn’t be a bother.
As this card is mostly meant for movies though you shouldn’t rate it all on the music area, which really does make the music sound quality improve a lot. Its just that it still has its problems as the software is in its “younger years” . I’m sure AuzenTech is working on improving these things for their next card. As I said though this really shines in the DVD department. I put in King Kong and was really impressed, as I switched back and forth from its original audio to it in the DTS form. It was the T-Rex battle that I was testing it at, on the original DD track it did sound pretty good with decent bass and a good amount of sound, but there is a lot of low muffled sound that you cant really make out. Once on the re-encoded DTS track all that muffled sound came forward as I could now hear trees branches breaking and leaves being brushed up against. With the 10 band I could also raise the treble a bit to my liking, and get the mid range and bass all to where I wanted it. In short though it was a completely different sounding movie after all the tweaks I did, and yes its going to take some tuning of the card to get things where you like it.
Dolby Digital Live
Next to the DTS 5.1 encoder there is also a Dolby Digital Live 5.1 available on this card, but I didn’t really bother as I like how clear the DTS sounds. I did mess with it a bit though and everything comes out just the same as the DTS encoder but a bit muffled and not as clear. This is mostly there for people who like the sound of DD, as I know some argue that DD sounds better and others DTS. Its also a throwback to the nForce 2 motherboards with SoundStorm sound on them that encoded in DD Live but has gone AWOL in more recent nForce boards. All in all its still a good feature that in my opinion is a much better feature than most the stuff on Creative sound cards.
Playing PC Games
Well this part is a mixed bag, on one hand you have the fact that you can play games in 5.1 DTS, and on the other you have a few gaming issues and the fact that there is only EAX 2.0. I’ll keep this part short since this is a DVD community. Since I like the idea of DTS games better than EAX that doesn’t bother me, but on a few games there are problems. As I’ve heard some people complaining of noises repeating and then the game freezing, but as my experiences go, I haven’t his a single problem. No freezing or repeating noises. Although I have played a few games that didn’t have hardware sound acceleration which meant that it didn’t sound as good, but I could still have the DTS. I’ve also had a few games that didn’t want to work in the surround sound department, but that was a lower budget game and so didn’t really bother me. If you do buy this card and have a problem with a game though, AuzenTech does accept e-mails and will try to fix the problems with games with a patch.
Parting Thoughts
So if your looking for a PC gaming sound card or one that has all the inputs for instruments like this may not be the card for you, but if your looking for one for the Audiophile in you, than this is it. That is if your computer and theatre system are near one another. Once you do have it all set up it will be a joy to watch some of those DD movies in DTS like King Kong, Dark City, Fight Club, Serenity, Batman Begins, and what ever other movie you would like to hear in DTS. On top of it the card is pretty cheap when compared to other sound cards that run $200 or more and don’t have either DTS or DDL encoding abilities. It runs for $115 to $135 depending where you buy it from. This is another downfall it really isn’t sold in stores, mostly online. The two stores is its sold in are not that wide spread, and only a few computer place build computers with this sound card. Given time though I do believe that these line of sound cards will give Creative a run for their money. Seeing as this is AuzenTech second card I’m really impressed with how few problems there are. I know I’m won over with the sound quality of this card and will be for a long time, as for the rest of you. All I can hope for is some of you check it out and keep the company in business to make new and improved ones.
With that I would be happy to answer questions on here if you are actually interested in getting the sound card and just want to know something before doing so. Also sorry for bad grammar, I’m that that good at it. maybe writing some will improve that.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Member since:
March 2002
March 2002
Nice job, Revolution! You got the information across in a tight, well-organized manner, and the grammar you worried about never got in the way. Thanks for the review.
John
John
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Member since:
April 2006
April 2006
thanks its always nice to hear a compliment. though after reading it again a few times i think i could improve, but isnt that how it always goes. theres always room for improvement.
