Razer reveal the Barracuda Integrated Audio System

[Nick]

Razer have unveiled the Barracuda Integrated Audio System, comprising an innovative dedicated sound card and a specialised headset. Could this be the final word in gaming sound?

Check it out over on HEXUS.gaming.

[unreal]

Wow, seems VERY impressive stats wise (and its a looker too) but I just got my X-Fi

[Nick]

Well remember the first time you heard positional audio and thought 'WOW'?

The Barracuda AIS is just like that with none of that software and hardware gumph that you'll never touch or use... it really is very good indeed.

[Trippledence]

"Passive Electromagnetic Interference Shield" aka earthed bit of metal? Still looks very nice, good to see someone else compeating in the gamer soundcard market. Creative seem to have very much a monopoly at the moment.

[Gordy]

Any pics of the headphones?

[Nick]

"Passive Electromagnetic Interference Shield" aka earthed bit of metal?

Hehe, no, it's that metal plate all around the sensitive parts of the card, the idea being to stop interference from other PC parts, which do create a certain amount of noise on the radio frequencies.

Gordy, I do have a couple of shots but the room we were in was very dark, making decent photos difficult. I'll dig them out and have a play with them and see what I can come up with.

[Gordy]

Hehe, no, it's that metal plate all around the sensitive parts of the card, the idea being to stop interference from other PC parts, which do create a certain amount of noise on the radio frequencies.

Gordy, I do have a couple of shots but the room we were in was very dark, making decent photos difficult. I'll dig them out and have a play with them and see what I can come up with.

Cheers

BTW pc parts should be shielded so they don't create noise, thats if they actually pass the CE mark test and aren't just made up. Having tested some supposedly tested and CE marked items I can tell you that this isn't the case.

[kempez]

That looks very nice. I may think about getting that if the price is right. What are the headphones? Are they rated as 5.1's?

Did you get to test and music on them?

[Rhyth]

woo, sounds cool.... No really I like the idea of less crap with the card that you never use. The shield does kind of look like it's there for aesthical points more than anything but I'll reserve judgement on that untill a few reviews come out.

[Zak33]

GIMME

[neillmcd]

Let me get this straight. This card can take EAX audio signals and encode them into dolby digital on-the-fly?

If so that's an unusual feature and one that even the best creative cards don't have. Very useful if your reciever doesn't have any analogue inputs.

[directhex]

linux drivers?

[Zak33]

knew Hexman would be here in a trice and then thought "he's gonna wanna know about Linux"

I do too actually.

[directhex]

knew Hexman would be here in a trice and then thought "he's gonna wanna know about Linux"

I do too actually.

i think Nick should be under orders to ask about it generally. "so, $COMPANY, i like your $PRODUCT. does it work on linux?"

[Mimp]

The EM shield is a bit of a gimmick, the only professional cards I can think of which feature one are some aging aardvark products, so interference can't be much of an issue if you design things correctly.

[Nick]

Its not that EMI is an 'issue' as such, but Razer are saying that when the designed the headset, they found that the fidelity they were getting with it was being hampered by the soundcards they were using.

In essence, the headset showed up flaws in current sound cards.

If you whack your volume up you'll get some hiss... which is generated by the soundcard itself and EMI.

Having listened to Robert's spiel about this, I tired it out with the Barracuda and got nothing, even with everything whacked up full... and then I partially deafened myself when the demo kicked in....