Is this a good mid ranged sound card.

[manne_29]

Here are the speakers that I speak of.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16836121121

[Clunk]

So I take it that you mean it's better to use standard home surround sound set-up than the use of PC media speakers, hince the option to go with external amp/reciever to push out more sound. Am I on the same page as you?

I, personally prefer the sound of an AV amp and speakers to any PC speakers that i have ever heard, It will also depend on what you prefer and the size of your room etc, and also what you want from it all.

[manne_29]

I, personally prefer the sound of an AV amp and speakers to any PC speakers that i have ever heard, It will also depend on what you prefer and the size of your room etc, and also what you want from it all.

I see. I guess I could get by with a cheap reciever from lets say, Ebay......., with basic features and allow the card to do all the encoding and digital proccessing right? For Example:
The World's First DTS® Connect logo program certificated PCI Audio Board
- DTS® Interactive: A real-time 5.1 encoder that takes any 2 or more channel and encodes it into DTS® bitstream. DTS® Interactive provides a single cable connection via S/PDIF digital audio output to a DTS® enabled surround sound system by encoding all audio into a DTS® compatible bitstream at 1.5Mbps!
- DTS® NeoC: An upmixing matrix technology that turns any 2 channel audio into 7.1 surround sound.DTS® NeoC, based upon DTS® Neo:6 matrix surround technology, transforms any stereo content such as MP3, - - WMA or CD audio, into a 7.1-channel surround sound experience
- Dolby® Digital Live(DDL) Real-Time Content Encoder converts PC audio into a 5.1 channel Dolby® Digital bitstream (400kbps)
- C-Media CMI8770 PCI chipset (8CH 24bit/96kHz DAC/2CH 16bit/48kHz ADC audio single chip with DTS® Connect and Dolby® Digital Live Hardware Real-Time Content Encoder) - customized design for HDA Digital
- Integrated S/PDIF input/output supports 44.1kHz/48kHz/96kHz sample rate and 16/24 bits resolution
- Onboard coaxial RCA output connector, higher grade optical TOSLINK transmitter for 24bits/96kHz support
- Onboard CD S/PDIF input ( 2pin-2pin CD cable included, DTS CD bypass available) and SPDIF input extension header(SPDIF_EXT) for optional Digital Input Module with coaxial, optical input (Model : DIM X-10, available separately)
- Onboard MIDI port header for connectivity such as MIDI keyboards, synthesizers, digital pianos
- DVD playback with full 5.1/7.1 speaker surround sound using PowerDVD, WinDVD software decoding applications (with DD5.1, DTS 5.1,EE-EX 6.1/7.1, DTS-ES 6.1/7.1 decoding).
- Supports game surround sound API such as Sensaura CRL3D HRTF 3D positional sound enhancement with MultiDrive™, EnvironmentFX™, ZoomFX™, MacroFX™, A3D™ 1.0, EAX™ 1.0, 2.0 (powered by Sensaura), Direct Sound™ 3D SW.
- Non-PCM Dolby Digital and DTS bitstream (such as DTS-CD) pass through.
- Anti-Pop control circuit using high performance audio muting transistor.
- Support Stereo MIX recording option and Mic Echo which makes best environment for Winamp broadcasting, other VOIP solution.
- Support Karaoke features such as Echo, Magic Voice, Vocal Cancel and Key Control
- Swappable Dual DIP Type OPAMP Controlled Preamp Circuits
Adopt large capacity regulators and 6pcs of dual DIP type OPAMP preamp output circuits
2pcs of dual DIP type OPAMP controlled preamp input circuits on board provides increased gain and improvement of S/N ratio.
Users swappable existing OPAMPs to superior performance dual DIP type 8pin OPAMPs such as Burr-Brown OPA2134PA, OPA2604PA,etc.


These features will not default to the reciever will it? ( meaning will the reciever be responsible for this and not the card.) I know these may be some stupid questions but this an area I know little about. Hopefully all the reciever will be doing is increasing or amplifying the sound.
By the way, I do have a car amplifier and wonder if there is a way to convert it to play through a home outlet, and where can I purchase it from. I would use it if I could convert the voltage to AC. (Is there a converter)

[Clunk]

Forget the car amplifier, its not the same kind of thing. I suppose you could use a car amplifier for each channel, but then you would have to use a seperate pre-amp/processor and that would just get messy.

The Auzentech will encode anything you feed it into a digital stream that it then passes to the amp via the digital cable.

Example - If you want to play a tv episode that you have ripped/downloaded etc and it has a stereo soundtrack, you can select the DTS or Dolby Digital Live as the output and it will encode and send a 5.1 channel encoded digital signal to the amp over the digital connection (optical or coaxial).

Example 2 - Same as above, but use an audio track as the source (mp3, wav, cd, whatever). Your mileage may vary with this. Some audio tracks can sound pretty awesome, and some just sound wrong when encoded to 5.1 - this is down to individual taste.

Example 3 - An audio track. You can select the bitrate that you want to send the track to the amplifier at. This again will depend on the quality of the source material...crap in, crap out. I personally keep it at 44.1 for everything audio.

Example 4 - Playing a DVD. If you play a DVD and it has a DTS soundtrack, the card will just pass the DTS soundtrack through the digital out and to the amp without encoding anything, same with Dolby Digital.

You can always let the amp do some processing if thats what you prefer.

[pmanington]

There be a difference - X-Fi just uses ProLogic, where as Soundstorm & X-Plosion turn it into true Dolby Encoded Sound - ProLogic (even v2) sounds terrible in comparison

well yes, but in this case that's not really relevant because the original source isn't 5.1 in the first place, so what you're hearing is a representation of stereo etc in 5.1. It doesn't really matter on the encoding it's not going to make a whole lot of difference. The x-fi supports those standards when the source provides it.

[dave87]

Its not that, its the fact that ProLogic attempts to add some direction to the sound, which ends up distorting the sound field, and as a result sounds worse.

My SCHT-900s reciever does Prologic2, DTS & Dolby Digital - DTS and Digital (even from the 'made-up' 5.1) sounds better than Prologic - regardless of settings.