Hercules' Muse LT

A little low-end inspiration
Hercules' Muse LT has to be one of the smallest PCI cards I've ever seen. It's definitely the smallest sound card I've ever seen, and short of a rare swap meet or garage sale find, it's also the cheapest sound card available that's based on recent technology. No, that ISA SoundBlaster 16 you bought out of some guy's trunk for $10 doesn't count.

Being small and cheap makes the Muse LT the least conspicuous sound card we'll be looking at today. Really, how high can your expectations be for $20 sound card that's smaller than most NICs? Not very, which makes the Muse LT an underdog of sorts.

As you can see, the Muse LT is tiny. It doesn't use a lot of chips, electronic components, or internal connectors, so even the diminutive board is sparsely populated with accompanying hardware.

Because the Muse LT uses C-Media's CMI8738 audio chip, it can get away with a pretty simple board layout. The CMI8738 is designed for low-cost audio applications, so it's built with simplicity in mind. The chip doesn't need a lot of companion hardware.

Hercules includes CD and auxiliary inputs on the Muse LT card. These inputs are mounted perpendicular to the board, which could cause clearance problems if you have a full-sized PCI card mounted directly below the Muse LT. That's nothing gingerly bending a little wire won't fix, but you should be aware of the potentially tight fit.

C-Media's 8738 powers the Muse LT and also a number of motherboards' integrated audio. The chip is a "soft audio" solution, which means that the CPU ends up doing most of the work associated with processing audio. However, the CMI8738 handles codec duties right on the chip. The 8738 chip has a maximum sampling rate and resolution of 48kHz and 16 bits, respectively. The 16-bit resolution is a little low compared with the other audio solutions we're testing today, but for a $20 sound card, I really can't complain.

When it comes to 3D positional audio, the CMI8738 supports EAX 1.0, 2.0, and A3D 1.0. As far as the major 3D audio APIs go, that's about it, although Sensaura 3D audio isn't supported. Without a center channel, the kind of sound you'll get from Dolby Surround sound is questionable, since I'm not aware of any games or movies that specifically encode for Dolby 4.1 surround sound.

The Muse LT features an all-analog array of ports on its PCI back plate. I would prefer that every sound card have a digital output, but S/PDIF outputs haven't tricked down to most $20 sound cards just yet. I suppose if you're only spending $20 on a sound card, you're probably not running speakers with a digital input anyway.

Despite the fact that other CMI8738-based sound cards support 5.1 audio channels, the Muse LT only offers access to 4.1 output channels. No center channel for you! For today's 3D games, you really don't need the center channel, but that could all change when 5.1-encoded games like Doom III come out. The Muse LT's missing center channel also makes the card less appropriate for watching DVDs, DivX movies, or other formats encoded with 5.1 audio.

Driver-wise, there's really nothing to talk about with the Muse LT. Hercules offers drivers that will let users control the Muse LT through the Windows Control Panel, but there's nothing special or extra beyond the simple functionality Windows provides with every sound card. Speaking of simplicity, the Muse LT's software bundle isn't much of a bundle at all. You get a copy of Hercules' Media Station II, which doesn't offer more in the media player department than Winamp or Windows' own media player, and that's it.