I can't believe what I am reading here.
Are we talking about really high quality cards or not?

If yes, audio fidelity and quality is tested against ... ABIT speakers?
Are we joking here?

I was expecting to see balanced audio outputs with XLR connectors and instead see that the cards sport standard 3.5mm mini stereo connectors!

I was also waiting to see audio tests performed on studio monitors (Genelec? Mackie? Event? ...) and instead I see tests performed on Abit speakers ...

Asus (and Techreport) should relabel this sound card as high quality GAMERS sound card. For the price range you can get decent audio cards that have been tested against serious audio equipment for serious audio quality.

I installed my d2x last night and am extremely impressed.

Doesn't the D2x have Asio 2.0, which provides hardware layer access "ASIO 2.0 support, which bypasses the OS kernel to provide an extremely low latency direct sound communication " http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/01/13/asus_xonar_d2x_pci-expr...

It also appears to do 3d positioning well.
"Asus’ DS3D GX which is designed to convert DirectSound and EAX (up to 2.0) to work in the new OpenAL sound model in Vista. It’s just like Creative ’s Alchemy solution, except this is free and it’s designed to work with everything."

-Gandoron

Delay? might be system issue, I'm using my Xonar D2X to do the recording a lot, but seems not an issue to me.

The CMI8788 cards have one major caveate and is that they all have a noticeable delay in its audio output. If you have a 8788 card and have ever used a microphone through it while monitoring the sound, you will hear a distinct delay in the audio (you voice will be heard about 50ms after you start saying something).

This makes it unuseable for recording (while monitoring) and could prove unuseable for playing rythem based games like Guitar hero 3. There is no way to get around this inherent audio delay, even if you use only straight stereo without any DSP/surround/eq functions.

Because of this, I actually had to return my 8788 based card (bluegears b-inspirer) and bought the Prelude x-fi.

What this article has given me is another reason never to upgrade to Vista. I value positional audio in games waaaaay too much to throw that out for some DRM to protect my content... from me.

Perhaps TR should consider turning back the dial to XP in tests. Pretty much anyone that knows anything about computers wont upgrade to Vista, even some people I know who recieved new computers with Vista on it bought copies of XP to put on them. There is the select few tech savy users that pledge that its the next greatest thing and worth the upgrade, but then again there was a crowd that thought ME was great too.

In the listening tests, Geoff should've submitted the testers to gaming experiences in XP and in Vista. I know hardcore gamers that would changes operating systems for better positional and submerssive audio. Also using a good pair of headphones makes quite a bit of difference over speakers, although not as good for group shindigs.

wait a second.... I thought the only reason that Doom 3 et al. had anything todo with creative was that they threatened to sue over a bogus patent? I'm pretty sure the origanal D3 engine did all the sound stuff in software.

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/7113

There are several big problems with the Prelude, which are mostly driver related.
*disclaimer* only tested on xp64, may work different for xp32 or vista.

*playback of surround AC3/AAC does not play all channels correctly.
edit:latest driver fixes this bug.
the bug would play stereo over 5.1 and then up-mix it with cmss.

*latest driver constantly crashes 32-bit games with EAX or OpenAL.
also, horrendous audio distortion.
I can quit quake4 and start up prey, and prey will play quake4 sound effects.
UT3 crashed and actually rebooted my computer.

*EAX does not work. No eax games will properly detect and playback on the Prelude, while OpenAL works fine.
(could be because the prelude is not detected/compatible as a creative card to keep people from using the stock creative drivers, or they just didn't implement EAX in the driver.)

*missing X-FI/dolby features:
THX setup console. (which is listed as a feature in the volume tray, but not actually included.)
Dolby Digital ES and DTS-EX not included.
DVD-audio player.

*Not Expansion bay compatible.
The prelude is probably capable, but not compatible, as they purposely left out support for the original expansion bay, for their own useless proprietary expansion card.

Looking over the graphs, I was wondering something. What's up with the 1KHz spike in THD? Looks like either a measurement artifact, or a defective card?

#83, it should - they both based on the CMI 8788 audio chip. The A200 is basically a re branded 8788.

It proves that Creative aren't the only audio company with ballz. ;)

Thanks for the nicely written article. To me, sound card reviews are some of the most interesting. What I would like to see, however, are reviews of professional audio interface cards that appeal to not just musicians but also audiophiles hi-fi enthusiasts. Such cards as the M-Audio Audiophile 2496 and E-MU 0404 PCI ought to offer a more-discernible advantage in sound quality when compared against consumer sound cards.

Please consider this a most-serious request. Thank you, Geoff.

Wow! I like the idea of LED-Color guide.
Awesome!

Im very happy with my Xonar D2. NEVER gave any problems and all games work in hardware acceleration mode in my Vista x64 Ultimate.

The reason EAX doesn't work is because the HAL was removed from Vista to move the driver closer to user mode.

That said, all games will sound awesome on any of the cards reviewed. It all comes down to what the user can hear ;)

Can someone please explain the EAX / Vista issue for me?

I know a little bit, I think but perhaps not enough or not clearly.
Microsoft have blocked it working but why?
To what advantage, is it to force standards so that in 1 - 2 or 3 years time, games will support a new audio API which isn't locked to creative? (or 2.0 EAX emulation?)

Will there ever be an X-Fi EAX card, on a PCI-e interface with DD encoding?

It's still a mystery to me why, when we're talking about video transfer rates in the GB/s range, we're still stuck with a surround sound algorithm that feels it necessary to compress bitstreams that (uncompressed) are less than 400kB/s for a 4.1 setup.

Very OT, but the sound in movie theatres has stunk for a long time. They need to move the audio data off the film and onto a separate media where they can keep uncompressed sound. An entire film's worth of uncompressed 7.1 output would fit on a single DVD.

#64,
I was wondering the same :wacko:

I traded my old DMX 6-fire for an X-fi Xtreme Music shortly after they were launched and I still regret that decision to this day. I wasn't exactly an avid gamer, but I read some reviews that praised the X-Fi and my box was affected by a strange bug, where sound would freeze for 10-15 seconds.

It was very annoying and I thought the main culprit was the 6-fire. It took me a while to realize that the video card was the problem (stupid no-namers... It was a "Sparkle". I'm never buying one again).

The X-Fi proved good, but nowhere near the 6-fire in terms of music and movie playback. It sounds tinny, a lot more "artificial" and "robotic" in a nice pair of 100 $ headphones. I'm sure using some nice opamps like the LM4562, which is about the best you can get these days, favors the X-Fi quite a bit, but I'm still not convinced that the DSP itself is the best you can get if you're not into gaming.

As a music lover, I'd go for the Auzen Meridian or one of the Envy-24 based boards (M-Audio mainly, Revo or Audiophile).

Looking at RMAA's playback results, I see almost no difference between 16/44 and 24/96. Why? There should be a HUGE difference in noise levels, if nothing else. Does Vista force resampling? Is RMAA broken? I don't know what to think at this time.

Nice job - it's been quite a while since I've seen a comprehensive soundcard review/comparison.

You didn't mention whether you used DDL or DTS interactive in the game tests surely they would make the most difference since the encoding is done entirely in software. Also you mentioned the lack of supported games for alchemy, you can add games to the list yourself and BF2 would not be supported anyway because it uses Open AL.

BTW the only reason the floppy power connector is on the Xonar is because the C-Media Oxygen chip needs the 5v it would usually receive from the PCI slot – nothing to do with power consumption.

Forgive the newb questions.. but i am planning a new machine build soon (current machine is 3 years old so i'm a bit behind)

I was planning to go to vista 64bit (64bit becuase my build will have 4GB of ram) and a creative X-Fi card

After reading the above (concerning UAA) am i better off using XP 64bit instead? Will EAX be negitated if i use vista? As you can guess im a little confused about UAA and what it means exactly... any clarification would be a big help

thanks!

P.S.. i forgot to mention my primary use for my new machine will be gaming

Great review.

Regarding the dedicated power connector on the Xonar -- I'll bet they used it because it is easier to get clean power that way. A direct connection back to the PSU will probably be less affected by noise on the power rail(s) generated by other components on the motherboard.

I also have to agree with #37. The Realtek codec -- while not stellar -- does surprisingly well, especially given how little respect Realtek gets. This supports something I've been saying for a couple of years now -- specifically, that the quality of the motherboard's audio implementation matters as much as the specific codec used. Yes, Realtek makes budget audio codecs; but this isn't the problem per se. The problem is that they tend to be used on budget motherboards, where the vendor has cut corners on the design of the audio section. It's kind of like how AMD's CPUs had a reputation for poor stability back in the K6-x days; the problem wasn't the CPUs themselves, it was the fact that they tended to be used in cheap, off-brand systems with sub-standard motherboards and RAM.

nice. i appreciate this review as its almost time to start thinking about a new system build .. which will involve a new sound card.

its very funny, today my wife sent me a email saying that she wants to go out for dinner, get roses, and chocolates for Valentines day this year. For the first time in our marriage. So i was just looking around newegg for a sound card for her to buy me in exchange. My last card was a audigy, which i have had for atleast 5 years. And I was wondering what was a good sound card to buy now days. Then I came back to TR to look for the old sound card reviews, and low and behold they have fresh new ones. MY lucky day!

thanks TR,

great timing

Geoff, in terms of sound quality, how does the Asus Xonar compare to the Terratec DMX 6fire 24/96? It appears they were both at the top of the pack when reviewed by TR, but is one markedly better than the other?

considering that the d2x costs more than the prelude here in canada, I'd rather waste my money on a x-fi card. hardware acceleration does matter, well to me, anywayz. too bad the prelude doesnt have the hot-plug connector like the x-fi elite.

I think the winner here is the ALC889. It makes a damn good showing considering it's free with my GA-G33M-S2. I did some RMAA and listening tests between it and my old Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card when i got the new mobo, and saw no compelling reason to move the card over.

It beats the Xonar in acceleration and it beats or ties the Craptive X-Fi based cards in most of the sound quality tests relevant to my usage. It consumes less power...doesn't block ventilation from my graphics card... what a gem. ;)

Just my two bits.

The new audio stack sucks in Vista. Try doing something that is hard drive intensive while playing audio (like installing a program). The audio spits and studders. I am running a P35 chipset with a Q6600, so I know that I have the horsepower. I have also had the same problem with Via chipsets. I have tried a Creative X-FI, Montego, Audigy, Realtek HD onboard audio. They all do the samething. Microsoft really messed up, taking out the direct access to the kernal. Hopefully service pack one will fix the problem, but I doubt it.

Just throwing in my two cents... I see Hubick asked already, but about the DDL feature on the Prelude... does it work? Does it to anything to performance?

Related to that: this didn't occur to me when the card was released, but if Auzen is added DDL / DTS Connect support via drivers, it seems pretty obvious that the same support could be added to regular X-Fi drivers if Creative would put forth the effort. Do those Prelude drivers with DDL work with a regular X-Fi, or, alternately, has Creative said why they didn't want to add these features?

Lastly... since there's talk of Open standards (OpenAL)... it might be of use to anyone reading this article that the Xonar card is supported in Linux and I think will be included with the next ALSA release (1.0.16). The driver (snd-virtuoso, related to but not the same as snd-oxygen) is available now, though, if you'd rather just use it directly. Info is on the ALSA project website, under soundcards/cmedia. The X-Fi Prelude would, I think, be limited by Creative's practically nonexistent X-Fi Linux support, as their current (64-bit only, beta quality, lacking in features) driver isn't worth the effort required to make it function.

Totally OT, but has anyone been able to get the multi-streaming audio to work? I have an IP35 Pro and I've tried to get the multi streaming working with no luck. It'd be nice to use the front panel jacks for Ventrilo or Teamspeak and rear jacks for my speaker system.

Did the automatic port detection work for you? In my six months with Vista and two Creative sound cards I could never get it to switch between headphones and speakers.

Crappy Vista audio is the main reason I went back to XP.