what about hooking the Live Drive to the Tube amp or Tube Pre-amp, here's a great Tube website,

go there check it out at;
http://www.decware.com/tubes.htm
they make incredibly good tube amps as a kitset and sure prove you dont need $$$$ but
hmmmm like I said the live drive to this?????

Just to say MAYBE that just MAYBE you dont need to havva that expensive P4 mobo........
and use the livedrive to 'bridge' this
yell at me all you like if i dunno wadda im saying , well so Be it, who cares? im just mouthing off ideas
ps. just because it is marketed thay way doesn't mean its have to be that way
i betcha lots smartarse have done something similar,
come on out ! tell us your stories - not fairy tales OK?

[q] Tube amplifiers are generally known to have superior sound quality [/q]

That's a matter of opinion... in my mind, the perfect amplifier does only that, amplify the sound.

In that sense, tube amps are terrible - but they do manage to color the sound in a way that's pleasing to the ear.

They're low fidelity, but the ear seems to like it.

In any case, tube amps on a motherboard are interesting.

[q]Maybe the suckiness of AC97 has been due to the poor amplifier circuitry commonly used, and not the output itself?[/q]

This would be correct. The C-Media chip actually has it's codec built into the DSP creating a single chip card. If you take a look at cards such as the GTXP, Santa Cruz, Creative Labs Live! or Audigy, and even the nForce you will find that they all have a DSP which does host processing for a series of [b]AC97 codec/b].

My understanding is this:

Shielding from external EMI and crosstalk between channels is important. You also want well regulated power control. You don't want signals sagging or spiking you want them to remain constant and steady.

For example:

http://www.headphone.com/layout.php?topicID=20&subTopicID=77

The AOpen board seems to have provided power regulation far in excess of what your garden variety mobo plus integrated AC97 codec comes with. From the given discussion though, it seems the design is limited to stereo and may have external EMI issues. Assuming that external EMI isn't a problem this might be nice from a good set of headphones.

For most though digital out to a nice receiver will probably give better sound.

Oh, ok Forge. I have no idea about the source. We should find out soon, but going by the few photos is kind of pointless to try and 'see' the source chip.

The AOpen site says:

[q]A separate input connector is also provided allowing users with existing sound card's output going through the tube amplification to achieve desire tube tonality. This design allows millions of users out there with their existing sound card to be working with AX4B-533Tube in tandem.[/q]

But they do not say what the onboard input consists of. Possibly the AC97 output from the ICH4? hhmmm. Maybe the suckiness of AC97 has been due to the poor amplifier circuitry commonly used, and not the output itself? Also, the tube circuit seems to be only for the 2 front channels.

To be honest, I really don't see something like this catching on. I just think the idea is very cool.

MMO - I'm not knocking the tube amp, I'm knocking the source. On board audio is invariably made o fairly cheap stuffs, and I don't see even a Creative or C-Media chip on that board. Where's the high quality source to be fed into this high-quality amp?

I´ve heard of full digital impulse amplifiers lately. They seem to be very powerfull and cool-running, sound almost like tube amplifiers and are not expensive to produce. I´ve read a test of the first to come - with a price range from €700 up to €15.000.

Hopefully this technology will find its way into mobos, too.

Forge, have you ever heard a tube amplifier? Granted an on-board one probably would not compare to a discrete pre-amp/amp set-up, but don't assue that tube amps in general are worse than solid-state, especially without having heard one.

Nothing like running onboard audio through a tube amp. :)

Isn't that kind of like putting really nice whitewalls on a wheelbarrow, or wagon wheels on a Porsche?

#23, if you actually read about the board instead of guessing you would find out that the tube is for the on-board audio. Tube amplifiers are generally known to have superior sound quality; they are richer, fuller, and more vibrant. You really have to hear one to understand the difference, it just does not come out in specs or graphs.

It looks like the tubes are just power regulation.

In other words, vaporware

Aren't Tachyons time particles, similar to the theoretical light particles?

Originally Posted by xylker
I think the name tachyon was a feeble attempt at getting you to believe that it was REALLY fast, actually, faster than light, fast....

IIRC tachyon is the name for a theoretical (hoped for?) particle that is capable of FTL travel.

Just imagine accidently dropping a screwdriver inside your case with a vacuum tube in it. Instead of bouncing off a capacitor and a PCI slot you get a shower of glass.

[q][q]Vacume tube mother board. Not sure if its a joke or not.[/q]
Seems to be real.[/q]

Not enough tubes. If it's not a joke on us, it's a joke on them.

[q]Tyan was on hand to announce their entry into the graphics card market with the SavageXP-based Tachyon 3300.[/q]
Snort. The name Tachyon hardly has the connotation of reliable performance. You'd think they could have come up with a better name.

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MzAy

Kyle's got some info up about the AOpen board.

[q]Vacume tube mother board. Not sure if its a joke or not. [/q]Great. Now I've got to add [i]vacuum[/i] tubes to my spare parts inventory. What's next, the return of magnetic core memory?

Originally Posted by xylker
Ryu,
I can not remember if you were/are working in a system integration capacity, but in the retail maket I have not seen anyone implement the 56k modem portion of the MCP. I say that because I was looking for a board like that, but went with MSI 420. Could you please clarify the statement of ALL nForce abilities being implemented by mobo maker?

Thanks

[q]Vacume tube mother board. Not sure if its a joke or not.[/q]

Seems to be real. Check out their main page. It's the first press release link:

http://www.aopen.com/

They give quite a bit of detail.

You could try this
http://club.aopen.com.tw/News/News_showAnswer_Old.asp?RecNo=713&Lan...

Vacume tube mother board. Not sure if its a joke or not.

becubed

one word,FINALY. we needed some more sound card compatition,i mean there were only !3! good sounds out there,Audigy,GTXP,and the nforce onboard sound. at least in terms of none-pro chips. FINALY some compatition
-------------
Add some more to that. C-Media's stuff, as well as the many Yamaha-based solutions. They are all great. I'm probably missing some others...

Originally Posted by zenith
one word,FINALY. we needed some more sound card compatition,i mean there were only !3! good sounds out there,Audigy,GTXP,and the nforce onboard sound. at least in terms of none-pro chips. FINALY some compatition

Maybe a VIA soundcard manufactured by the likes of ASUS, Abit, MSI, etc etc, would be good? I am sure all the Taiwanese manufacturers would love a stab at the soundcard market from a company with the marketing connections of VIA.

The only reason why I have a creative card is for the live drive, it is a peace of genius. I use all the connectors apart from the spdif in/out. The optical in/outs are very useful for my minidisc deck and portables. Also when i want to play counter-strike with the mic i just plug it in the front, and use the volume control to alter both the input from the mic and the headphone output volume.

Originally Posted by patrickr
#3

why not just get a turtle beach sound card or...a hercules gtxp??
I have a GTXP and i love it!!!

[q]None of the OEMs trusted it enough to bother implementing it, and Linux support was nil.[/q]

Only the Asus A7N266 did not use the nForce APU. The A7N266-E, -C, and -VM, the MSI K7N420 and 415, the Abit NV7M and NV7-133R, and the Leadtek K7N420DA and K7N415DA all implement the nForce APU.

Linux support for audio is limited to AC97 support. The NIC I do not believe has been given a driver yet.

[q]Most of the nForce boards I saw were using Realtek LAN and AC97 audio, has that changed?[/q]

The Asus series boards ship with LAN optional and the LAN models do use a Realtek 8139 instead of the nForce NIC. The MSI, Abit, and Leadtek models all use the nForce NIC, but some of them use a Realtek PHY to interface with the nForce NIC. The Realtek PHY is just a interface layer, not the NIC itself.

[q]Has someone put out a mobo using all of nForce's functionality? I'd sure be interested.[/q]

MSI, Abit, and Leadtek.

The problem I saw with nForce's audio:

None of the OEMs trusted it enough to bother implementing it, and Linux support was nil.

Most of the nForce boards I saw were using Realtek LAN and AC97 audio, has that changed? Has someone put out a mobo using all of nForce's functionality? I'd sure be interested.

[q]whatever happened to the nForce’s onboard sound.[/q]

It was already very competitive in sound output compared to commercial sound cards and it's CPU usage was better than the Audigy. There isn't a whole lot they can do to it other than improve the fidelity, which would basically mean having manufacturers implement better board designs and use better codecs. Honestly, that's a choice the manufacturers could make now. The problem is I doubt manufacturers will see demand within a large enough audience to justify improving the APU past commercial quality. The APU remains a 5.1 analog or digital solution with Dolby capabilities.

If you are looking for sound better than the Santa Cruz, Live!, Audigy or nForce there are some professional cards out on the market.

Originally Posted by dmonsees
Speaking of onboard sound chips, whatever happened to the nForce’s onboard sound. There are a ton of new nForce pictures and spec sheets going around at Computex, but no mention of the onchip sound, just that 6-channel audio is still there. So is the onchip sound any good? Did nVidia improve on it?

I desperately want to get rid of this Live! Card… must purge all Creative junk out of my box… stupid gay drivers… so lazy…