I purchased this card originally to replace a failing Creative Laboratories® SB0350 PCI 2.2 audio card (Creative Technology CA0102 DSP) and SB0250 I/O Drive in the Hot Rod gPC™; but it was quickly transferred from the Hot Rod to my ASUS® CM1630-06 as previously upgraded (Advanced Micro Devices® Athlon II® X2 220, RS760G/SB700 chipset, PCIe RV970 Pro GPU (aboard ASUS® EAH6850DC/2DIS/1GD5); 750W Antec® PSU) when the 6 kHz scream that randomly dogged the XONARESSENCESTX/A - which ASUSTeK engineers were never able to replicate on a consistent basis - reared its ugly head again in Microsoft® Windows® 6-up (see "Xonar Essense stx Random LOUD high pitched Ringing Noise?"). I anticipated severe digital-noise issues due to the proximity of the EAH6850DC (forced by the design of the CM1630's M4A78LT-M 'board), but these proved little worse than the XONAR's; the rear audio proved clear enough for my requirements and the front audio proved, much to my surprise, less noisy than the XONAR's. (The XONAR ended up in the Hot Rod and runs even happier on the ALSA snd-virtuoso driver in LinUX 4.4 than on the C-Media® driver in the MaxedTech® UNi XONAR Audio Software 1.82 in Windows 7.0.8001; ALSA can access and mix all inputs on the XONAR.)
The Creative Technology CA10300-IAT DSP on this card (joined to the host system with a PLX® PCIe-PCI bridge) is a product improvement of the CA0108 last used in the SB0400 Audigy2 Value and is specified for 106 dB signal/noise. This card packs an integrated headphone amplifier (unknown make and part number, rated for a 600 Ω max load) for the Front Panel header, which had no trouble at all driving my Plantronics® GAMECOM® 380 headset. In addition to two mic and one line ins, all unbalanced stereo with +3.6V for the mics, at the rear panel, the SB1550 has a clean enough Front Mic input for typical computer users on its Intel® HDA-compatible front-panel-audio header (9 of 10 pins, Pin 8 key). Analog outputs at the rear panel are Front L+R, Back L+R plus Side R, and Center + Subwoofer + Side L; a TOSLink optical send is provided for Digital Out. Creative Laboratories has full driver and application support for Windows 10.0.1nnnnn as of August 2016 for this card; initial tests of the integrated synthesizer with Cakewalk Music Creator 5.0 (a carryover from Win 7 through the dist-upgrade) under Win 10 Version 1607 10.0.14393.51 performed within spitting distance of the simulation. (The SB1550 had problems in LinUX Kernel 4.4 with an ALSA snd-emu10k1 driver originally intended for the EMU10K1, EMU10K2, CA0100 and CA0102, as the CA10300-IAT has some behavioral differences from the CA0102 at the control level; those problems don't exist with the correct Creative driver/app suite under Win 10.)
This card having no Digital In, those needing a card with a Digital In with behavior consistent with the SB1550 may be best served by the E-MU®/Creative Professional EM8984 0404e or packages based on the EM8986 1010e (both, sadly, also discontinued). The SB1270 X-Fi Titanium HD, which packs a CA20K2 DSP, is unusable in LinUX, the Advanced LinUX Sound Architecture Project having abandoned work on snd-ctxfi; and the Recon3D and Z/Zx/ZxR family are only partially supported in ALSA. Also, for a successor model to the SB1550, I have to require both shielding consistent with the SB1270 and SB1510, and re-adding a TOSlink Input for S/PDIF Audio.
The Creative Technology CA10300-IAT DSP on this card (joined to the host system with a PLX® PCIe-PCI bridge) is a product improvement of the CA0108 last used in the SB0400 Audigy2 Value and is specified for 106 dB signal/noise. This card packs an integrated headphone amplifier (unknown make and part number, rated for a 600 Ω max load) for the Front Panel header, which had no trouble at all driving my Plantronics® GAMECOM® 380 headset. In addition to two mic and one line ins, all unbalanced stereo with +3.6V for the mics, at the rear panel, the SB1550 has a clean enough Front Mic input for typical computer users on its Intel® HDA-compatible front-panel-audio header (9 of 10 pins, Pin 8 key). Analog outputs at the rear panel are Front L+R, Back L+R plus Side R, and Center + Subwoofer + Side L; a TOSLink optical send is provided for Digital Out. Creative Laboratories has full driver and application support for Windows 10.0.1nnnnn as of August 2016 for this card; initial tests of the integrated synthesizer with Cakewalk Music Creator 5.0 (a carryover from Win 7 through the dist-upgrade) under Win 10 Version 1607 10.0.14393.51 performed within spitting distance of the simulation. (The SB1550 had problems in LinUX Kernel 4.4 with an ALSA snd-emu10k1 driver originally intended for the EMU10K1, EMU10K2, CA0100 and CA0102, as the CA10300-IAT has some behavioral differences from the CA0102 at the control level; those problems don't exist with the correct Creative driver/app suite under Win 10.)
This card having no Digital In, those needing a card with a Digital In with behavior consistent with the SB1550 may be best served by the E-MU®/Creative Professional EM8984 0404e or packages based on the EM8986 1010e (both, sadly, also discontinued). The SB1270 X-Fi Titanium HD, which packs a CA20K2 DSP, is unusable in LinUX, the Advanced LinUX Sound Architecture Project having abandoned work on snd-ctxfi; and the Recon3D and Z/Zx/ZxR family are only partially supported in ALSA. Also, for a successor model to the SB1550, I have to require both shielding consistent with the SB1270 and SB1510, and re-adding a TOSlink Input for S/PDIF Audio.
