[renugaid]

Auzentech, Inc. Sound Cards. Audio You Can Believe In. World First soundcards for Music, HTPC, and Gaming.

This is bound to be the new king of sound cards.

I'm most interested in the internal conection between this and the upcoming NVIDIA cards that will most likely be taking advantage of the HDMI port in unison. It seems to me that the companies that have the market right now are starting to exert their dominance by giving consumers more reasons to bypass their competitors. Nvidia have Ati beat hands down for any consumers that value both audio and visual quality due to their exclusive rights to this linkage. Auzentech and Creative's developments are making sure they both have there fair share of the market as well as giving the "hybrid" card option utilising the best of both worlds. It'll be interesting to see how this set up will work. I've been meaning to upgrade to a Prelude for a while now but September isn't too far away and a full overhaul of my PC will surely include this and the new GTX 280.

What's your take?

 

[Nocturnal310]

I saw it yesterday at some PC show.

looks like it could own any soundcard out there.


But there werent many buyers around due to the price tag.

also because its PCI-Express.

 

[ROBSCIX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nocturnal310 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I saw it yesterday at some PC show. looks like it could own any soundcard out there. But there werent many buyers around due to the price tag. also because its PCI-Express.

I think you must be mistaken or confusing this card with another. This card has been in the works for awhile but just announced to the public today. This card has not been seen at any computer shows and no price has been announced.

not many buyers because it is PCI-E? Plain old PCI is being phased out. I hope it would be a PCI-E card.

 

[yuckymucky]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ROBSCIX /img/forum/go_quote.gif Plain old PCI is being phased out. I hope it would be a PCI-E card.

Old PCI is being phased out but until we get some good motherboard designs out there PCIe isn't going to catch on huge. I have a 8800GTX in my machine and I can't fit a PCIe card in because the heat sink covers the slot.

I have the Prelude and honestly it is a great card.....but I think that with my next machine I am just going to stay with onboard audio.

 

[ROBSCIX]

Onboard?.....Sorry to hear that.

 

[darkswordsman17]

I would assume the card needs to be PCI-e in order to support merging the video and audio streams to output it via HDMI. Considering the major point of this is that you can then stream lossless surround formats as well, I'd guess the extra bandwidth comes in handy. ASUS has a new Xonar that can do that as well.

 

[renugaid]

Quote:

Originally Posted by darkswordsman17 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I would assume the card needs to be PCI-e in order to support merging the video and audio streams to output it via HDMI. Considering the major point of this is that you can then stream lossless surround formats as well, I'd guess the extra bandwidth comes in handy. ASUS has a new Xonar that can do that as well.

I've read that the Xonar's are based off the Auzentech X-meridian chipset. Someone even found a line in the Xonar ini that stated that it was. The new Xonar uses the same chip so it would likely be similar with some tweaks to the PCB components. Auzentech really has their foot in every niche of extended computer sound boards! The Xonar, the Ati HD3850/70's included sound output, the collaboration with Creative for the X-Fi Prelude, and now the exclusive internal connection for upcoming Nvidia cards. Not to mention their own highly touted line of sound cards. If they aren't THE best developers of soundcard options, they definitely are the best marketing strategists to have cornered such a wide section of the computer enthusiast market.

 

[ROBSCIX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by renugaid /img/forum/go_quote.gif I've read that the Xonar's are based off the Auzentech X-meridian chipset. Someone even found a line in the Xonar ini that stated that it was. The new Xonar uses the same chip so it would likely be similar with some tweaks to the PCB components. Auzentech really has their foot in every niche of extended computer sound boards! The Xonar, the Ati HD3850/70's included sound output, the collaboration with Creative for the X-Fi Prelude, and now the exclusive internal connection for upcoming Nvidia cards. Not to mention their own highly touted line of sound cards. If they aren't THE best developers of soundcard options, they definitely are the best marketing strategists to have cornered such a wide section of the computer enthusiast market.

Your 100% right. The Xonar was built on the 8788 chipset...which was the same chipset used on the original Auzen X-Meridian 7.1 The driver are C-Media based and have C-Media and 8788 written all through the drivers..

 

[ROBSCIX]

Auzen fans, I came by some new information including a quality pic and FULL specifications I posted it in the forums. This info helps answer some questions about this upcoming card. Here is the thread if you want to check it out: LINK

 

[renugaid]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ROBSCIX /img/forum/go_quote.gif Auzen fans, I came by some new information including a quality pic and FULL specifications I posted it in the forums. This info helps answer some questions about this upcoming card. Here is the thread if you want to check it out: LINK

Nice find Rob!

I'm waiting for a good pic of the I/O jacks and connectors and especially any info or pics of the connection to nvidia cards.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Quote:

Originally Posted by renugaid /img/forum/go_quote.gif I've read that the Xonar's are based off the Auzentech X-meridian chipset. Someone even found a line in the Xonar ini that stated that it was. The new Xonar uses the same chip so it would likely be similar with some tweaks to the PCB components. Auzentech really has their foot in every niche of extended computer sound boards! The Xonar, the Ati HD3850/70's included sound output, the collaboration with Creative for the X-Fi Prelude, and now the exclusive internal connection for upcoming Nvidia cards. Not to mention their own highly touted line of sound cards. If they aren't THE best developers of soundcard options, they definitely are the best marketing strategists to have cornered such a wide section of the computer enthusiast market.

Yeah, Auzentech has done a nice job offering viable alternatives to Creative, and also improving the overall sound card market. They do fall a bit short in one important area and that is driver support. This might have changed, but they were having almost as much trouble as Creative when Vista came out, and I've heard consistent issues with their software overall (minor bugs here and there mostly), although not nearly as bad as Creative, and they're a fairly young company in this market so its to be expected.

As for ASUS, they use some of the same chipsets as Auzentech (there was one that was very popular for a bit there, as several companies had $150+ sound cards using it). I believe ASUS is supposed to have a dedicated staff doing driver/software support for the Xonar cards, which seems to be helping. I think they have even been working to add EAX 5 effects (which considering their cards don't have an X-Fi chip it was designed for is a bit of a feat).

It's nice to see some actual development/competition in the PC audio world, that is for sure.

 

[renugaid]

Quote:

Originally Posted by darkswordsman17 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yeah, Auzentech has done a nice job offering viable alternatives to Creative, and also improving the overall sound card market. They do fall a bit short in one important area and that is driver support. This might have changed, but they were having almost as much trouble as Creative when Vista came out, and I've heard consistent issues with their software overall (minor bugs here and there mostly), although not nearly as bad as Creative, and they're a fairly young company in this market so its to be expected. As for ASUS, they use some of the same chipsets as Auzentech (there was one that was very popular for a bit there, as several companies had $150+ sound cards using it). I believe ASUS is supposed to have a dedicated staff doing driver/software support for the Xonar cards, which seems to be helping. I think they have even been working to add EAX 5 effects (which considering their cards don't have an X-Fi chip it was designed for is a bit of a feat). It's nice to see some actual development/competition in the PC audio world, that is for sure.

Vista doesn't warrant much new over XP yet and even dx10 is a let down. I'd say its not so much a driver issue rather than a Vista issue. With the way Auzentech is advancing, I'd bet that further down the track they become a supergiant like Nvidia just buying the competition out. But thats just a theory hahaha.

 

[ROBSCIX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by renugaid /img/forum/go_quote.gif Nice find Rob! I'm waiting for a good pic of the I/O jacks and connectors and especially any info or pics of the connection to nvidia cards.

I added more info as this is a combo card so it has both digital and full analog output. If you check the picture you see a D-Sub connector at the bottom of the I/O section this is where a analog I/O break out cable connects to.
which has 4 line outs, 1 mic input, 1 line input. As I noted in the thread I will keep the information updated as best I can.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Quote:

Originally Posted by renugaid /img/forum/go_quote.gif Vista doesn't warrant much new over XP yet and even dx10 is a let down. I'd say its not so much a driver issue rather than a Vista issue. With the way Auzentech is advancing, I'd bet that further down the track they become a supergiant like Nvidia just buying the competition out. But thats just a theory hahaha.

Actually most of the issues you hear about Vista are driver issues (some independent firm actually said that up to I think 85% of Vista problems can be traced back to poorly written drivers, which is not Microsoft's fault since developers have really dragged their feet on writing competent Vista drivers). In fact a big part of the reason that DX10 has been a "let down" is because of video drivers (nVidia alone I think was blamed for 35% or so of said driver issues), neither ATi nor nVidia have really gotten the hang of it yet. It didn't help that they both made some pretty significant architectural changes right around that time as well (the shift to stream processing).

The audio problems can also be traced back to drivers pretty easily. Creative was the giant when it came to PC audio cards and I don't think I need to say much about them and drivers. Most of the other companies are smaller and so aren't that great on drivers as it is.

Auzentech has a long way to go before they'll be anywhere near Creative, let alone nVidia, AMD, or Intel. They're making solid progress, but audio on computers seems to be changing as well. Look at this new card and the main thing about it is the fact that it can pass lossless surround streams to receivers. It's not going to be that long before this will be something a lot more common (since video cards, and even onboard audio will likely add newer HDMI protocols). I think it more likely that Auzentech would remain more of a niche company, or be bought out by a larger company, than for them to become big on their own.

 

[renugaid]

Quote:

Originally Posted by darkswordsman17 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Actually most of the issues you hear about Vista are driver issues (some independent firm actually said that up to I think 85% of Vista problems can be traced back to poorly written drivers, which is not Microsoft's fault since developers have really dragged their feet on writing competent Vista drivers). In fact a big part of the reason that DX10 has been a "let down" is because of video drivers (nVidia alone I think was blamed for 35% or so of said driver issues), neither ATi nor nVidia have really gotten the hang of it yet. It didn't help that they both made some pretty significant architectural changes right around that time as well (the shift to stream processing). The audio problems can also be traced back to drivers pretty easily. Creative was the giant when it came to PC audio cards and I don't think I need to say much about them and drivers. Most of the other companies are smaller and so aren't that great on drivers as it is. Auzentech has a long way to go before they'll be anywhere near Creative, let alone nVidia, AMD, or Intel. They're making solid progress, but audio on computers seems to be changing as well. Look at this new card and the main thing about it is the fact that it can pass lossless surround streams to receivers. It's not going to be that long before this will be something a lot more common (since video cards, and even onboard audio will likely add newer HDMI protocols). I think it more likely that Auzentech would remain more of a niche company, or be bought out by a larger company, than for them to become big on their own.

True that problems are that drivers aren't made well for Vista, but the fact that hardware audio had to be switched to OpenAL for Vista means that something definitely went wrong for the OS. Maybe they intended this change but it surely wasn't a great idea on their part. Microsoft has been very savvy knowing they stuffed up by trying to be too intuitive and have already made many things exclusive to Vista in a ploy to get more people using the OS. Sure drivers will mature in time, but its already been out for quite awhile and windows 7 is only a couple or so years away. I doubt any OS has been as much of a flop as Vista has. DX10 as a let down for me was not the performance ratio to DX9. It was the quality ratio. There just isn't much substantially different that DX10 has shown that hasn't already been done in DX9. Crysis can run at DX10 IQ on DX9. Any difference is ever so slight that in motion it's not noticeable. XP still reigns supreme in my books and the only way I'd have Vista on my system is if its my second boot on a dual boot system. Had it in dual boot b4 and saw no benefits in it so back to single boot XP. DX10, triple sli, hybrid technology and what not are tempting but not essential. That pretty much sums up Vista for me.

As for Auzentech, niche they may be, but I doubt they'd be bought by another company with their stakes in so many products right now. HDMI and lossless streaming may be their newest addition, but their card is still the most complete audio pc extension available. I dont think anybody will be able to challenge that even when HDMI becomes a standard audio socket. Not for a good deal of time anyway.

But who knows? Maybe tomorrow Vista will suddenly be the best option, Auzentech be bought by Nvidia, HDMI become obsolete, etc. haha we can only wait and see aye?