I have one of these cards in the closet, used it a while back with my AV receiver.
Is it still possible to get wolfson output in windows 7 64-bit? Does the "black" jack work OK with low impedence headphones?
I know this is going back a bit, but let's keep in mind that soundcards should be regarded as a "Source". Even though they are marketed with the ability to output to mild headphones, I would suggest disregarding this feature. Ideally, you would output from your soundcard to either a dedicated headphone amplifier or preamp of sorts. For instance, I have an M-Audio Delta 410, which uses the core Envy24 processor, and is actually superior to all other revisions of the Envy24 if you're looking for pure sound quality. That said, the Envy24 HT-S which you'll find on the AV-710 is not a bad chip, just not quite the professional-grade of the core Envy24. Anyway, I output my Delta 410 over analog to a Yamaha C-65 preamplifier, which has a very good headphone output stage IMO. At the very least, the preamp pairs very well with my Sony MDR-V700's. I went from an X-Fi Extreme Music to this Delta 410, and the difference in sound quality is ridiculous--the M-Audio card sounds amazing.
I also happen to have an AV-710 sitting, here on my desk. I haven't had a chance to run it in my current system, yet. However, when I do I will have every intention of recapping it with film capacitors in the output stage. And some power stiffening with small polymers or low-impedance electrolytics is in order. I can tell you that changing the capacitors on the power traces (V+ rails) can make a huge difference. When I used Panasonic FM's and FC's on the power traces of an SbLive!, it made the output very black (read: quiet) when there was silence.
One thing I do notice about my AV-710 though is it's a 5V PCI card, and does not have the dual slots to signify 3.3V and 5V ability. I can't remember if the potential problem is newer motherboards not having +5V on PCI or older motherboards not having +3.3V. I know not having +12V over ISA became a problem on later ISA-equipped motherboards.
Anyway, hope people keep those Envy24 cards alive as they are still nicer than most of the newer cards for Stereo listening.
Matthew
