BrightSpark
New Head-Fier
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- Feb 16, 2008
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UK Only: Get your Chaintech AV-710 here!
The world of sound cards moves on,but some UK readers might still like to get their hands on a Chaintech AV-710 or at least an equivalent. That's what Maplin are selling for £19.99 and show only 38 are left in stock. See here:
Maplin > 8 Channel PCI Sound Card
I should say I have absolutely no affiliation with Maplin.
When I belatedly discovered the existence of EnvyHT-S based cards with the Wolfson DAC, I wanted one. But after searching high and low with no result, I was lucky enough to come across a s/hand card on Ebay. Now I know you can get this card from Maplin.
It is functionally and electronically equivalent to a Chaintech AV-710, it is even automatically recognised as such in recent Linux distros. Maplin sell it as a “white box” item and I believe it is the same card as once marketed as the “Typhoon Acoustic 8”. See here:
Typhoon TYPHOON ACOUSTIC 8 PCI Edition
High res image here:
Typhoon - Multimedia for living
The original source of these sound card might be “HITPOINT INC”, see here:
Product HV-7.1ch
Hitpoint refer to the card as “HV-7.1ch”, Maplin call the card “HVIA-7.1ch”.
Maplin's cards are brand new, but not necessarily newly manufactured.
The main chips are: Eny24HT-S, VT1616, WM8728, CS8415A. So unlike a Chaintech card, this one has both S/PDIF input and output.
The card installs fine in Win XP SP2 and is recognised by all the versions of the VIA drivers I have tried. I'm currently using version 3.10a. This appears to allow you to route output via the Wolfson DAC (“ALT OUT” jack ) without having to resample to 96000kHz. This is hard to verify, but when setting up the latest version of Foobar2000 with KS I get no error when listening to a 44100kHz file without using the resampling plugin. This is NOT the case if I use newer VIA drivers, then I can only use KS if I also resample to 96000kHz.
It works well in Linux as the ALSA sound module, ice1724, has now matured. But to get output via the Wolfson DAC you need a custom “asound.state” file.
This one works with version 1.0.15 of ASLA:
http://www.horrorseek.com/halloween/...nux/asound.zip
Those who know ALSA well, which is not me, can exercise fine control over the card with a custom “asoundrc” files. Examples can be found on the web.
To my ageing ears the card sound better in Linux than Windows. Currently the sound card is connected to my venerable Rotel RA-820BX3 amp and I'm listening to mostly classical music on my ancient Sony MDR-V7 (slightly higher spec than Sony MDR-V6) headphones.
Audio nirvana it may not be, but the end result is so much better than the pathetic MCP55 HDA on-board sound. If the Wolfson DAC is that good, just how good would an external DAC sound?
Perhaps a Beresford TC-7510 is the next step.
I should say that until I stumbled upon the Head-fi website about two weeks ago, I was totally ignorant of all this stuff. So I owe all contributors a big thank you for opening both my eyes and ears.
PS I needed a decent interconnect from the amp to the sound card. I took Jan Meier's website recommendation and got a UK made TECH+LINK mini jack to two phono lead. I found a good price for a 3m cable at Amazon UK, seems to be about half the price of other retailers.
I hope this info is useful to others.
The world of sound cards moves on,but some UK readers might still like to get their hands on a Chaintech AV-710 or at least an equivalent. That's what Maplin are selling for £19.99 and show only 38 are left in stock. See here:
Maplin > 8 Channel PCI Sound Card
I should say I have absolutely no affiliation with Maplin.
When I belatedly discovered the existence of EnvyHT-S based cards with the Wolfson DAC, I wanted one. But after searching high and low with no result, I was lucky enough to come across a s/hand card on Ebay. Now I know you can get this card from Maplin.
It is functionally and electronically equivalent to a Chaintech AV-710, it is even automatically recognised as such in recent Linux distros. Maplin sell it as a “white box” item and I believe it is the same card as once marketed as the “Typhoon Acoustic 8”. See here:
Typhoon TYPHOON ACOUSTIC 8 PCI Edition
High res image here:
Typhoon - Multimedia for living
The original source of these sound card might be “HITPOINT INC”, see here:
Product HV-7.1ch
Hitpoint refer to the card as “HV-7.1ch”, Maplin call the card “HVIA-7.1ch”.
Maplin's cards are brand new, but not necessarily newly manufactured.
The main chips are: Eny24HT-S, VT1616, WM8728, CS8415A. So unlike a Chaintech card, this one has both S/PDIF input and output.
The card installs fine in Win XP SP2 and is recognised by all the versions of the VIA drivers I have tried. I'm currently using version 3.10a. This appears to allow you to route output via the Wolfson DAC (“ALT OUT” jack ) without having to resample to 96000kHz. This is hard to verify, but when setting up the latest version of Foobar2000 with KS I get no error when listening to a 44100kHz file without using the resampling plugin. This is NOT the case if I use newer VIA drivers, then I can only use KS if I also resample to 96000kHz.
It works well in Linux as the ALSA sound module, ice1724, has now matured. But to get output via the Wolfson DAC you need a custom “asound.state” file.
This one works with version 1.0.15 of ASLA:
http://www.horrorseek.com/halloween/...nux/asound.zip
Those who know ALSA well, which is not me, can exercise fine control over the card with a custom “asoundrc” files. Examples can be found on the web.
To my ageing ears the card sound better in Linux than Windows. Currently the sound card is connected to my venerable Rotel RA-820BX3 amp and I'm listening to mostly classical music on my ancient Sony MDR-V7 (slightly higher spec than Sony MDR-V6) headphones.
Audio nirvana it may not be, but the end result is so much better than the pathetic MCP55 HDA on-board sound. If the Wolfson DAC is that good, just how good would an external DAC sound?
Perhaps a Beresford TC-7510 is the next step.
I should say that until I stumbled upon the Head-fi website about two weeks ago, I was totally ignorant of all this stuff. So I owe all contributors a big thank you for opening both my eyes and ears.
PS I needed a decent interconnect from the amp to the sound card. I took Jan Meier's website recommendation and got a UK made TECH+LINK mini jack to two phono lead. I found a good price for a 3m cable at Amazon UK, seems to be about half the price of other retailers.
I hope this info is useful to others.
