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AuzenTech HDA X-Plosion 7.1 DTS Connect is the most anticipated 'World first', high quality, Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect logo certified sound card for your PC. It sounds phenomenal and is feature rich.

Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1

• This sound card, when it comes to listening to music or playing a game, is simply superb. Sadly, the line-in microphone jack is crap. It seems AuzenTech decided to inform people that using a line-in mic, in combination with this sound card, is a bad idea. After a lot of people complained about it.
• Furthermore, AUZENTECH is the first third-party company to release a Creative X-Fi sound cards with DDL & DTS Connect features (X-Fi™ Prelude, X-Fi™ Forte), and the first company to demonstrate a fully compliant HDMI™ 1.3 soundcard (X-Fi™ HomeTheater HD). AUZENTECH's sole purpose is to offer innovative, feature-rich products and solutions.

Info: Auzentech
Price: $199 USD

Introduction

This is the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1. After writing off the sound card market again after Vista got rid of DirectSound, I get another email. It’s Hilbert. Coming to California again ? Nope. Auzentech’s got another sound card, this time they’re using X-Fi parts. My torpor faded rather fast.

A show of hands, please. How many people here have heard of Creative? Hm? Ah, the dude from Norway’s making a joke. Dude. Right, everybody knows by now that Creative is the company that makes the X-Fi. What you probably don’t know is that Creative has never licensed any of its chips to 3^rd parties, until now. This is quite an occasion, really (Hilbert: actually some Live! silicon was embedded on some mainboards, but soundcards I agree).

I hear it took some doing, though. Since business deals are rarely pretty, and the people at Auzentech are really nice, I had to wonder about this one. How did they do it? Whatever the events, in the end Auzentech convinced Creative that they should let them use their chips. Based on their last sound card, the X-Meridian (basically the best sound card I’ve ever tested, even if it did hog CPU), I had faith that Auzentech would do well.

For their next card Auzentech took the heart of the X-Fi and created a super-bionic X-Fi, the X-Fi Prelude. They have replaced almost every part of the original X-Fi and fitted it with upgraded parts all around the Creative’s CA20K APU. The digital-to-analog converters (DAC) are now high-quality AKM parts. The op-amp on the front channels are now upgradable. This is no ordinary sound card.

One thing is perfectly clear: this thing promises to be a karaoke monster.

Next page please.

Introduction

Introduction
Before getting stuck into this review, I want to take you back in time with me for a moment. It won't take long I promise...
Prior to the early 1990's, PC's had little capacity to output sound beyond basic beeps. The sound card as we know it was popularised by Creative Labs at the start of the 90s with its range of Sound Blaster products. The SoundBlaster became a de- facto standard for amateur audiophiles, gamers, and home users, and was quickly emulated by other hardware manufacturers. The product line has continued to evolve, but other manufacturers have also come and gone and subsequently been swallowed by Creative. Hardware manufacturers like Terratec, AOpen, Hercules, Philips, M-Audio have all either fallen by the wayside or vanished into total obscurity.

Auzentech Sound Cards & Media Devices Driver Download

For a while the sound card market appeared to stagnate, until an innovative manufacturer named Auzentech arrived on the scene. Within quick succession, Auzentech released sound cards that began to reinvigorate the market...namely the X-Plosion, X-Mystique and finally the X-Meridian. Utilising alternative C-Media chipsets, Auzentech began to secure a solid following and fan-base for both their quality, performance and innovation.
Auzentech's X-Meridian sound card also had the dubious honour of going head-to-head with Creative's latest offering...the Creative X-Fi. However, Creative seemed to be having a change of heart from their attitude of the past and were having a change of direction. Last year the PC enthusiast community began to hear rumours that Creative were going to begin licensing their audio chipsets. Whether Auzentech's surge in popularity had anything to with this is purely speculative, but I would be prepared to wager on it.
Subsequently, Auzentech were given the license to start producing their own range of X-Fi based sound cards and the rumour mills were buzzing with excitement at this interesting collaboration. As the days to release were ticking down, news was rapidly spreading that the Auzen X-Fi Prelude was shaping up to be something very special, and free of issues that plagued Creative's X-Fi based cards.
Today I have been given the honour of reviewing the Auzen X-Fi Prelude 7.1 sound card, and I can safely say that it has been well worth the wait. But don't take my word for it, take a look at it yourself...

Auzentech Sound Cards & Media Devices Driver Download Windows 7

Specifications
The Auzen X-FI Prelude 7.1 sound card specifications were taken directly, and unashamedly from Auzentech's website .

Key Components

• Creative X-Fi CA20K audio processor
• One AKM AK-5394 super high performance 96kHz 24-bit ADC for analog input
• Four AKM AK-4396 96kHz 24-bit advanced multi-bit DAC for analog output
• 64Mbytes of memory for audio processing
• High fidelity audio OPAMPs for analog input and output (TI OPA2134)
• Front L/R output OPAMP is replaceable by end-user (National LM4562NA)
• Dual mode S/PDIF receiver and transmitter

Audio Performance (Rated Output @ 5Vrms, Typical Value)

• Signal-to-Noise Ratio (20kHz Low-pass filter, A-Weighted)
• Stereo Output : 120dB (part spec)
• Front and Rear Channels : 120dB (part spec)
• Center : 120dB (part spec)
• Subwoofer and Side Channels : 120dB (part spec)
• Total Harmonic Distortion Noise at 1kHz (-3dBFS, A-weighted) : 0.001% - part spec
• Frequency Response ( /-0.01dB, 24-bit/44.1kHz input ) : 20khz (part spec)
• Frequency Response ( /-0.01dB, 24-bit/96kHz input ) : 43.5 khz (part spec)
• 16-bit to 24-bit recording sampling rates: 32, 44.1, 48 and 96kHz

IO Connectors

• One 3.5mm MIC input connector in rear panel
• One 3.5mm line input connector in rear panel
• One 4-pin AUX connector on board
• Four 3.5mm 8 channel line output connectors in rear panel (FL/FR/C/SW/RL/RR/RSL/RSR)
• One S/PDIF combo input connector in rear panel for receiving either coaxial or optical digital
• One S/PDIF combo output connector in rear panel for transmitting either coaxial or optical digital
• One 10-1pin front panel connector on board for MIC input and headphone: more
• One 40-pin digital extension header on board to support AD-Link and other digital functionality

S/W and drivers

• Creative X-Fi Driver

Auzentech Sound Cards & Media Devices Driver Download 64-bit

The Auzen X-FI Prelude 7.1 specifications look very good on paper, but just how well these equate to real-world performance we'll see later in the review. But for now, let's turn the page to see what you are actually getting for your money...

Most Recent Comments

Auzentech Sound Cards & Media Devices Driver Downloads

Originally Posted by name='SuB' i can certainly vouch for it i have one and i love it everything about it just 'feels' better than the other x-fi i had would love a THX console for calibrating my speakers though but that aside i absolutely love it

Seeing as it`s software is creative hybrid, I wonder if u can use the THX console that creative have on their cds ?
For me, these cards are equivilant to how an nVidia reference card gets adopted by other manufs.
Talking about the population of a creative card in comparison to this one, it`s also fair to bare in mind that out of the 5 or 6 creative x-fi cards that have been/are available, ranging from the cheapest to the professional studio ones, the density of the surface mounting goes from sparce to crazy-mad-caps-per-inch.
I would have liked to have seen a 'crackle-test' on this card too, creative cards get easily bogged down fighting for internal bus usage (so it would appear but not confirmed) which makes them crackle. It`s a mad test to emulate, and it`s conditions are not 100% duplicate-able. But if u have a pc thrash at something like fah on all cores, do some rar`ing, do some massive file transfers..... and play some music - u get crackle on a creative x-fi. Maybe this is more a blame of the mobo design, or windows design, but it would be interesting.
Also - I want pci-e in this crazy lacking pci slot world !QuoteReply