All this delivered to you anywhere from 8 kHz - 48 kHz S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface, which is an Audio transfer standard that permits the transfer of audio without the conversion to and from an analog format which in turn could degrade performance).

Installation & Impressions

Now if you’ve ever installed any hardware on your computer before you won’t have any problem installing this card. If you haven’t done anything of the sort there are detailed instructions included. Now while I had the pleasure to test out this card I wanted to take full advantage of the fiber optic implementations, so what did I do? I hauled my test computer out into the living room and plugged it in to my good friends surround system. And presto-chango we went from a limited 4 channel surround to Dolby 5.1 thanks to his receiver and the fiber uplink. Now this is perfect if your home entertainment system and your computer share the same living space so instead of going out and buying all new PC speakers to compliment your card you can just uplink via fiber or digital coaxial and voila you’re styling. We ran a number of tests from subwoofer excursion tests to Dolby surround tests, everything came out crystal clear playing DVD’s was no different then playing them on his stand-alone DVD player, well except for the fact that the screen was 1/8th the size, but I’m reviewing the sound card so what do I care. When it comes to the audio capture, well I didn’t have any funky fiber toys to play with however I did have fiber output on the receiver I was using so I had to settle for that. One of the features I like about this card is its full-duplex ability to capture audio and play it back to you all simultaneously. On top of that the record quality you get out of it is equal to or greater than that of a professionally made CD, (CD quality sound is the CDA standard of 44 kHz DVD does not allow more than 48 kHz. This card delivers anywhere from 8khz-48kHz record or playback).

The folks up at AOpen have included the following software:

With this card, along with almost anything else these days there are some compatibility issues. For example if your planning on running this card under windows 2000 and your not going to be taking advantage of the digital fiber or coaxial uplink, then unfortunately your going to be limited to 2 channel audio until (if) new drivers are put out. If you are running Linux there are drivers floating around on the AOpen web site however I have not had a chance to try them out yet. There is dos legacy support and win nt/95/98/me support although I have only run it under Windows ME and Windows 2000 Advanced Server so the rest is uncharted territory good luck and Godspeed.

Conclusion

To sum it all up if you’re looking for an affordable card that will give you 3d functionality, scalability, a good solid base for a sound system then this card wins hands down. But if you’re looking for something more advanced for more professional implementations and you’re not scared of spending the big bucks then you might want to look elsewhere.

Bottom Line

Ease of Installation: 91%
Hardware Capability: 82%
Software Support: 80%
Driver Support: 79%
Value: 91%

Overall Score: 82%