AOpen AW744 Deluxe Soundcard Review

Author: Bryan Neyedli
Editor: Howard Ha
Publish Date: Tuesday, July 17th, 2001
Originally Published on Neoseeker (http://www.neoseeker.com)
Article Link: http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/aopenaw74deluxe/
Copyright Neo Era Media, Inc. - please do not redistribute or use for commercial purposes.

Introduction

Ok, so you’re an online gamer, you have a high speed CPU, plenty of ram, a kick ass video card, high speed Internet, and everything is running smoothly. However still something is missing. You don’t know what it is, but you can feel it -- like a splinter in your mind, haunting you, taunting you. You rack your brain for hours trying to figure out what it could be. You have tweaked out almost everything in your computer, all your hardware is top of the line except for… alas you still have a stock sound card in your system. If all your worried about is getting the best midi sounds for snake, pong or pacman that will do, but for serious online gamers it just won’t cut the mustard. Being a seasoned online gamer it is my duty to inform you that 3d sound is a quintessential component for the online warrior. Having a card with 3d capabilities gives you the edge of being able to hear your enemies and giving you an uncanny feel for your cyber-atmosphere. On the other hand even if you’re not a gamer you can still enjoy the 3d capabilities when watching DVD’s on your computer or even for an all night Napster marathon.

Features

I reviewed AOpen’s Audio Phantom AW744 Deluxe now the first thing I noticed about this card was its fiber optic input and output capability. Now I don’t know about you guys but whenever I play with fiber I get all giddy, something about high speed transmission strikes a nerve with me. Based on the Yamaha YMF744 PCI 4 channel Audio Accelerator Chipset it delivers:

  • 64 voice hardware Wavetable (Now a wave table is a table of stored digitized samples that are fused for creation and playback, this card has 64 of them)

  • 676 Instrument Sondius-XG Capital Synthesizer

  • Sensaura 3D audio with EAX support (Sensaura has been deemed the de facto 3D Positional Audio standard for music and gaming)

  • 18 bit stereo ADC and DAC (ADC is the process in which a analog signal is changed without altering its original content into a multi-level digital signal, DAC is the reverse process)

  • Programmable independent sample rate from 8 kHz – 48 kHz for record and playback

  • Full duplex operation for simultaneous record and playback operation

  • Stereo input for line in CD-audio, aux in, mono in and mono out

    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:

  • Music center (32) a skinable CD, Wave and MIDI player. XG Player a MIDI mixer with voice and effect manipulation functionality.

  • WinDVD 2000 A DVD, VCD and MP3 player.

  • Music Recorder which records into a WMA format.

  • Y-station the Yamaha CD, WAVE, MIDI music player.

  • MIDI keyboard an electronic organ player to create your very own MIDI beats.

  • My own personal favorite and I’m sure will become yours Soft Karaoke a wonderful little karaoke program.

    The only notable software packages that stuck out to me were the WinDVD 2000 DVD/Mp3/VCD player which is pretty much a average player except it does have zoom, pan and of course VCD and Mp3 operability. What gets a party going faster then a good old karaoke showdown? I don’t know but it’s got some crazy competition when it’s running along side Soft Karaoke! This wonderful advance in technology allows you to sing along with today’s top pop hits in midi format, it comes with a handful already installed, but there are plenty more to be downloaded of their website. Just a note of discretion here: it is unwise and arguably immoral to sing along to Living La Vida Loca on your juiced up surround sound system at 4 in the morning when your room-mates/neighbors have to work in the morning (although it is a recipe for good times only if you are participating however, be warned).

    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%

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