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In using the Santa Cruz I’ve begun to appreciate a lot of its features. Today a sound card is expected to be able to handle so many different things, and Turtle Beach manged to deliver a card that performed well in all situations. I was most impressed with the sheer amount of EQ and effects customizing that the control panel allowed. And these effects were well controlled and of high quality, so if you enjoy tweaking the sound of your music and movies this factor alone makes the card a very appetizing option. MP3 acceleration may also interest you, though as I’ve seen it is not necessarily as exciting as it seems when you first hear about it. One point of concern could be the lack of stability in the drivers. We didn’t do too much testing in a Win2K environment, but our understanding is that even there the driver support needs a little more work. In my experience, drivers can be improved, and Turtle Beach aims to improve them, so we don’t really take too many points off there.

A lot of you reading this would be trying to decide between an Acoustic Edge, a Santa Cruz, and a Sound Blaster Live 5.1. My personal experience has lead me to lean slightly towards an Acoustic Edge, mostly because I prefer some of its Qsound algorithms and have found those to enhance music and movies in a 5.1 setup. The Acoustic Edge does not have as fancy an effects engine as the SBLive nor the Santa Cruz, and with the addition of hardware EQ the Santa Cruz definitely has a place carved out for itself.

Perhaps the most compelling feature that the Santa Cruz possesses, other than its outstanding control panel, is its versatile connection options. The VersaJack is extremely flexible and I think it makes for some interesting situations, such as simultaneously connecting a quad speaker set and a pair of your favourite headphones and dynamically switching between the two.

Everyone should make their own decisions about what features are most important. Perhaps you can base your decision on the type of system you are aiming to build. A quad based system may be better off with a Santa Cruz, while the Acoustic Edge will be favoured for a true 5.1 setup. In the end, all the cards are worthy, but that doesn’t stop me from scoring the Santa Cruz just a little below the Acoustic Edge ;).

Overall Score: 93%