Introduction
The future seems to be a bit uncertain for sound card manufacturers. Only a few years ago, any computer that was meant to play sound had to be equipped with a sound card — today, most motherboards come with basic sound features, making it difficult for the industry to develop affordable alternatives that are able to provide real benefits.
Some of you may still remember the good old Adlib synthesizer cards that were the first companions we had in our early computer gaming days. After that, Creative Labs dominated the sound market, thanks to its Sound Blaster standard. Creative’s development path for Sound Blaster was relentless. The first Sound Blaster (8 Bit mono) was soon replaced by Sound Blaster 2.0 (8 Bit stereo). Sound Blaster 16 (16 Bit stereo) followed, and than was enhanced by MIDI capabilities and surround sound (AWE32, 64, PCI128, SB Live!), and now we have the highly touted Sound Blaster Audigy.
Today, the required hardware for sound output can be put into a tiny chip, namely the AC97 codec. Usually, the CPU has to process most of the data load — but at today’s performance level, that’s not an issue.
So why should one buy a dedicated sound card if on-board solutions provide satisfactory features? We will take a look at some of the advantages of an add-on card, such as multi-channel inputs and outputs and a high dynamic range.
Audiotrak is one company that focuses on an issue that all sound cards suffer from: the power deficit. Usually, integrated amplifiers at 2-3 W output are just about good enough to attach headphones or to connect the computer to your stereo, but you are on your own if you want to attach two hi-fi speakers directly. You can either go and buy a computer speaker system or take a look at CARDamp — it could help you out.
On-Board Sound vs. Dedicated PCI Sound Card
The Audigy — Creative’s latest sound chip model.
Though AC97 codecs support multiple sound channels and high sampling rates, and additionally have excellent compatibility due to support for Microsoft’s Windows Driver Model, they are still lacking in quality. Users that primarily want to hear application or Windows sounds and listen to a MP3 file or CD from time to time won’t benefit from an additional sound board.
But those who like to listen to orchestral music or similar types of music at high volume will appreciate sound hardware with a high signal-to-noise ratio. In addition, all advanced sound boards come with support for at least four speakers — the Maya 7.1 Gold actually supports eight (seven speakers plus subwoofer). Both factors will noticeably increase the sound experience.
Dedicated sound boards also come with several line-in and line-out ports, either analog or digital (coax or optical), ensuring perfect connectivity to other sound hardware (CD or Minidisc player, DVD player) — yet the main application for line inputs might be simple music recording. Thanks to digital audio extraction software today, you don’t need to attach a CD player to your sound card line-in in order to record music. Instead, you can simply «grab» audio data to wave files on your hard drive without any loss of quality.
Many people tend to think that dedicated sound cards put less of a burden on the CPU, which is simply not true. Sophisticated sound effects and multi-channel output definitely consume more performance. And when simple stereo output is required, the differences are too insignificant to be worth mentioning.
The Maya 7.1 Gold: A First Class Sound Board
The Maya 7.1 Gold comes with a short manual, a driver disk and a CD with Power DVD 3.0. Unfortunately, there is no special software that would allow you to enable or to configure special features. Instead, the whole sound card is based on the Enhanced Windows Driver Model — which makes sure that it will work under all common Windows operating systems (Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP) and all applications that settle on that.
Installing the card is very easy. After plugging it into a free PCI slot, Windows will detect the new hardware and ask you for the appropriate driver. The system needs to be restarted before you can use the Maya 7.1.
The Maya 7.1 Gold: A First Class Sound Board, Continued
Here you can see the back side of the Maya 7.1 Gold with its various connectors. Each 1/8″ minijacket is a stereo connector (for two channels each). You have a total of eight analog outputs and two analog inputs plus a microphone input. At the right side you can see the digital (optical) output — still covered by the cap protecting it. This digital output can of course be used to loop any DTS/AC3 signal to Dolby Digital and/or DTS devices (5.1 or 6.1). Don’t worry if you don’t have optical inputs at your receiver or amplifier: The Maya 7.1 also comes with a coaxial TOSLINK output which is placed on the sound board. You will have to make use of a small adapter module in order to have that output accessible from the back of your computer. Audiotrak is currently working on this module which should be available soon for below $30.
Reading the technical specifications (see the link below) you will see that Maya 7.1 is trimmed for high quality output rather than input — the input AD converter works at 18 Bits, while the DA converter for output is a 20 Bits type.
Here’s the connector «panel» which is placed on the upper side of the Maya 7.1 Gold. There are the CD and AUX line-ins, digital line in and out (for AC3/DTS use as explained before).
CARDamp: Change Your Computer Into A Stereo!
Some of you may ask, what’s this for? Simple. The CARDamp will add the features of a small amplifier to your computer. Simply install it into any free slot (it won’t use a PCI slot, it just needs an empty slot, attach the power cable (standard 5.25″ power plug from your power supply) and connect the line-out of your sound card (Maya 7.1 Gold or any other model) with the cinch line-in of the CARDamp. Now, you only need two hi-fi speakers. A pair of cables (2m each) are included.
In addition, you will get a short manual plus installation instructions as well as a y-cable to attach the CARDamp to your power supply. Though the amplifier «only» provides 2x 20 Watts, Audiotrak recommends a power supply with at least 300 W.
That’s the amplifier board. The upper two connectors are for cinch input, the lower two for speaker output (left, right).
Specifications (taken from the Audiotrak website)
Maya 7.1 Gold
- 2 analog in, 8 analog out
- micro in
- internal aux and CD input
- G9 connector (6 channel analog out)
- TOSLINK digital optical output
- Sample rates between 8 and 48 KHz
- 5.1 channel surround support
- 7.1 channel surround ready
- Enhanced Windows Driver Model based
- 18 Bit AD converter and 20 Bit DA converter
- 90 dB(A) dynamic range
CARDamp
- 2x 20 Watts output
- THD: Less than 0.05%
- Frequency response: 15 Hz to 50 KHz
- Efficiency: 85%
- Cinch input to connect to sound card
- 1/4″ phone jack outputs for connecting speakers
- 300 W computer power supply recommended
Conclusion
At a price of $129 for the Maya 7.1 Gold and $99 for the CARDamp, these two components are not very expensive. Though Maya does not come with lots of fancy features, it offers many ressources including line inputs and outputs as well as support for Surround Sound.
Some people may ask «Why didn’t they implement a Dolby Digital 5.1 decoder?» The Maya 7.1 Gold is ready for native multi-channel surround sound (as supported by Power DVD 3 which is included), but does not support Dolby Digital directly. Instead, Audiotrak favors the approach of looping the AC3 or DTS signal through the digital output (optical or coax) directly to a Dolby Digital decoder or receiver. That’s usually the best way.
At a dynamic range of 90 db(A), Maya provides some of the clearest signal quality of all sound cards available. On-board AC97 solutions usually provide between 75 and 85 dB(A), which is simply not enough for everybody who wants crystal clear recording or playback at almost all volume levels.
The CARDamp, on the other hand, is an add-on that does not have anything to do with the sound card. You could basically use it to attach even a Discman or any other device that can be attached via cinch cable. The normal use is, of course, looping the line-out signal of your sound card into the CARDamp in order to make use of monitor speakers rather than using any sophisticated PC speaker system or expensive stereos. 2x 20 Watts should be enough for home use, and the sound quality is pretty good as long as you do not exceed approximately 3/4 of the possible amplification power.
More information can be found on the Audiotrak website.
http://www.audiotrak.net/eng/index.html
