Finally!! Got my new soundcard!

[Indiana]

The wait is over...
I finally was able to get a Terratec DMX 6Fire 24/96 from a local store (it was available for some time now online but I don't like online shopping that much).

Haven't played much with it, but first overall impression is very good. trouble-free driver install on Win2k (didn't even require a reboot), no apparent hiss (as the Creative cards tend to have), great sound-quality. Trouble free DVD AC3 put-through with PowerDVD (included), nice tool included to clean up old LPs / recordings. The whole driver folder on the CD is 2MB (that should be an example for Creative!), the drivers are said to be ASIO capable with latency times down to 1.5ms at 96KHz.

A short vid-cap (45 mins) showed not one single dropped frame, with my old DMX XFire i usually got about 2-3 dropped frames and with the SBLive I'd have gotten at least 15 dropped frames
The front module is also better than the Live Drive.

What I didn't try up to now is 3D gaming, but i'm not really interested that much in this feature and I don't really expect the card to excell in this area as it bases on the same chips as the Terratec products for the (semi-)professional sound market (the EWS88 line) that is merely adapted to provide EAX1+2 and A3D through Sensaura (that's how I understand it, at least).


P.S.: I like especially the following sentence from their product description: "Don't let creative packages fool you, because only studio technology can provide studio sound"...

P.P.S: The card also seems to get rave reviews.

[Dr Mordrid]

It's not for gaming, but this one's very nice on my audio workstation;

http://www.echoaudio.com/Products/Gina/Default.htm

http://www.echoaudio.com/Products/Gina/ginaspecs.htm

24bit/96khz
2 balanced inputs
8 balanced outputs
full duplex operation
simultaneous analog & digital recording
S/PDIF & ADAT
etc. etc.

Dr. Mordrid

[Indiana]

Yes, I'm mostly running Win2k and the drivers up to now behave great. The vidcap still has no dropped frame until now even though running in the background while I'm browsing (I didn't really want to believe that the soundcard could matter that much at capturing, but it does, at least here on my VIA system). Playing WAVs or mp3s sounds great, the software is really easy and uncomplicated while still providing lots of features.

As for the games, I fear I'm not that much of a help, as I never really used 3D sound even with the SBLive Platinum I had (still have on the shelf, grrrr...), so I really can't make an honest comparision, I just can try to tell if it works at all. I don't even know which of my games (mostly NFS5, Q3, FAKK2, SeriousSam, MaxPayne, FIFA 2001 and some older car games) do support 3D sound, I'm a quite conservative here, I buy a soundcard for quality sound, not for any crazy gimmicks (as are the Matrox users with gfx, btw )

The card's not really a bargain, either (about $225), but I'm not expecting it to be cheap, I expect it to be good - again the same goes for a potential future Matrox gfx card.

[prophet]

I'm using Delta 66 from Midiman, very nice card with very stable multiclient WDM drivers for win2k.. of course with ASIO/ASIO2, GSIF support!

http://www.midiman.com/products/m-audio/delta66.php

But it is not for games.. no EAX or 3D sound, oriented for studio work..

Echo audio cards are very good, but IMHO expensive, and here in Europe hard to get.

[Dilitante1]

Indiana, what are the specs on your rig? Are you running dual cpus? As I am hoping there are more than one smp capable sound card (rumor has it that the turtle beach santa cruz is the only one so far)


-pickle

[prophet]

cking,

I'd advise two cards - one "multimedia" range card (like TB Santa Cruz) for games and Windows sound, one "pro" card (Audiophile 2496 or Terratec EWX2496) for serious audio editing. I'm using Santa Cruz and Delta 66 together with no problems in w2k, they are sitting (with all other PCI/AGP devices) on one IRQ..

I'd take Midiman Audiophile over Terratec (they are both based on ICS Envy 24bit DSP, both are using AKG converters), but Midiman has way better drivers for w2k and slightly better build hardware.. and I think it's a bit cheaper also. Both of them have semi-pro SPDIF in/out (Terratec even optical) with selectable sample rate (no more resampling like Creative) and SCMS

If you have two cards, you can assign all Windows sounds to multimedia card and avoid surprises at recording sessions

[Indiana]

@Dilitante: Unfortunately no SMP system here, so I can't speak about SMP capability (system specs: AthlonXP1700+@1562MHz (142FSB), EPoX 8KHA (KT266), 256MB, Win2k / Win98 DualBoot (but nearly only Win2k used), Radeon8500 OEM@300/300, Hauppauge WinTV Radio, DawiControl RAID, Fritz! ISDN card).
The manual doesn't explicitely say anything about SMP, but in the short description of the EWS88MT drivers you can read this:
---------------------------
WDM Driver 5.0.2000 Build 116
for Windows 98SE/ME/2000 and XP

Bugfix: operation with Dual-Processor
Bugfix: operation with Pentium 4
Bugfix: Recording of mono files

New ControlPanel 1.03.25 Build 116
-----------------------------


@Prophet/cking: The DMX 6Fire relies on the same Envy24 DSP and DAC as Terratecs "Pro" cards (the EWS24/96, the EWS88MT) and it has the nice front-module providing nearly every in- / output you can want (except Firewire). As you said there are some other makes using nearly the same components, all of them sounding great with only minor differences in quality.
So it is a "Pro"-card from it's sound-abilities but does also support EAX1.0/2.0, A3D1, DS3D, ILsomething (cant really rememeber the name) through Sensaura software. It also support ASIO1/2 and all the other "pro" audio-standards.
What's especially fine (besides of course the ability to do 96KHz/24Bit analog captures and output them digitally at this rate if your receiver supports it) is it's nice functionality for capturing old LPs, due to it's included RIAA Phono input filter, the built-in Phono-preamp and the bundled Sound Laundry software.

The 6Fire 24/96 is AFAIK the only soundcard with specs that are good enough for (semi-)professional musicians but also supports the 3D gaming standards.
As for drivers, they do work VERY fine here in Win2k (what's especially impressive if you think that these are the "initial release drivers", but I guess this is because they are based on the EWS88MT drivers and thus already have undergone some maturing before). They are supporting all Windows OSes from 98 to XP with WDM drivers. The whole driver package is 2MB, so these are lean drivers (not those 50+MB bloatcrap Creative produces).

The card also seems to be resource-savy for all those that are into vid-capping, I captured JamesBond "Goldfinger" last night and only dropped two frames over the whole movie (and this was while I was copyying some things on my HD during the capture).

The Mixer is really easy/self-explaining while still offering lots of functionality and you have all the options in one ControlPanel (not like Creative where you have to start at least three apps to be able to see / change all relevant options...)

A few pics:











(Note that the card even uses the EWS88 (Terratecs Pro-card) drivers).

A short PDF, giving an overwiew of the cards in- and ouputs, the front-module and the specs

[VJ]

Dilitante1:

Indiana, what are the specs on your rig? Are you running dual cpus? As I am hoping there are more than one smp capable sound card (rumor has it that the turtle beach santa cruz is the only one so far)

I have read (don't remember the source, perhaps other murcer can confirm/deny this) that most soundcards work on SMP-systems, but that their drivers are not SMP capable. Turtle Beach is rumoured to be the only company that offers drivers that effectively use more than 1 cpu (if available).


Jörg

[Duty]

Originally posted by Dilitante1
Indiana, what are the specs on your rig? Are you running dual cpus? As I am hoping there are more than one smp capable sound card (rumor has it that the turtle beach santa cruz is the only one so far)


-pickle

I realize you are asking for the specs from someone else but I
listen to people complain about SMP and soud card problems a lot.
Well I am writting this on a dual P3 733 system running XP using
a sound blaster Audigy. The motherboard is a RIOWORKS
PDVIA (Via chip set).

I have not dropped a frame in months, and I play lots of games.

See sig for full system specs.

I have not done anything special to get my comp working. Just installed the drivers and moved on.


Jeff

[prophet]

Hm... sounds interesting, but I haven't very good experience with software support from Terratec, I happened to own Terratec EWS64XL 6-7 years ago (ISA card with 18bit Philips AD/DAC and MIDI sampler), their drivers were full of bugs and limitations!

I had for some time EWX2496, but settled to Midiman - Terratec has some strange symptoms in Win2k with various audio software - emagic, steinberg.. mostly in latency and synchronizing audio streams - and was not alone (as seen in many pro audio discussion boards) it may be resolved with latest drivers

I don't play games almost at all - and for DVD all I need is AC3 passthrough..

DMX 6Fire seems a really good card (but with entry level consumer AD/DACs in 24bit, Midiman and Echo have higher grade, DSP is the same), but for the price you get the best at this time.