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A few short years ago, the price of a PC sound card was considered to be a big portion of overall system cost. Until the days of the first ISA sound cards, wavetable MIDI synthesis was considered a high end feature as it required a sound card with dedicated on board memory and a digital signal processor capable of mixing and adding effects (chorus, reverb, mixing, etc.) to MIDI channels and voices.
75% Rating: 
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Analog Devices SoundMAX 2.0 |
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Driver Screen shots
Here are a few
driver screen shots for SoundMAX 2.0:
There are many driver
options for configuring speakers, channel frequencies, echo etc. As these shots
were taken using the integrated audio of the D810E2CA3 which has only one AD1885
codec, 4 channel and 5.1 channel output was disabled.
Sound Quality and
Features
Most AC97 solutions offer mediocre sound reproduction. To our
surprise. the situation is quite different with SoundMAX 2.0.
We first
tested the integrated sound on the Cayman 3 motherboard. All frequencies seemed
to be well balanced, there was the right amount of bass (with adequate depth)
and treble. There was some limited background interference (noise) at very high
volumes, which was a bit more prominent than interface presented by PCI based
soundcards. Compared to most modern PCI sound cards, the integrated SoundMAX 2.0
sounds has a bit more noise which becomes evident only at very high volumes
using a good amplifier and speaker set. Nevertheless it’s much better than
current AC97 solutions.
Since
the CNR riser card is physically off the motherboard, interference caused by
various motherboard components is much lower. The SoundMAX 2.0 allows playback of multiple *.wav streams
simultaneously. We managed to playback eight *.wav streams without any
problems.
Conclusions
Before we began to test the SoundMAX 2.0, we had pre conceived
notions about this solution competing against mainstream PCI sound cards. During
the tests, SoundMAX 2.0 performed so well that we truly believe that SoundMAX
2.0 is an excellent alternative to low/medium cost PCI sound cards. Analog
Devices offers strong and stable driver support with a full feature
set.
With SoundMAX 2.0, OEMs can offer 6 channel CNR solutions and
features found only in expensive sound cards at a very low cost. SoundMAX 2.0
can exist as a basic 2 channel integrated solution or a multi channel solution
through CNR riser cards. In either case, consumers get much more than what they
paid
for.
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