BlueGears HDA X-PLOSION 7.1

[thegreek]

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=234502

Anyone know when this will be released? It's supposed to be the only sound card to encode DD and DTS streams.

[marscay]

dont know when it's released but if it's anything like the mystique gold which it will be then don't get too excited if you're a gamer.

poor drivers which never get updated make a potential nice card just so-so in my eyes.

[juliendogg]

Marscay has alot of negative things to say about these cards. So far as I know, he's the only one. True, the X-Mystique gold is not the greatest gaming card, but for movies and music it's definately one of the best. If you want 5.1 through digital, it's the ONLY way to go.

The new cards should have better analog outputs than the x-mystique gold, and should do DDL and DTS encoding whereas the x-mystique only does DDL.

I have found the drivers work fine, although the software cpl leaves alot to be desired. If you're passing through to a reciever you don't need the cpl for much. Set it and forget it.

J.

[Celeron_Phreak]

The X-Mystique works just fine for me. Not having full EAX doesn't bother me a bit. The surround sound in gaming makes up for it in the long run, I think, and EAX has never sounded very special to my ears. EAX 2.0 is plenty for me.

Sure they're slow on releasing drivers, but the current ones get the job done pretty well.

It was stated in another thread that music in surround sound is nothing special. In my experiances, with the speakers correctly positioned, I find it to pull you more into the music and center you. So haveing a DDL or DTS encoding card does have it's benifits aside form movie playback and gaming. And with the movement to a DTS card form DDL, sound quality is about to get a little better.

I would buy another Audigy 2 ZS, as it was a decent card, but only for gaming. If anything it'd go in my second computer which is used for games and games only. If you want to use the Audigy cards for anything else besides games, it's time to change sound cards. (Speaking from first hand experiance of 1.5 years)