The OC Forums HDA Mystique 7.1 Gold Thread

very good voodoomelon. I've played with a few cards connected to my a/v setup; various onboard solutions including the soundstorm. thru sb lives! and audigy 2's. The x-mystique is by far the most detailed when it comes to straight musical performance. Timing is very good and the bass in particular seems to me to be very detailed and accurate. For more so than the audigy2 i played around with and far more refined than the sounstorm on my old nf7-s.

as for the sound system, i'm currently running a yamaha rx-v630rds 6.1 amp and a denon pma100m driving 2x12" subs - its not your average set of pc speakers. I'm looking to buy another power amp to drive the main speakers beacsue while the yamaha is fantastic for movies, and show pc speakers up easily enough, it's music performance cant match a decent power amp:0

Overall, i am very impressed with the card

James Miller... In nearly every one of your replies you seem to say the same thing, and argue points that aren't there. I'm not arguing that the Audigy is a better card. I'm not saying that it's perfect. I'm also not saying that I'd be able to hear the difference between 48 khz and 96 khz upsampled on a different card..

I have read reviews, some of which say that the card is run of the mill as far as audio output, I've yet to hear anything "spectacular". If one searches for Audigy 2 zs reviews you'll also see spectacular ratings. DVD audio and wav files for games (generally 96 and 48 khz respectively) are tested, and yeah, for these that's the exact sampling into the card.

I agree that 44.1 khz into 44.1 dacs will sound the same as the signal resampled to 48 or 96 into 96 khz dacs. I was never arguing that fact... If you're saying that 44.1 resampled to 96 into 96 khz dacs will sound worse than 44.1 khz into 44.1 khz dacs.. then I'd say you're wrong... that's just illogical. If you said it took more processing power and for that reason alone wasn't prefered, then I'd agree.

And as far as the analogy to anti-aliasing. It was more to describe how it interpolated between pixels. I think you missed that. But in any event, likening a change in resolution, if you're allready running at 1600*1200 (maybe a DVD) aa is just overkill and won't be noticed. But at 800x600 (let's say a MP3 at the wrong bitrate) AA is much prefered.

All I want is for you to retract your statements that the Audigy 2 zs has crappy bloated sound output. If properly used (resampling / KX audio drivers) I believe that these statements are unfounded, and may innappropriately sway users for reasons that cease to exist.

james.miller said:

as for the sound system, i'm currently running a yamaha rx-v630rds 6.1 amp and a denon pma100m driving 2x12" subs - its not your average set of pc speakers.

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Ah, i see.
I was actually looking at a Yamaha RX-V450 6.1 amp. I don't want anything madly fancy, but I would like a proper 6.1/7.1 home cinema reciever instead of my current DTT3500 amp.

Here's a question, can the HDA Mystique encode music/games or whatever into Dolby Digital EX 6.1/7.1 if you have a 6.1/7.1 amplifier using the SPDIF?

Or is the 6.1/7.1 output limited to analogue speakers?

RobxMcCarthy, you're really.....humph.

1) i never once said 44.1khz sounds as good as 44.1khz resampled to 48 or 96khz. Not once.

2)

And as far as the analogy to anti-aliasing. It was more to describe how it interpolated between pixels. I think you missed that. But in any event, likening a change in resolution, if you're allready running at 1600*1200 (maybe a DVD) aa is just overkill and won't be noticed. But at 800x600 (let's say a MP3 at the wrong bitrate) AA is much prefered.

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yes it is your absolutely right. That why i never mentioned AA at that res. Thats why i said true high def material is better than upsampling dvd's - we want to move to hi-def isnt it? you must have missed that. Think about what your saying - the original is best, but interpolated is the next best thing.

I have read reviews, some of which say that the card is run of the mill as far as audio output, I've yet to hear anything "spectacular". If one searches for Audigy 2 zs reviews you'll also see spectacular ratings. DVD audio and wav files for games (generally 96 and 48 khz respectively) are tested, and yeah, for these that's the exact sampling into the card.

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Yeah here should be very little difference between the cards with 48khz or 96khz. I noticed a small difference but its hard to spot and unless testing side by side you wouldnt tell. But we are talking about cd music here.

3)

All I want is for you to retract your statements that the Audigy 2 zs has crappy bloated sound output. If properly used (resampling / KX audio drivers) I believe that these statements are unfounded, and may innappropriately sway users for reasons that cease to exist.

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Show me where i said that and ill retract it. Infact show me where i said anything LIKE that. Ill spell it out. they audigy 2 series are gamers cards first and foremost. Their performance and general SQ with games is second to none (at this time). When it comes to music, there are better solutions. The audigy2's are better than any on-board solution, but there are better cards around that can be had for less. The x-mystique is one of them and as i konw - it sounds better. Oh and dont forget that its cheaper aswell

voodoomelon said:

Ah, i see.
I was actually looking at a Yamaha RX-V450 6.1 amp. I don't want anything madly fancy, but I would like a proper 6.1/7.1 home cinema reciever instead of my current DTT3500 amp.

Here's a question, can the HDA Mystique encode music/games or whatever into Dolby Digital EX 6.1/7.1 if you have a 6.1/7.1 amplifier using the SPDIF?

Or is the 6.1/7.1 output limited to analogue speakers?

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No, sadly 5.1 is the limit for the card over spdif. That doesnt really make much of a difference though. My amp (and the v450 should as well) will be able to run in DD ex mode where the amp creates a matrixed center rear channel with info from the left+right rear surround channels. I run without it - it sounds ausome anyway.

One area where the x-mystique loses out is gaming, but its not anywhere near as far behind as i thought it would be. There are games it has problems with (farcry being one) but overall its still stunning to play a game in proper 5.1. Wether its zombies attacking you from behind or you lobbing a grenade at a buch of terrorists - its simply ausome.

But it can of course pass through a 7.1 EX signal to an external amp from PowerDVD can't it? I.e., the card doesn't do any processing on the signal.

oOh yeah, it behaves exactly as it should. It passes thru all digital signals untouched

RobxMcCarthy said:

All I want is for you to retract your statements that the Audigy 2 zs has crappy bloated sound output. If properly used (resampling / KX audio drivers) I believe that these statements are unfounded, and may innappropriately sway users for reasons that cease to exist.

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If properly used? I'd like to see the manufacturer(creative) back up that statement explaining that the KX audio drivers are needed for proper usage.

Though the KX drivers do sound better than creative drivers, the X-mystique still provides a noticeable sound quality increase.

RobxMcCarthy said:

I have read reviews, some of which say that the card is run of the mill as far as audio output, I've yet to hear anything "spectacular". If one searches for Audigy 2 zs reviews you'll also see spectacular ratings. DVD audio and wav files for games (generally 96 and 48 khz respectively) are tested, and yeah, for these that's the exact sampling into the card.

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Now consider this. Many users of Creative products think that just cause it has THX stamped all over it.. it has to be as awesome as a cinema sound system. Secondly, when they upgraded to audigy 2's, they were prolly using onboard sound cards or ones insufficient for gaming or music. Of course you are going to find lots of reviews on a highly advertised product. Not to mention one that has a name behind it.

All I want is for you to retract your statements that the Audigy 2 zs has crappy bloated sound output. If properly used (resampling / KX audio drivers) I believe that these statements are unfounded, and may innappropriately sway users for reasons that cease to exist.

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Properly used equipment is when it is being ran as specified by manufacture's details and recommendations. Meaning using Creative drivers with creative equipment. THAT is proper usage of a product. 2ndly, James is simply stating what others think that are capable of hearing a difference. He is merely stating that when they made a change, they noticed a change, and found the sound pleasurable.


Back on topic... I am actually looking into that card, as I would like to have DDL encoding. I am tired of running 14 cables to the back of my computer when about half of them are just for sound stuffs. But I use onboard for gaming in 5.1, and use the AV-710 for music at the moment. But good reviews and opinions on the card itself. I try to ignore the commentary that isnt about the main topic until it starts turning into a fanboy war.

You woudn't be dissapointed Buhammot. The only problems with these cards right new are the drivers. There are a few settings that when used together will blue screen but generally you wont have to touch any of that.

The only thing i change is the output device settings. 44.1khz PCM for music, 5.1 DDLive for games I was lucky when i got mine actually, overclockers.co.uk had it on special offer at £35 - $61.5. bargain

£35?
I got mine from overclockers for £29.99...

I had to pay an extortionate £14 for delivery, which is a joke, seeing as I can post the same size package to the UK for about £5.

Can't say i've ever got a blue screen (yet) because of the card.

But one welcome change i've noticed with this card that has nothing to do with sound, is the Windows boot time.

I did a full HD format about 4 months ago and reinstalled Windows. As i was reinstalling all my device drivers, the PC had to restart to make a lot of the changes effective. Each time it restarted after a driver installation, the blue bar would take that tiny bit longer to complete the cycle across the screen.

With all drivers installed bar the Audigy drivers, it would take the Windows boot screen a 3/4 pass of the blue bar to complete. When i installed the Audigy drivers, it jumped up to almost 2 complete passes of the blue load bar.

Now that i have the Mystique, it's back down to one 3/4 pass of the bar.

I HATED those Audigy drivers with a vengeance. not just because of the boot time, but because of the crashes and errors they would produce as well as the constant crackling and hissing in games.

A welcome upgrade for £29.99.

it was £29.99 + vat I got that card plus some ram and postage was £8.50

Of course!
The price in bold is the one that stands out, lol, i guess their idea works...

lol it often fools people. we cant complain though - that's still less than 2/3's the price of newegg

now i want one. james, does it do anything different for movies than most sound cards?

We still need someone with analogue 5.1 - 7.1 speakers to test the analogue multi-channel capabilties of the card.

zabomb4163, the output of the card from DVD playback is pretty standard and very similar to the Audigys. You can either pass through the signal from your DVD player software through the SPDIF via the coaxial or optical output to your external amplifier, or use analogue speakers on the 3.5mm jacks, either 2.1, 4.1, 5.1 or 7.1 using the standard analogue leads.

However, the HDA Mystique's software allows you to adjust the level of each speaker, which the Audigy does not.



Picture courtesy of NVnews.

voodoomelon said:

We still need someone with analogue 5.1 - 7.1 speakers to test the analogue multi-channel capabilties of the card....

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If my two front speakers hadn't of blown up 2 days ago i could have done a straight comparison myself - i have 6.1 analogue input on my amp. I have played around with analogue though and from what ive heard it really isnt far behind digital at all, if at all

voodoomelon said:

We still need someone with analogue 5.1 - 7.1 speakers to test the analogue multi-channel capabilties of the card.

zabomb4163, the output of the card from DVD playback is pretty standard and very similar to the Audigys. You can either pass through the signal from your DVD player software through the SPDIF via the coaxial or optical output to your external amplifier, or use analogue speakers on the 3.5mm jacks, either 2.1, 4.1, 5.1 or 7.1 using the standard analogue leads.

However, the HDA Mystique's software allows you to adjust the level of each speaker, which the Audigy does not.

Picture courtesy of NVnews.

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What's that circle thing all about, that each of the speakers is on in the screenshot?

You can change the virtual position of the speakers in real time which affects all audio played. That circle represents the default distance for each speaker.

james.miller said:

You can change the virtual position of the speakers in real time which affects all audio played. That circle represents the default distance for each speaker.

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wow. that is pretty sweet.

I don't know exactly how I did it but I was able to get the line source to be encoded and sent to the dts reciever using spdif. I did not use the manufacturers application but instead I used "media player classic" which was included in the k-lite mega codec pac which can be found in various places. It allowes you to open just about any movie and also devices. Sorry I can't be more helpful but at least I know it can be done. I think the audio source gets encoded by the ac3 software installed by the codec pac. stupid nvidiots