Introduction
As you probably already know the Audio market is being dominated by Creative Labs. From the current view it looks like a monopoly, and as you probably know, monopolies are very bad for the consumers. For a very long time now I have tried to find an alternative for the Sound Blaster series but unfortunately I couldnt find a real competitor. Few weeks ago I read at NvNews about a new sound card named HDA Digital X-Mystique 7.1 Gold with Dolby encoding support and many cool features. I pulled out a few strings and managed to get a sample of this card. The one million-dollar question now is does the HDA Digital X-Mystique 7.1 Gold offer a real competition to the Sound Blaster series? Read this review to find out.
About
HDA Digital X-Mystique 7.1 Gold comes from a less known company called HiTech Digital Audio. Its powered by C-Media CMI8768 audio processor chip. C-Media chips are already known around the onboard audio. Personally I never had a chance to test their products before.
The card is equipped with a Dolby Digital Real-Time encoder and support the latest Dolby technologies such as: DTS-ES, DD-EX. Dolby licensing isnt cheap, if you remember NVIDIA has decided to remove the Dolby encoder from the nForce audio due to the high fees paid to Dolby Labs. The card supports both Analog and Digital Speakers.
We all know that the current status of the audio market isnt that good. Only few high quality products are available and most of them are from Creative Labs. The Sound Blaster products arent cheap. The HDA Digital X-Mystique 7.1 Gold price is around 100$ USD which is very cheap compared to the other products out there. Lets hope it can deliver the goods.
Package details
- HDA Digital X-Mystique 7.1 Gold audio card
- 2Pin-2Pin CD S/PDIF audio cable
- TOSLINK fiber optic digital cable
- Drivers/Applications Installation CD
- User Manual
Product Specifications/Features
- C-Media CMI8768/PCI - 8 Channels
- Full-duplex 8CH 24bit/96kHz DAC / 2CH 16bit/48kHz ADC
- Integrated S/PDIF Input/Output supports 44.1kHz/48kHz/96kHz samplerate and 16/24bits resolution
- Supports Dolby Digital Live Real-Time Contents Encoder.
- Supports the latest DTS-ES, DD-EX sound (6.1/7.1) playback (also including Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 playback)
- Supports 44.1 kHz / 48kHz / 96kHz S/PDIF Output through both Coaxial RCA and Optical Toslink
- Onboard COAXIAL RCA output connector, OPTICAL Toslink trasmitter for high quality Digital Output
- PCI Rev. 2.2 compliant with 32bit PCI bus mastering modes
- Two S/PDIF Input for CD_SPDIF Input (S/PDIF-IN #1), Digital I/O(SPDIF_EXT) Input (S/PDIF-IN #2)
- Built-in earphone buffer at Front Output (32Ohm Loading)
- External EEPROM Interface for Sub-Vendor/Sub-Device ID using custom driver
- Four high perfomance OPAMP for Output control, Two high perfomance OPAMP for MIC Input - increase gain level and improve SNR
- Onboard TOSLINK transmitter for up to 24bit/96kHz Optical Digital Output, Gold Plated RCA connetor for Coaxial Digital Output
- 16Pin MIDI_IO Header for supporting MPU-401 MIDI UART Port
- C-Media Xear 3D 7.1 Virtual Speaker SHIFTER technology
- Sensaura CRL3D HRTF 3D positional sound enhancement with multi-drive 7.1, EnvironmentFX, ZoomFX, MacroFX, etc.
- DirectSound 3D HW acceleration
- A3D 1.0 , EAX 1.0, 2.0 (powered by Sensaura), HRTF-based 3D Positional Audio (C3DX ), Direct Sound 3D SW
- Unique Karaoke functionality : Mic Echo, Key-shifting, Vocal Cancellation
- Support Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows ME, Windows 98 SE, Windows XP x64 (Beta)
A good looking card. The Dolby seal looks very sweet and the text near the plugs makes it even more easy to use. Dont laugh at me but sometimes it could be pretty annoying when you switch audio cards on a weekly basis
More action in the next page.
Installation
Ive plugged the card into the system and installed the latest drivers from HiTecs website. Installation went smooth without any problems.
I connected my 5.1 analog speakers to the soundcard and everything seemed to work fine. Then I plugged my cheap unknown Dolby Digital/DTS Receiver to the sound card and both Digital/Analog ports seemed to work very well. HiTeC included a few applications with their package such as, Media Rack (Player) and a few 3D Audio demos. Kind useless for a guy like me
The Control Panel
The control panel allows you to setup: Output devices, Advanced Mixer, Special environment effects, View the audio jacks functions, test your speaker system setup, Karaoke mode, 7.1 Virtual Speaker shifter, DSP Modes and Equalizer.
Xear3D 7.1 Virtual Speaker shifter
To be honest I never trusted the "Virtual Speakers" until today. For this review I had to test it and its working pretty well. The Xear3D Virtual Speaker adds a real deep to the sound and it really feels like a 7.1 speaker system.
S/PDIF and COAXIAL
The card supports both channels both analog and digital outputs. In the past some cards didnt like my receiver. Both S/PDIF and COAXIAL seem to work perfect without any issues.
24bits/96KHz
You heard it right! The soundcard supports 24bits/96KHz with Digital output. Same like the new cards from Creative Labs.
Gaming
I tried Doom 3 with the Dolby Digital Live and its just perfect! Forget the Analog speakers, Dolby is the real deal. The sounds are so realistic, the neighbors almost called the cops because of the great quality. I tried some EAX games and everything seems to work perfectly. It seems all the games are working great in both Analog and Digital mode but I must say that the Dolby Digital produced the best sound quality.
DVD Playback
I launched WinDVD and loaded up a few DVD movies with DTS and Dolby soundtracks and the quality was just amazing. The card and my setup produced great quality sound. This damn card supports everything!
Music
After hours of listening I must say the quality is just great. I really liked the low frequency sounds the card produce. I even couldnt notice between a Radio station and a CD, both sound good with this card.
CPU Usage
I shutted down all the process and launched Winamp and the Task Manager. I compared this card to an onboard Realtek ALC850. I really wanted to add a Sound Blaster Comparison but I dont have any creative cards around. (Hint)
Its about time to find out how the card and the features influence games performance. I ran each test few times to verify the results and all the latest patches were installed.
Computer specification
Hardware:
AMD64 3500+ Winchester Core @ 2300MHz (11x200)
Gigabyte GA-K8NS-939 nForce3 250
2x512Mb Kingston PC3200 2,2,2,5
ATI Radeon 9800XT 256Mb - AGP
Software:
Microsoft Windows XP SP2 with the latest updates
nForce Drivers 5.10
ATI Catalyst 5.6
Doom 3
Half-Life 2
Quake 3
http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/6452/ngohqoc0.jpg
It seems the more channels, the higher performance hit, thats very common among the soundcards. Dolby Digital Live may result in a small performance hit but it’s worth it. The quality it produces is just amazing.
Final Conclusions
So does the HDA Digital X-Mystique 7.1 Gold compete with the Sound Blaster series? Hell yeah! A great card with great quality and a low price tag. Im pretty surprised how good it is. Even a driver for the Microsoft Windows x64 is available. Im very happy to see this player in the game after all, the competition between the manufacturers is only good for us. More competitors the better. The HDA Digital X-Mystique 7.1 performed perfect. It delivered all the goods without problems. If you have a Dolby decoder/receiver and good speakers set you should consider buying this card. Maybe HiTech isnt that famous but they proved themselves with this product. Maybe it doesnt support EAX Advanced HD 4.0 but who needs it while you got Dolby Digital Live and 24bits/96KHz?
Since this card really impressed me I decided to give it our golden award and recommend it to you. Grab it while its hot!
Pros:
* Great sound quality.
* Very low CPU usage.
* Dolby Digital Live encoder with DTS,DTS-ES,DD-EX support.
* Price.
* Not a Creative Labs product.
Cons:
* Availability