Auzentech X-Fi Prelude

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MantisIT

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Ok what the hell..

http://www.auzentech.com/site/company/press.php

• Press Release -04.16.2007

AUZENTECH to develop Sound Card based on Creative X-Fi™ chipset

Auzen X-FI™ Prelude 7.1 Coming Soon

Santa Clara, CA -April 16, 2007: Auzentech, Inc. (www.auzentech.com), developer of the world's first Dolby® Digital Live and DTS® Connect PCI sound card, announces today a new sound card series based on the Creative X-FI™ chipset.

The Auzen X-FI™ Prelude 7.1 is scheduled for release near the end of May 2007. It will fully support EAX 5.0 and have the same expandability as the Auzen X-Meridian™ 7.1. Support for Dolby® Digital Live real time encoding for Vista is scheduled for Q4 of this year.
The Auzen X-Fi™ Prelude marks the first time Creative has permitted a third-party soundcard vendor to use the Creative X-FI™ chipset in its own soundcard design.

“By building a soundcard based upon Creative's high-quality X-Fi™ chipset, we are fulfilling one of the most common feature requests from our customers,” said Stephane Bae, President of Auzentech, Inc. "When you're playing games, the Auzen X-Fi Prelude soundcard will output the best 3D audio and latest EAX® effects. And when you're listening to music or watching movies, you'll enjoy an audiophile-quality experience."

"We’re excited to provide Auzentech with our award-winning X-Fi audio chipset and technology to provide an outstanding audio experience for Auzentech’s customers,” said Steve Erickson, VP of audio for Creative.
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Can't say I saw this one coming, always thought Auzentech wouldn't touch the gaming category.
 
I did had a feeling it might happen because of the poll on the page they had.Its too late though I not breaking my neck to get it. Already have my card.
 
Well now everybody gets what they want. -The gamer still get their EAX and the Audio guys get the superior sound quality. Hmm wonder why Creative decided to make that move? -Can't beat 'em then join 'em? -This is a new age for gamers... It is a fact that Auzentech makes a awsome product from a production standpoint. I spent about 5 minutes looking at mine when I got it.
 
hmm i have to say this is interesting indeed..

although i have to admit i am worried about hte cost of this thing...

250$ maybe?
 
When the XM made it's debut it was $199 and it was a great deal when you got the card and heard the card and had a look at the awsome production -you felt like you got your monies worth will I did.
 
How bizarre. This is precisely the last thing I expected to happen in the market.

I'm quite curious about what sort of drivers and software this card will ship with. I'd guess that Auzentech will end up rebranding existing software, but, then again, they might end up developing their own in-house stuff.

I wonder if this is intended to counter the capabilities of the AMD R600-based cards and if Auzentech intends to take the HDMI path with these cards.
 
I think the whole concept behind the XM and their future products is expandability.
Why they joined up -who know -or cares? -We are gonna end up with some great new soundcards out of the deal. If you have actually seen a X-M they are a nice peice of kit. Gold plating, top quality parts. Multi layer PCB's Upgradable components. They are wicked soundcards. I love when the market jumps forward like that.:D
@Phide, I was also considering the applications and base driver included with this card. They are using the X-fi chipset and a X-Meridian output section by the sounds of it - I hope the drivers are written from the ground up. I can't see then just rebranding existing code...It's all guess work right now.
 
Wonder how this and the Xonar will compare.

Looks like we may have some options...sweet!!!

I only hopy vista support doesn't suck.

THanks,
 
phide said:
How bizarre. This is precisely the last thing I expected to happen in the market.

I'm quite curious about what sort of drivers and software this card will ship with. I'd guess that Auzentech will end up rebranding existing software, but, then again, they might end up developing their own in-house stuff.

I wonder if this is intended to counter the capabilities of the AMD R600-based cards and if Auzentech intends to take the HDMI path with these cards.
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What's so bizarre? Let's see, they take the best chip for gaming and combined it with the best DAC's and Flexible OpAmp system then Wa-La:) It validates crap I've been flamed for saying;)

I estimate a price tag of $239 to $269 and the card should be PCI-E as Creative is finishing up their own PCI-E X-Fi-2. I've ALWAYS said Creative would license it. I don't see Auzentech being the only one that will do this. Others will just add DDL and DTS to the Xtreme Gamer and sell it as their own. SO there will be cheaper alternatives.

The other thing that will come out of this, only IMHO, is that Creative will either update their own cards or move to sell fewer specialized models. MSI already is well on the way to selling motherboards with X-Fi onboard just as they sold onboard Audigy.
 
I think they will have both versions. Not a good idea to alienate a part of the market on a new product release. Alot of people are now using PCI-E but alot more users are still running PCI. From a quality perspective, Auzentech makes the best sound cards I have ever seen and I have seen alot of cards. Should be a great card for everybody.
 
God dammit, I just bought an X-Meridian with new OPAMPS for $200+ as well.

Bah. I guess I can live with it for a while, it's the best audio card I've owned so far and I think Dolby Headphone is quite immersive anyway, even more so than EAX in some cases.
 
I think this sucks IMHO. Allowing others to use their X-Fi chips is going to further hamper any competition now :(
 
Depends on the stipulations. If Auzentech may be allowed to take alternate directions with the X-Fi chip, they can offer more complex implementations and build upon the features already there. If their ability to use the chip is very narrowly defined, it won't make much difference. In either case, Auzentech will still continue to offer C-Media based cards along with Bluegears, Sondigo and Razer. No real change in the market.

I think this signifies that Creative may be ready to move the fleet to the X-Fi 2. Letting other companies license older technologies is akin to price cuts to clear inventory, and it might allow Creative to very sharply move all of their existing products to the X-Fi 2 architecture. It might also signify that the X-Fi 2 may bring about very important changes to EAX.
 
Might also be the first card I have heard of the can decode as well as encode digital formats.
It is all guesswork right now untill we get concrete specs' of what to expect. I love new soundcards. Auzen, has got my business based on their sound quality and build quality. As phide said, if they can use the 20KX DSP anyway they want then we may see some new features not available on other cards.
 
Merc248 said:
God dammit, I just bought an X-Meridian with new OPAMPS for $200+ as well.

Bah. I guess I can live with it for a while, it's the best audio card I've owned so far and I think Dolby Headphone is quite immersive anyway, even more so than EAX in some cases.
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Don't worry because I'm sure that it won't come out anytime soon. X-Meridian has been delayed for a few times, the X-Tension board has also been delayed and they still haven't released it yet. This card would be the card for my next Vista quad core Direct3D 10 rig :D. Btw I don't think that Auzentech is capable to do much with the driver, I guess that X-Fi 2 will have the same features like this card but it will still use the same audio chip as X-Fi.
 
alg7_munif said:
This card would be the card for my next Vista quad core Direct3D 10 rig :D
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Yeah, that's what I was thinking. The card has to sound atleast as good as the X-M and provide the features I already have. Auzentech makes sure their products and drivers are solid before they release the product. I prefer this instead of companies that release the product ealry and you spend the next 6-12 months patching the drivers.
 
phide said:
Depends on the stipulations. If Auzentech may be allowed to take alternate directions with the X-Fi chip, they can offer more complex implementations and build upon the features already there. If their ability to use the chip is very narrowly defined, it won't make much difference. In either case, Auzentech will still continue to offer C-Media based cards along with Bluegears, Sondigo and Razer. No real change in the market.

I think this signifies that Creative may be ready to move the fleet to the X-Fi 2. Letting other companies license older technologies is akin to price cuts to clear inventory, and it might allow Creative to very sharply move all of their existing products to the X-Fi 2 architecture. It might also signify that the X-Fi 2 may bring about very important changes to EAX.
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IMHO, and just that, there are very few reasons for Auzentech to alter anything=P Some of us here have talked about having a blend-ed implementation or adaptation of the both of these cards and why some folks are running both cards in the first place. I'm impressed that Auzentech is trying to seize this opportunity and run with it. Why sell one half of a good thing ("Best of Both Worlds"), X-Fi and a XMeridian when you can sell the whole thing? Now that's pretty danged simple and not very complex at all. Creative trying to sell X-Fi isn't new either since Creative said just that during the X-Fi launch.

I openly wished and posted that it would be great to have an X-Fi with XMeridian's DACs. OpAmp and DTS connect.

Creative may be ready to move the fleet to the X-Fi 2 as you're saying but X-Fi 2 might be closer to Audigy 2 to 2 ZS type upgrade:) The market isn't ready for X-Fi-2 and how many EAX 5 games are there now or by next year?
 
I think that Creative is now more interested in their other products that are more profitable like their MP3 players. I hope that there will be no SCP problem with this card.
 
Hopefully the drivers will be written from the ground up for the new card to exploit the new features to their fullest extent. This card is being built by a different manufacturer, so I guess we will have to wait and see. I think this is gonna be a very nice card indeed. Auzentech designs and manufactures great cards from design to final product.:) Should be a pretty wicked soundcard.:cool:
 
Donnie27 said:
Creative may be ready to move the fleet to the X-Fi 2 as you're saying but X-Fi 2 might be closer to Audigy 2 to 2 ZS type upgrade
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Maybe, but I'd think X-Fi 2 will be a bit more than a small evolution of the X-Fi. I think that, at the very least, we'll see some sort of HDMI support, strong Vista integration and some extension to EAX. It might also be the time for hardware-assisted wave tracing.

It's a stretch, but it isn't unrealistic either. I mean, we've been riding the same X-Fi wave for nearly two years now, and EAX hasn't changed at a truly fundamental level since EAX 3.0, which was introduced a hair over seven years ago.
 
I just hope bloat-ware's not contagious ;)

But if this card sounds as good as or better than the X-Meridian, it should be a steal at any price.
 
If we can take the Cmedia based cards from Auzentch as a precedent, there's a good chance that this card will use 'regular' X-Fi drivers with some minor customization. It will be interesting when someone with spare time can figure out a mod that enables real-time encoding for older X-Fi cards.

According to interviews around the time of the launching of the first X-Fi cards CL won't be making overhauls to the chip architecture any time soon. I think the most 'radical' HW changes we can expect for the X-Fi 2 is HDMI and support for PCIe.

But who knows, we might be in for another surprise.
 
So will this have two chips? The X-Fi chip to do the EAX/OpenAL processing and a C-Media chip to do the DDL/DTS:C encoding (then I wonder how the drivers would work with two chips)? I'm not aware that the X-Fi chip has the DDL/DTS:C capabilities (perhaps the X-Fi 2 does?).

If this has a HDMI out I will buy it in a heartbeat.
 
phide said:
Maybe, but I'd think X-Fi 2 will be a bit more than a small evolution of the X-Fi. I think that, at the very least, we'll see some sort of HDMI support, strong Vista integration and some extension to EAX. It might also be the time for hardware-assisted wave tracing.

It's a stretch, but it isn't unrealistic either. I mean, we've been riding the same X-Fi wave for nearly two years now, and EAX hasn't changed at a truly fundamental level since EAX 3.0, which was introduced a hair over seven years ago.
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Well, at least you didn't say EAX hasn't changed since EAX2 like someone else here. I too think they'll do HDMI and extend EAX to version 6. The problem though, there only about four "EAX 5" games after 2 years as you said. Even if EAX 6 is great, it will have to wait for games to catch up.

I hope you're right and X-Fi is a nice increase. Maybe Creative feels that it will be able to compete so why not sell some of them for 3rd party sound cards and onboard motherboards. Either way, I see this is something finally good for all.
 
Moofasa~ said:
So will this have two chips? The X-Fi chip to do the EAX/OpenAL processing and a C-Media chip to do the DDL/DTS:C encoding (then I wonder how the drivers would work with two chips)? I'm not aware that the X-Fi chip has the DDL/DTS:C capabilities (perhaps the X-Fi 2 does?).

If this has a HDMI out I will buy it in a heartbeat.
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I think they will use both chips. X-Fi on the front and CMedia O-HD on the back end. Instead of getting the data from the CPU, it will get it from the APU.

I think they'll have HDMI to get around doing any Compression.
Folks should get Full OpenAL + EAX5 via HDMI.
For folks without HDMI, there'll be OpenAL+ EAX5 via DTS.

Last but not least it should move down to 90nm from its current 130nm process.
 
I think creative finally has realized that because of Vista their EAX monopoly is dead. Now that vista is here EAX will be completely dead in no time opening the doors for real competition in the gaming sound card market.

Doing this is smart IMO by teaming up with other companies it will ensure they are here to stay.
 
HSE said:
If we can take the Cmedia based cards from Auzentch as a precedent, there's a good chance that this card will use 'regular' X-Fi drivers with some minor customization. It will be interesting when someone with spare time can figure out a mod that enables real-time encoding for older X-Fi cards.

According to interviews around the time of the launching of the first X-Fi cards CL won't be making overhauls to the chip architecture any time soon. I think the most 'radical' HW changes we can expect for the X-Fi 2 is HDMI and support for PCIe.

But who knows, we might be in for another surprise.
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Even then, add better Opamps, DAC and ADCs to any old X-Fi and you still have a VERY nice card. Those brave enough to have performed minor mods have gotten great results. There are links here to such exploits. It's not like alg7 hasn't given enough of them already.

Then, they mode it and just stick the Auzuntech name on it, hell, I'd buy one. PCI-E and HDMI would just be icing on the caks so to speak. As for encoding, IMHO, I think is just a matter of a license and not much else. Remember, it's BLOCKED, not that the X-Fi can't do it;) Same goes for full 32bit (not 24bit) 192KHz 8 channel.
 
pfunkman said:
I think creative finally has realized that because of Vista their EAX monopoly is dead. Now that vista is here EAX will be completely dead in no time opening the doors for real competition in the gaming sound card market.

Doing this is smart IMO by teaming up with other companies it will ensure they are here to stay.
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You forgot about OpenAL though:D Without it, you got no real 3D game sounds and that's why folks were mad enough to flame me for pointing that out.
 
Again, that isn't true.

DirectSound is still capable of rendering multichannel audio in Vista. The issue is that older titles generally cause issues because they look for the HAL path.

Donnie27 said:
Well, at least you didn't say EAX hasn't changed since EAX2 like someone else here
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I said something close to that, and it's not exactly a false statement. Fundamentally, though, EAX 5.0 is much more akin to 3.0 than it is 2.0.

And I was a bit off earlier. EAX 3.0 is over eight years old, having been introduced in March of 1999.
 
And I was a bit off earlier. EAX 3.0 is over eight years old, having been introduced in March of 1999.
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Well, to be fair it was paper-launched in '99 because around that time A3D 3.0 was also announced. It was until the Audigy launched when there were some tangible demos and games.
 
this would be awesome news in the times of XP, but with Vista EAX is basically dead. Sure there is Open AL but you don't need X-fi for that.
 
HSE said:
If we can take the Cmedia based cards from Auzentch as a precedent, there's a good chance that this card will use 'regular' X-Fi drivers with some minor customization. It will be interesting when someone with spare time can figure out a mod that enables real-time encoding for older X-Fi cards.

According to interviews around the time of the launching of the first X-Fi cards CL won't be making overhauls to the chip architecture any time soon. I think the most 'radical' HW changes we can expect for the X-Fi 2 is HDMI and support for PCIe.

But who knows, we might be in for another surprise.
Click to expand...

I hope the most radical change on X-Fi 2 is there won't be anymore SCP problem.
 
I really want to see specifics on this potential beast of a sound card. Mainly regarding the DACs used and the MSRP; I've managed to hold off on upgrading from my reliable Audigy 4 Pro for two years now, but if this manifests as a really viable card (with consistent, or at least tangible, driver support--though I suppose that now gets split between Creative and Auzentech, that's still borderline non-negotiable) I might finally have to let it go...
 
phide said:
Again, that isn't true.

DirectSound is still capable of rendering multichannel audio in Vista. The issue is that older titles generally cause issues because they look for the HAL path.


I said something close to that, and it's not exactly a false statement. Fundamentally, though, EAX 5.0 is much more akin to 3.0 than it is 2.0.

And I was a bit off earlier. EAX 3.0 is over eight years old, having been introduced in March of 1999.
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There's more to 3D sound than Multichannel=P This Company knows it and that's why they're making this move. Otherwise they'd NOT touch X-Fi and keep doing what they're doing.

The other point was that I'd said all alone that Creative would license and or sale the chips.

EAX 3 has 2.5 times the feature set of EAX 2, EAX 4 and 5 has twice as many as EAX 3 but again, make of it what you like. So once again I see I wasted my time posting the charts.
 
HSE said:
Well, to be fair it was paper-launched in '99 because around that time A3D 3.0 was also announced. It was until the Audigy launched when there were some tangible demos and games.
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Something I've pointed out 3 different times.
 
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