New Diamond Multimedia Card

[peacetilence]

Has anyone used one of these? http://www.diamondmm.com/xtremesound.php

I'm looking for something to replace my Chaintek AV-710 (worst sound card ever made!) Seems that the new Creative Cards are a huge waste of cash and missing features even budget cards have had for years just in order to make you buy more of their (useless over priced crap)

To get DTS/DD optical on a creative card you have to A)buy a $150-300 card B)by a drive bay controller C) Buy their $100 external DTS 610 decoder

So you spend $400 to do something even the chaintek can do and it's a $20 value card!!! Even the onboard soundstorm solution has been able to do this for years!

This new diamond card seems like the best for games/movies combination over optical using DD and DTS. Are there any reviews floating around or has anyone tried this card? I can't stand the popping this chaintek causes in games and it looks like creative still hasn't got it figured out and continually peddles sound cards no self repecting audio enthusiast would touch. (I mean no offense to creative owners but creative knows they could toss out bricks of feces stamp the name creative on it and people would still buy it because they dominate the market) Sure they have EAX, Xram (is this even useful for anything). might increase your FPS by 1 or 2 in games. But they lack quality and are built from the standpoint where you have to buy their proprietary crap if you want any sort of functionalty from them (that even budget cards offer)

Creative = For gamers with too much money, no interest in sound, lack of common sense. Really, if creative was interested in catering to audio enthusiasts DTS, DD, and Optical would be priority #1. These are features on even the cheapest of budget cards. Creative's excuse = it would cost too much.

 

[aznx]

Isn't this better?

http://www.xoxide.com/bluegears-xmystique-ddl-gold.html

 

[peacetilence]

I don't know! What is the best card for Flac, DVD, optical - reciever and games? It seems like there is no card in the middle. What I mean is that cheap cards like the Chaintech AV-710 cater to DVD's, music, DTS+DD to reciever over optical output but Creative cards are the exact opposite. They have every gaming function you could imagine but when it comes to music, dvds, optical out to recievers they are lacking features even budget cards have. I want something with the best of both worlds!

 

[Croak]

Bringing this thread back from the grave.

I just installed the newish Diamond Xtreme Sound 7.1 Dolby Digital Live card in my rig, and I'm loving it.

The Realtek onboard HD Audio on my Asus board wasn't bad, but it had the same problem most other units have...if you used the SPDIF output to a reciever, you only got stereo unless the source stream (usually DVD) was DD/DTS. To get 5.1 or 7.1 from games you needed a reciever that accepted analog inputs, and those are rare as hen's teeth. That, or use a set of PC speakers.

I already had a good spare DD/DTS 7.1 amp, more satellite speakers than you can shake a stick at, and in my new place there are Bose 191 speakers in the ceiling in every room, placed perfectly for rear channel 5.1 with the way my desk is oriented, it'd be a shame not to take advantage of all those parts.

So, I looked around and the Diamond Xtreme was the best bang for the buck, picked it up at my local Fry's for $55. Hooked it up and I'm very impressed. It does a very good job converting stereo MP3's, .mov, .wma, .avi, etc to 5.1, though it's not quite the real thing. It really kicks ass in BF2, HL2, Oblivion, NFSMW, etc.

It still does DD/DTS SPDIF passthrough if I watch a DVD. It also takes a bit of CPU load off the system compared to my onboard Realtek HD, though that was never really an issue.

I just couldn't see paying $100+ for an X-Fi when it doesn't do what I need it to do. The well regarded HDA unit wasn't local, and the Turtle Beach 7.1 DDL card was more expensive and both used the same CMedia chipset. I suppose the best choice might have been the new HDA card that does DDL and DTS Interactive, but it's at least twice the price.

Long story short, those of you wanting to hook up your PC to a digital reciever via a single digital cable, this is a good choice for not a lot of money. The only downside is that it only has TOSLINK, no Coax digital.

 

[Smitty2k1]

To get 5.1 or 7.1 from games you needed a reciever that accepted analog inputs, and those are rare as hen's teeth.

This is news to me.. mine has 6 channel analog inputs, and it's a pannasonic xr-55 "Full Digital Amplifier" I'm going to go ahead and say its a pretty safe bet that most decent amps/receivers have 6 chan analog inputs.

It does a very good job converting stereo MP3's, .mov, .wma, .avi, etc to 5.1, though it's not quite the real thing. It really kicks ass in BF2, HL2, Oblivion, NFSMW, etc.

... if you like listening to stereo music in surround... then again most amplifiers have Dolby Pro Logic II or DTS: Neo6 and they do the same thing.

But this is all just my two cents, I'm extreemly satisfied with my Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music. If I want surround sound in games I'll just put on headphones and turn on the CMSS-3d headphones.

 

[Croak]

Actually, your Panny is a bit of an odd duck, especially in that price range. Go check out the other $200-$400 recievers on the market and see how many come with 6 port analog inputs.

Also, go check out how many HTIB systems come with analog surround inputs...none that I'm aware of. But most of them have optical or coax.

And in your case, you're running your signal through Creative's DAC to output the analog, then it's going through your Panny's DAC's again to be converted back to digital to be amplified, and then back to analog for the speakers. If you could use your SPDIF, it's digital all the way, only going to analog when the Panny outputs to the speakers. At the very least, you're not getting any value out of one of the more expensive parts of the X-Fi, the high quality DAC. That DAC is awesome when running to a set of analog PC speakers, but running analog to a digital amp wastes it, and can actually have a negative impact (though probably hard for the average ear to discern)

What's great about a DDL card/chip is that you run ONE wire to a reasonably priced quality HTIB setup, generally have sound as good if not better than a set of PC speakers, and if you shop around, a mid-range $300ish HTIB (Sony, Yamaha, JVC, Onkyo, etc) plus DDL sound card still costs less than a set of Logitech,Creative, Klipsch, etc's best 5.1 or 7.1 speakers mated to even the cheapest X-Fi.

Plus you get the flexibility of upgrading speakers, better mounting options, more inputs(on the reciever), etc. The only dowside is that the reciever eats some desktop space, but that's also a problem with the higher end PC speakers and their control boxes. But I'm sorta preaching to the choir, you're already running your system through a reciever.

As for headphones and gaming, I'd rather have my 37" monitor shoved up my nether orifice, sideways, than wear them. For me, headphones are not an option.

MP3's in surround, that's not big deal, more of a novelty than a necessity..but you can always turn off AC3 on the reciever and just play them in normal stereo, or have the soundcard output via PCM rather than DDL 5.1, just like you would on a card that doesn't have DDL, and you have one less DAC to run the signal through.

I have nothing against the X-Fi, for an analog setup it's a good card. But Creative has dropped the ball on digital (or rather, held onto the ball so that you have to buy a lot of costly accessories). The money they spent on the DAC's, the slightly lower CPU usage, and EAX 3, 4, and 5 just aren't a selling point to me...

 

[Moofasa~]

Actually, your Panny is a bit of an odd duck, especially in that price range. Go check out the other $200-$400 recievers on the market and see how many come with 6 port analog inputs.

Mine does, as most do (well newer ones).

And in your case, you're running your signal through Creative's DAC to output the analog, then it's going through your Panny's DAC's again to be converted back to digital to be amplified, and then back to analog for the speakers. If you could use your SPDIF, it's digital all the way, only going to analog when the Panny outputs to the speakers. At the very least, you're not getting any value out of one of the more expensive parts of the X-Fi, the high quality DAC. That DAC is awesome when running to a set of analog PC speakers, but running analog to a digital amp wastes it, and can actually have a negative impact (though probably hard for the average ear to discern)

Not true. When using the analog input on your receiver, it effectively becomes a simple amplifier and does not go through the DAC again. I am not sure how you even arrived to this conclusion. DAC is a "digital to analog converter", your receiver does not convert the analog input (the analog signal) to digital (how would it convert it to digital?) then back to analog.

The money they spent on the DAC's, the slightly lower CPU usage, and EAX 3, 4, and 5 just aren't a selling point to me...

But spending money on a card that encodes your audio in a lossy format and lowering the overall quality is?

 

[Croak]

Analog 5.1 is still the minority.

I arrived at that conclusion because the Panasonic XR55 is a PWM Class D digital amp, so there's an A to D process involved in the amplification phase when the source is coming in analog...that step is not performed when it's coming in digital.

I spent money (very little money) on a card that outputs 5.1 through a single cable using common SPDIF inputs on just about any surround reciever built in the last five years. Sure, DDL is lossy, but so is MP3, and like I mentioned before, for fidelity I can simply output a straight PCM 2 channel stream to the amp. For games that fidelity is not needed, and the surround immersion with DDL is pretty solid and offsets the loss.

Now, if I didn't already have a decent surround reciever, subwoofer, and several sat speakers all collecting dust in a closet (plus the ceiling mounted Bose speakers I'm using for my rear channel), and was just building a PC audio solution from the ground up, I'd consider the X-Fi and a set of good PC speakers.

But since that is not the case, spending $55 allowed me to take full advantage of the hardware I already had...to accomplish the same thing using Creative's cards would have meant buying another new amp that had 6 analog inputs, and an X-Fi. Easy math, $55 vs $350+.

 

[Smitty2k1]

Analog 5.1 is still the minority.

I arrived at that conclusion because the Panasonic XR55 is a PWM Class D digital amp, so there's an A to D process involved in the amplification phase when the source is coming in analog...that step is not performed when it's coming in digital.

I spent money (very little money) on a card that outputs 5.1 through a single cable using common SPDIF inputs on just about any surround reciever built in the last five years. Sure, DDL is lossy, but so is MP3, and like I mentioned before, for fidelity I can simply output a straight PCM 2 channel stream to the amp. For games that fidelity is not needed, and the surround immersion with DDL is pretty solid and offsets the loss.

Now, if I didn't already have a decent surround reciever, subwoofer, and several sat speakers all collecting dust in a closet (plus the ceiling mounted Bose speakers I'm using for my rear channel), and was just building a PC audio solution from the ground up, I'd consider the X-Fi and a set of good PC speakers.

But since that is not the case, spending $55 allowed me to take full advantage of the hardware I already had...to accomplish the same thing using Creative's cards would have meant buying another new amp that had 6 analog inputs, and an X-Fi. Easy math, $55 vs $350+.

Ahh but a few things:
1) I output digital from my X-Fi to my amp for music/movies.
2) For games I either use the CMSS-3d Headphone or I switch my amp to the 6chan audio (Not a big deal, I press one button)
3) 6channel audio is needed for DVD-A which I listen to occasionally.
4) I had the amp anyways, I run my DVD player through it, and my PS2 on optical audio. Also, it has component video switching. I have my computer and my PS2 both running on component video to my TV, however the TV only has one component video imput.

It works perfect for me, glad the Diamond works for you.