• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

turtlebeach montego ddl

A

arctic-k20

Weaksauce
Joined
Oct 27, 2004
Messages
70
http://www.turtlebeach.com/site/products/soundcards/mtgoddl/

There aren’t many opinions on this particular soundcard so I thought I would share mine. I have had this card for about a week. My previous card was the SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS. My speakers are Logitech z5500.

The reason I switched was for the optical out on the DDL card and my z5500 speakers are digital. The DDL feature is amazing.

The Montego is a very nice card. The sound difference is very noticeable compared to a ZS. The DDL card has an air sound quality - it sounds very spatial whereas my ZS sounded boomy bass I guess is how I would describe it. The DDL is more musical.

The DDL option is awesome - I still can't believe that Creative would launch the x-fi line and not include this feature. It has true digital pass-thru so your DVD movies get passed to your digital decoder unchanged so you hear the DVD as it is supposed to be heard. Everything else gets encoded to Dolby Digital on the fly. If you do some digging this option is actually done at the software level and not on the hardware itself. I can say that on my system the performance hit is none.

I am still trying out different games with the DDL feature.

The card is not perfect though. There are software glitches with the current drivers. When you use the optical output the volume doesn’t track properly. So if you reboot your computer you will have 0 sounds until you open the Montego control panel. As soon as you open the control panel the sound works properly until your next reboot. Turtlebeach has said this will be fixed in their next driver release.

Other things I have noticed are when in game - I have disable EAX support for the sound to be encoded properly. I leave hardware acceleration enabled but disable all other sound options and let DDL do its thing.

I would HIGHLY recommend this card to anybody. It is cheaper than Creative’s offerings and in my humble opinion sounds better (when using 100% digital connections). I can’t comment on the analog connections as I do not use them and never plan to.

Anybody that is hesitant on leaving EAX behind I promise you will not be disappointed. I will take Dolby Digital over any other (except DTS perhaps) any day of the week!!!
 
are you comparing the digital output of the montego to the analog output of the a2zs? are you listening to ur music in dolby digital 5.1? do games sound better on the montego or a2zs?
 
my comparison is audigy 2zs analog to montego digital and i am listening to everything in DDL..

the 2zs has digital out but only outputs 5.1 digital from a digital source ie) dvd's everything else reverts back to stereo UNLESS you use creative speakers with a special connection - then you will get 5.1 all the time (or so i have read).

So it isnt really an apples to apples comparison since the 2zs was analog and the Montego is Dolby Digital Live.

The purpose of my little write up is just to let anybody thinking about the Montego that I have had good experience's with it so far and I think it sounds better than my 2zs.

Sound is very subjective - and up to now I loved my 2zs and I had only ever owned creative products.

Anyways - just my 2c
 
but the only thing that would need 5.1 is games and movies. since dvds have a 5.1 soundtrack, your only concern will be games. do games sound that much better using ddl instead of regular analog? also regular music (cd/mp3s) is intended to be listened in stereo and not 5.1, unless 5.1 floats your boat.
 
i prefer it - if music was only for stereo then dvd-audio wouldnt really exist, everybody would have 2 speakers...

but i know where you are coming from.....and yes i think games do sound good with ddl ;)

consider this boat afloat!
 
arctic-k20 said:
http://www.turtlebeach.com/site/products/soundcards/mtgoddl/

There aren’t many opinions on this particular soundcard so I thought I would share mine. I have had this card for about a week. My previous card was the SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS. My speakers are Logitech z5500.

The reason I switched was for the optical out on the DDL card and my z5500 speakers are digital. The DDL feature is amazing.

The Montego is a very nice card. The sound difference is very noticeable compared to a ZS. The DDL card has an air sound quality - it sounds very spatial whereas my ZS sounded boomy bass I guess is how I would describe it. The DDL is more musical.

The DDL option is awesome - I still can't believe that Creative would launch the x-fi line and not include this feature. It has true digital pass-thru so your DVD movies get passed to your digital decoder unchanged so you hear the DVD as it is supposed to be heard. Everything else gets encoded to Dolby Digital on the fly. If you do some digging this option is actually done at the software level and not on the hardware itself. I can say that on my system the performance hit is none.

I am still trying out different games with the DDL feature.

The card is not perfect though. There are software glitches with the current drivers. When you use the optical output the volume doesn’t track properly. So if you reboot your computer you will have 0 sounds until you open the Montego control panel. As soon as you open the control panel the sound works properly until your next reboot. Turtlebeach has said this will be fixed in their next driver release.

Other things I have noticed are when in game - I have disable EAX support for the sound to be encoded properly. I leave hardware acceleration enabled but disable all other sound options and let DDL do its thing.

I would HIGHLY recommend this card to anybody. It is cheaper than Creative’s offerings and in my humble opinion sounds better (when using 100% digital connections). I can’t comment on the analog connections as I do not use them and never plan to.

Anybody that is hesitant on leaving EAX behind I promise you will not be disappointed. I will take Dolby Digital over any other (except DTS perhaps) any day of the week!!!
Click to expand...

i have the ddl as well.. i hate how you have to open the cp every time.

also, i found the in-game audio to be less than perfect. (atleast in FEAR) its like it cant keep track of where shots are coming from. all to often i will be shooting and it will sound fine.. then all the sudden it sounds like im shooting a hundred yards away. not to mention it is reducing my fps.. if the new drivers dont improve the card im gonna be pretty upset.. my santa cruz was sold card, so i expect nothing less with this.

if not, im gonna get an x-fi..
 
if you output spdif to your reciever... try enabling our dd music or dd movie mode on your reciever. it is pretty rad if you think the surround sound is weak :)
 
Dolby Digital Live, or the ability to encode a non Dolby Digital source into Dolby Digital 5.1.
 
arctic-k20 said:
the 2zs has digital out but only outputs 5.1 digital from a digital source ie) dvd's everything else reverts back to stereo UNLESS you use creative speakers with a special connection - then you will get 5.1 all the time (or so i have read).
Click to expand...

I do not think this is true. My X-Fi, same as my previously owned Audigy can send full 5.1. Dolby or DTS track to the external receiver. There is no way it downmixes your DVD to stereo. The only thing that DDL is helpful with is 5.1 sound in games that gets sent via SPDIF to the external receiver.
But I fail to see benefits with that.

arctic-k20 said:
The purpose of my little write up is just to let anybody thinking about the Montego that I have had good experience's with it so far and I think it sounds better than my 2zs.
Click to expand...

DDL compresses signal and introduces latency. Surely you can like the way such signal sounds especially if you have a nice decoder with very decent speakers but... this is remotely related to the soundcard itself. If you want to know how the soundcard sounds use its analog connection as quality of DAC will, partially, determine the experience.
DDL gives you only means to transport 5.1. sound in games to the far-away receiver via SPDIF. Although it is clear advantage over long distances it compromises on quality. And as most ppl would have speakers close to their gaming rig I fail to see the benefit

arctic-k20 said:
Sound is very subjective - and up to now I loved my 2zs and I had only ever owned creative products.
Click to expand...

Absolutely yes, however this whole DDL makes sense only if you have a good receiver and at the same time you do not bother about latency introduced to sound in games.
I guess that is the reason why soundblaster does not, officially, have this feature. However I just saw a thread on driverheaven that links to DDL encoder for Audigy 2ZS that apparently works

And as I said: your movies, your dolby and dts soundtracks can be sent to the receiver without need for DDL, none of my creative cards had to scale 5.1. sound to stereo to send it out digitally.
This was misleading piece of information, I guess sound settings must have been messed up a bit ;) But glad to hear the troubles are over now, good luck with the new card!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top