From waardenb@cs (Jerry van Waardenberg) Mon Jun 14 11:41:40 1993 Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard From: waardenb@cs.utwente.nl (Jerry van Waardenberg) Subject: *** SOUNDCARDS SUMMARY *** June 1993 Message-ID: <1993Jun11.170916@cs.utwente.nl> Keywords: Soundcards Nntp-Posting-Host: utis107.cs.utwente.nl Organization: University of Twente, Dept. of Computer Science Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1993 15:09:16 GMT Lines: 776 **** SOUNDCARDS SUMMARY - June 1993 **** This is the 5th revision of Soundcard Summary. New to the list is the Genoa Audiobahn. There are also some minor adjustments. The text of this article is composed from a lot of messages of different people. I'd like to thank everyone who contributed to this article. Their names can be found at the end. I'm not sure if everything in this article is correct. If you find any mistakes, or have comments or suggestions, then let me know by e-mail. The opinions in this article are my own, unless stated otherwise; other people might have other opinions (I certainly hope they do ;-)). **** INTRODUCTION Generally PC's can produce music in four different ways, dependent on the type of soundcard used: 1. By Digital to Analogue (D/A) conversion. Samples stored in the computer's memory are digitally processed and transformed to analogue signals, that can be played over a stereo set or headphones. 2. By synthesis. The computer sends note-information to the soundcard, which produces analogue signals. There are two common used forms of synthesis: FM and wavetable synthesis. 3. By MIDI. Note-information is send through a MIDI-interface to a MIDI-device, which produces the music. The MIDI-device itself produces music as described in 1) or 2). 4. By controlling a CD-ROM drive. The music is stored on CD-ROM which is controlled by the computer. ** FM synthesis With FM synthesis the tones are produced by waveform generators, called operators. The more operators are used, the better the sound quality will be. A disadvantage of FM synthesis is that it is quite difficult to produce realistic sounding instruments, especially when playing high pitched notes (reeds, guitar, etc.). The Adlib was the first soundcard that used this technique, using a Yamaha YM3812 FM chip with two operators. Most Adlib compatible cards (SoundBlaster, Pro Audio Spectrum) are also using this technique. The newer cards are mostly using the new Yamaha YMF262 (OPL-3) FM chip, which has four operators. ** Wavetable synthesis (WS) With WS (mostly 16-bit PCM) samples are used to produce sound. The samples are stored in ROM or RAM on the soundcard. A WS-processor performs operations on the samples, such as altering their pitch and length. Since the samples are taken from real instruments, they generally sound very realistic. Until recently this technique was only used by high-end soundcards, but it is becoming more and more popular now. ** MIDI [The following explanation is from Teemu Mottonen] (General) MIDI is a standard that many synth- and soundcards manufacturers are starting to use. It assigns particular sounds to certain sound (or patch) numbers. There are 128 of them, plus a number of drums. This way, say, a MIDI file that uses sound number 1 will always play an 'acoustic piano' on different synths. In PCs, mainly two kinds of MIDI interfaces are used: UART MIDI and MPU-401. The first can be found in soundblasters, Pro Audio Spectrums, etc. With these the computer (or the program using MIDI) handles everything. MPU-401 is the model of an early PC MIDI interface by Roland. This interface has two modes: dumb (or UART) and intelligent. Many DOS programs use the MPU in the intelligent mode, so compatibility is a must. In Windows things are different; as long as you have a driver for the MIDI card, things should work o.k. ** Sampling Most cards nowadays support sampling. Usually this is done in 8-bit or 16-bit resolution, but there are cards that use other resolutions (Adlib Gold 1000 uses 12-bit sampling, the Genoa Audiobahn uses 10-bit sampling). Sampling is done by an Analogue to Digital Converter (ADC). Samples can be compressed by using PCM (Puls Code Modulation) or AD-PCM, which is an variant of PCM that results in higher compression. With AD-PCM the sound quality is usually less than with PCM. ** MPC (Multimedia PC) specifications. A PC may be called a "Multimedia PC" (MPC) if it conforms to a number of specifications. For the soundcards these specs are: * 8-bit DAC (16-bit recommended) with PCM and 11 and 22 KHz sampling. Processor load may not be more than 10%. * 8-bit ADC (16-bit recommended) with PCM and 11 and 22 KHz sampling. * Microphone (or Line) input. * MIDI synthesizer, 6-tone polyphonic (6 tones at the same time), FM-based and/or sample-based (WS). If sample-based, the samples must at least be 8-bit. * Audio mixer. Since a MPC must be equipped with a CD-ROM, most soundcards provide a CD-ROM interface, with a minimum throughput of 150 kB/sec. ** Channels, instruments and voices. These words are common in the soundcard-business, but what do they mean? It took a while before I understood what they were and I am not sure if I do now, so correct me if I'm wrong. I will try to explain. First of all, instruments, patches and voices refer to the same thing, namely one 'instance' of an instrument. An instrument can be played in various notes. When you put these notes after each other, then you have a (instrument) track. "Polyphonic" means "multiple voices", i.e. more than one instance of an instrument. In MIDI, each instrument can be played "through" a single channel. So if a card has 8 channels, it means that it can play 8 instrument tracks at the same time. In synth terms, this would probably be called "multi-timbral", i.e. "playing multiple instruments at once". A channel would then be simply "left" or "right", to indicate the position of the sounds when playing stereo. Let me try to illustrate this with an example: Consider an orchestra divided into 8 sections, where each section plays one type of instrument (piano, violin, drums). Every section can contain one or more musicians, lets say 16. In MIDI, this would be called "8-channel, 16 multiple voices per channel". In general synth terms it would say "8 voice multi-timbral, 16 voice polyphonic". **** REVIEWED CARDS I will give an overview of some cards that looked interesting to me. Most of them were released only recently. The reviewed cards are: The SoundBlaster Pro, the SoundBlaster 16 with WaveTable daughterboard, the Pro Audio Plus/16, the Gravis UltraSound, the Roland LAPC-1 and SCC-1, the Turtle Beach MultiSound and the Genoa Audiobahn. After that I'll give an short description of some other cards. All these cards, except for the Rolands, are MPC-compliant. ** The SoundBlaster Pro (SB-pro) The SoundBlaster (SB) from Creative Labs was the first Adlib compatible card that, besides FM music, was capable of recording and playing (8-bit) samples. The original SB contained 1 (mono) or 2 (stereo) Yamaha YM3812 chips. The first SB-pro was also equipped with 2 YM3812 chips, but the newer versions (SB-pro 2.0 and up) containes the new OPL-3 chip. The SB-pro is capable of 8-bit sampling at 44.100 Hz in mono or 22 Khz stereo and supports AD-PCM compression. It has a CD-ROM interface which is only compatible with Mitsumi drives. A General MIDI interface is present. The SB-pro has a 2 x 4 Watts amplifier. Volume can be changed manually on the back of the card or by software. Inputs: * Microphone, * external line in. Outputs: * Audio, * line out, * SB compatible MIDI, * SB CD-ROM interface. The SB-pro is fully Adlib and SB compatible and therefore it is supported by a lot of games. Also a lot of games do support the extra capabilities of SB-pro. Sampling quality of the SB-pro is good. Since it uses FM-synthesis to generate sound, the SB-pro is not a good card to produce high quality music. However, FM-synthesis in combination with sampling produces good results for games. Older versions of the SB and SB-pro are not shielded very well: You can hear a lot of background noise from the harddisk or the power supply. There are several SB-pro version: The newest is the SB-pro DeLuxe. It comes with four 3.5" HD, two 3.5" DD disks and a CD. The software is not bad, especially the Windows applications are nice. The most interesting programs are: Monologue, HSC InterActive, Creative Wave Studio and the SB-pro mixer program. The two DD disk contain two games: Lemmings 1 and Indianapolis 500. The CD contains an encyclopedia, but you need a CD-ROM player if you want to use it! PERSONAL OPINION: The big advantage of the SB is its support by a lot of games. But these games do not always support the extra capabilities of the SB-pro. But since the quality of the SB-pro is better than the standard SB, I think you can better buy a SB-pro. If you do want to have CD-ROM, you have to bear in mind that the SB-pro supports only Mitsumi CD-ROM drives. ** SoundBlaster 16 The SoundBlaster 16 (SB 16) is an stringly improved version of the SB, that offers real 16 bit stereo sound. Of course the SB16 is SB and Adlib compatible, but unfortunately it is not fully compatible with the SB-pro. The SB-16 supports 8 and 16 bit stereo sampling and playing up to 44.1 KHz, has dynamic filtering and ADPCM compression. It also contains a 16 bit ASP (Advanced (Digital) Signal Processor), which enables you to download a compression and/or voice recognition algorithm. On-board real-time (de)compression takes much load off the processor (up to 75%). Compression also minimizes the amount of data that must be transferred from memory to the card (16 bit stereo sampling at 44.1 KHz requires 2x2x44 = 176 kB/sec uncompressed...!). Like the SB-pro the SB-16 has a Yamaha YMF262 (OPL-3) synthesizer chip, with 4 voice operator FM synthesis. A WaveBlaster (WB) daughterboard is optional. The WB works according to the General MIDI system and has 128 PCM sampled sounds. The WB contains a Proteus synthesizer chip that is also used on the Turtle Beach MultiSound. Although Creative Labs advertises with "The SB-16 has a MPU-401 compatible MIDI interface", it only supports the dumb UART mode. Inputs: * Microphone, * external line in. Outputs: * Audio line out, * MPU 401 (UART) and SB compatible MIDI, * SB CD-ROM interface. The SB16 comes with quite a lot of software. I haven't seen it, so I don't know if it is good stuff. Included are: Creative Wave Studio, HCS Interactive, DB Talker, SB Sim, Creative Mosaic, PC-Animate Plus, Intelligent Organ, MMPlay, Creative Talking Scheduler, Monologue for Windows, SB MIDI and DOS and Windows 3.1 drivers. The sampling quality of the SB-16 is good, but there is quite a lot of noise (I've heard this from someone who's reviewing a test version, which may not be entirely correct. Maybe the circuitry isn't shielded very good?). Since there is no software for the SB-16 yet, the special capabilities cannot be tested. Although the SB-16 should be SB-pro compatible, it turns out that this is not always true. PERSONAL OPINION: Since it is a SoundBlaster, it is supported by a lot of games. Together with the optional WaveBlaster it forms a great, but quite expensive, combo. It's advantages are its 16 bit sampling and the ASP. But it still has a SB-compatible CD-ROM interface instead of a SCSI interface and, a major disadvantage, it is not fully SB-pro compatible. At the moment there is not much software that supports the SB-16. If you are thinking about buying the SB-16/WB combo, than consider the SB-pro/Roland LAPC-1 combo as well. The latter has better software support (for now). Or buy another card: read on!. ** Pro Audio Spectrum Plus and Pro Audio Spectrum 16 The Pro Audio Spectrum Plus and -16 (PAS+ and PAS-16) from Media Vision are probably the SB's main competitors when it comes to Adlib compatible cards. Both cards are almost identical, except that the PAS-16 has 16 bit sampling and the PAS+ 8-bit. The PAS-16 features 8, 12 and 16 bit stereo sampling and playback (up to 44.1 KHz), dynamic filtering and ADPCM compression and decompression. The PAS+ does not have 12 and 16 bit sampling. Like the SB-pro and SB-16, the PAS has a Yamaha YMF262 (OPL-3) synthesizer chip with 4 operator FM sounds. The PAS has shielded circuitry and dynamic filtering. Inputs: * Microphone, * External line in (stereo), * PC speaker. Outputs: * Audio line out (headphones, amplifier), * SCSI (not just for CD-ROM, but also for tape-streamers, optical drives, etc), * general MIDI (requires optional MIDI Mate), * joystick. S/N: 90 db. Dynamic range: 90 db. Harmonic distortion: 0.05% The PAS-16 is one of the cards I've tried myself (the others are the SB-pro and the GUS). The 16-bit samples sounds incredibly good. The example MOD-files that come with the PAS-16 sound really awesome (great stereo, no noise)! The PAS16 comes with quite a lot of software (compared to a lot of the other cards): Stereo Studio F/X is a waveform editor. It looks very neat but is incredibly slow. SP Spectrum is a MIDI sequencer. TrakBlaster Pro is a very nice MOD-player. Furthermore, there is a mixer (supports "loudness", which makes low pitched sounds come out better), a multimedia application (Audio Mate) and a speech synthesizer (Pro Speech). For Windows there are three (!!) mixers and a number of drivers. Although Media Vision claims the PAS is fully SB(-pro) compatible, some people have problems when using the PAS as a SB. It seems that the PAS is not 100% SB compatible. PERSONAL OPINION: The PAS16 is a good but not the cheapest sound card. The 16-bit MOD files sound very good, but playing MIDI songs through the internal FM chip is quite a disappointment. I like the amount and quality of the software that comes with the PAS16 and the standard SCSI interface for CD-ROM. This, and the overall mechanical quality of the card, IMHO makes the PAS a better card than the SB-pro (and maybe even better than the SB-16). Too bad the PAS16 is not 100% compatible with the SB(-pro). ** The Gravis UltraSound The Gravis UltraSound (GUS) from Advanced Gravis is a fairly new 16 bit soundcard that uses wavetable synthese (WS) to generate sound. With WS 16-bit samples (called patches) are used to generate sound effects and music. On the GUS, these samples are stored in RAM. Standard the GUS supports 8 bit stereo sampling and 16-bit playback, up to 48 KHz. 16 bit recording is optional (requires a daughter board). It is 32 voice multi-timbral and 32 voice polyphonic. The wavetable synthesis enables you to create very realistic instruments. Unlike the Roland SCC-1, the GUS stores the samples for WS in RAM, so you have unlimited possibilities. The instruments can be stored on disk and downloaded to the card when needed. The GUS comes with 256 kB RAM, but this is a little too short. However, it can be expanded to 1 MB. Gravis has announced that they will ship the GUS with 512 kB soon. Inputs: * Microphone, * Audio Line In. Outputs: * Audio Line Out, * Amplified Audio Out, * speed compensating joystick (up to 50 Mhz), * general MIDI (requires optional MIDI adapter), * SCSI CD-ROM (requires optional SCSI interface card). S/N: 80 db. Dynamic range: 96 db. Harmonic distortion: <0.014% Gravis claims 100% compatibility with SB and Adlib. This compatibility is achieved through software emulation by SBOS (Sound Board Operating System). Unfortunately, in practice SBOS is not 100% SB compatible. Newer releases are becoming more compatible. Another big disadvantage of SBOS is that it degrades performance considerable in some cases. In general SBOS doesn't work good with demos and high speed animation. It works o.k. with most Sierra games and (for example) Dune I & II, X-Wing and Strike Commander. Since the GUS has no FM-chip, the FM-sounds are emulated through samples/patches. This results in slightly different (but not worse) sounds than the SB. All of this is not really a big problem, since the GUS is not intended to be a SB clone. MIDI files, for example, sound very good. If you play a piano-song, then you _hear_ a piano and a guitar sounds like a guitar. As soon as software companies are going to support the GUS directly, the sound quality will be far better than a SB. Gravis is working on a 'Miles' driver, so every game that support this driver, will also support the GUS in its native mode. The GUS has no special effects, like chorus and reverb. I am not sure if the GUS has (dynamic) filtering, since documentation is brief. The sound quality is very good, in most cases even better than a Roland LAPC-1. However, the sound quality of the GUS is dependent on the quality of the patches. Some patches are not so good, so those instruments sound worse. Gravis has just finished the new GUS disk set. This disk set includes 188 instrument patches, a MIDI player, a MOD player, a Windows patch manager and mixer and some other stuff. The new disk set also includes two Windows MIDI programs: Power Chords for Windows and Midisoft Recording Session. Since the GUS is mainly software controlled, it is very flexible. Gravis continues working on better software support for the GUS. Also, several game companies have announced GUS support and almost all major demo groups are working on (or already having) GUS support. The GUS is undoubtly a very good alternative for the FM-based cards. PERSONAL OPINION: The GUS seems to be a good soundcard. It offers high (sound) quality for a low price. Unfortunately it is not 100% SB compatible, but this may become better by new software upgrades. Since the card is becoming quite popular, software developers are already starting to support it. The GUS is, at this moment, my favourite. ** The Roland LAPC-1 and SCC-1 The Roland LAPC-1 is a semi-professional soundcard based on the Roland MT-32 module. In fact, the LAPC-1 is a MT-32 and MPU MIDI-interface on a PC-card. The LAPC-1 contains 128 LA (Linear Arithmetic) synthesized instruments. The LAPC-1 uses a combination of samples and waveform synthesis to build a patch (note): A patch consists of 4 "partials" that can be either a sample or a linear part. The total number of partials is limited to 32; up to 8 instruments can be played simultaneously and each channel can play up to 16 voices at the same time. There is a 9th channel for percussion sounds (MIDI channel 10). Besides 128 instruments, the LAPC-1 has 30 pre-sampled drum- and percussionsounds and 33 sound-effects. The SCC-1 is the follow-up of the LAPC-1 and is compatible with the SC-55. Like the LAPC-1, it is a module (in this case a CM-300) and a MPU-MIDI interface on one card. The SCC-1 does not use waveform-synthesis, but is fully WS-based. It contains 317 PCM samples in ROM. A patch can consist of 24 partials, but most patches use only one partial. Like the LAPC-1 it can use 32 partials simultaneously, but it has 15 channels for instruments (+ 1 for percussion). The sounds can be fully programmed, except for the samples. The LAPC-1 has two special effects: hall and echo; the SCC-1 has chorus as well. The Roland cards do not have a DAC/ADC, so it is not possible to record or play samples. They also don't have a CD-ROM interface. This means that the Roland cards do not conform to the MPC specifications. The sound quality of the LAPC-1 is good. High pitched instruments like piano or reeds do not sound as good as with the GUS. The quality of the sound-effects in general is quite good. The sound quality of the SCC-1 is outstanding. The PCM samples are of high quality. The SCC-1 is not fully compatible with the LAPC-1. The LAPC-1 comes with no software at all. The SCC-1 only has a program for enabling the MT-32 emulation mode. PERSONAL OPINION: The Roland cards are good cards for making music, especially since they contain a MPU-MIDI interface. However, the cards are quite expensive and offer less functionality than other cards. In combination with a cheap SB the Roland cards are very nice (just listen to Space Quest IV :^). Wow!) But I think the GUS comes close to this combo and it is less expensive. It's a pity that the SCC-1 does not have RAM to store samples in. ** The Turtle Beach MultiSound (TBM) The TBM is certainly not designed for playing games: It is a semi-professional card with a semi-professional price tag! The card uses wavetable synthesis with 16-bits samples. The 384 samples are stored in 4 MB ROM, so they can not be changed. An E-mu Proteus-1/XR synthesizer processes these samples, together with a Motorola 56001 Digital Signal Processor. With this DSP you can add all kinds of effects. Standard supported are Hall, Chorus and Echo. The MultiSound supports fully 16-bit sampling, up to 44.1 KHz stereo. It also has 64-times oversampling. The TBM supports 32 MIDI channels, the same as the GUS. A Turtle Beach compatible MIDI interface is present as well. Inputs: * Auxilary, * Audio Line In. Outputs: * Audio Line Out, * TB MIDI, * CD-ROM (requires optional interface card). S/N: 89 db. Dynamic range: >95 db. Harmonic distortion: <0.01% The sound quality of the TBM is incredible. It sounds almost as good as a CD! Of course, this is not a surprise if you know that the Proteus chip is used in professional keyboards. However, this all has its price... The TBM is not compatible with SB or Adlib. Only Windows 3.1 is supported; the card is not intended to be used under DOS. The software that comes with the TBM are all Windows based and includes a MIDI mapper, a patch panel, a mixer program and Wave Lite for Windows. PERSONAL OPINION: From what I have heard, the TBM is a very impressive card. But also quite expensive: Approx. US$ 500. The card is not suitable for people who want to have music with their games. It does not support SB or Adlib. But for semi-professional use, it is a very interesting card. IMHO, if it had MPU-401 MIDI interface, the TBM would definitively be a better choice than a Roland SCC-1. ** The Genoa Audiobahn Pro The GAB-Pro is, like the GUS and the TBMS, a wavetable-oriented soundcard. It is based on the Aria chipset from Sierra Semiconductor. It has 1 MB of 16-bit samples stored in ROM. Sampling can be done in 16-bit resolution up to kHz in stereo. However, the specifications say that it has only a 10-bit ADC, which means that the GAB record at 10-bit resolution max. The other six bits are probably added as zeros (assumption!). It also contains a DSP (Digital Signal Processor), that can be used to add effects to the sound. The Aria synthesizer can play 32 voices polyphonic. The GAB has a Adaptec SCSI interface built in as well as a UART MIDI interface. SB and Adlib emulation is done by hardware and works quite well, although not 100% (like the GUS). The GAB con not work in Aria and SB mode simultaneously. Inputs: * Line in * CD audio Outputs: * Line out * MPU 401 (UART mode) MIDI * SCSI interface S/N: 70 db. Harmonic distortion: <0.5% The card comes with a large amount of software and a stereo headphone and microphone. The software includes: HCS Interactive, Wave for Windows Lite and DOS and Windows drivers. Installation is quite easy by means of jumpers. The sound quality of the GAB is quite good, but it is not compared to other WS-based cards like the GUS or the Roland SCC-1. (Please can someone make such a comparison?) There is also a less expensive version of the GAB-pro: The GAB 16+. I am not sure what the differences are, but at least the GAB-16+ has only 512 kB ROM. The GAB is also sold under other names. PERSONAL OPINION: I haven't actually heard or seen the card, so my opinion is entirely based on things I have read about it. It looks like a good card to me. Its biggest advantages are General MIDI compatibility and the Adaptec SCSI interface. A strange thing is that it has 16-bit recording, but only a 10-bit ADC. And 1 MB ROM seems not much to store the entire GM patch set in; The GUS uses almost 6 MB (on disk) for the GM patch set! Maybe that explains the low S/N ratio and high harmonic distortion, compared to the PAS, GUS and TBMS? ** Other cards Here follows a list of other sound cards, with a short description of each card: * Covox/Disney Sound Source. Simple DAC plugged into your computers printer port. * Adlib Gold 1000. Adlib and SB compatible card with SCSI and General MIDI interface. Yahama OPL-3 FM chip. 20 channels, 1-voice polyphonic. Surround processor to improve sound quality. 12 bit sampling and playing up to 44.1 KHz. Inputs: Mic and Line. Outputs: Line. * Adlib Gold 2000. Like the Adlib Gold 1000, but with 16 bit sampling. * Thunderboard. Adlib and SB compatible. Yamaha YMF3812 FM-chip. 11-voice polyphonic. 8 bit mono sampling up to 22 kHz. SB-compatible MIDI interface. Inputs: Mic. Outputs: Headphones. * ATI-Stereo F/X. Adlib and SB-compatible. Yamaha YM3812 FM-chips. 11-voice polyphonic. 8 bit stereo sampling up to 44.1 KHz. SB-compatible MIDI-interface. Inputs: Mic, Line. Outputs: Line. Also in combination with VGA card available. * Logitech Soundman. An OEM PAS16. It does not have a SCSI interface, though. * Sound Galaxy NX (Pro). A full SB(-pro) clone, with all features of the SB(-pro). * Orchid Sound Producer Pro. Adlib, SB-pro, Disney and Covox compatible. Yamaha OPL-3. 20-voice polyphonic. 8 bit sampling up to 44.1 kHz in mono or 22 kHz in stereo. SB-compatible MIDI interface. Dynamic filtering. Inputs: Line, Mic. Outputs: MIDI, speaker. * Tecmar ProSound. Adlib, SB and ACPA(?) compatible. Yamaha OPL-3 FM-chip. 20 voice polyphonic. 16-bit sampling and playback up to 44.1 kHz. Texas Instruments DSP with 512 kB RAM. Inputs: Line, Mic. Outputs: Line, Headphones, MIDI, SCSI. * Please mail me more... **** OVERVIEW SPECIFICATIONS =========================================================== SBpro SB16 PAS16 GUS HARDWARE ISA slot (bits) 16 16 16 16 Compatibility Adlib Adlib Adlib Adlib### SB SBpro SB SB### CONNECTIONS: Mic in mono? mono? mono? mono? Line in stereo stereo stereo stereo PC speaker in yes ? yes no Line out stereo stereo stereo stereo Amplified out 2x4 W 2x4 W 2x4 W 2x2 W Joystick yes yes yes yes MIDI UART UART UART# UART# CD-ROM SB SB SCSI SCSI# SYNTHESIZER Type FM FM FM WS Chipset OPL-3 OPL-3 OPL-3 GF1 Voices* 1 1 1 32 Channels 20 20 20 32 Instruments 128 128 128 RAM (192 on disk) Effects - by ASP - - Miscellaneous - ASP - - SAMPLING AD (bits) 8 16 16 8 (16#) DA (bits) 8 16 16 16 Freq. stereo (Khz) 11-22 5-44 4-44 2-44 Freq. mono (Khz) 4-44 5-44 4-44 2-44 Compression ADPCM ADPCM ADPCM SB emulated ___:1 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 - Decompression ADPCM ADPCM ADPCM SB-emulated ___:1 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4 - SNR (dB) 90 80 Dyn. range (dB) 90 96 Harmonic dis. (%) 0.05 0.014 MIXER** Master 16 32 63 4096 (non-linear) Synthesizer 16 32 31 4096 (") DAC 16 32 31 4096 (") Mic 8 32 31 on/off Line in 16 32 31 on/off Tone*** (dB) - 12 12 - Balance - 31 31 15 PRICE (est.) $180 $280 $200 $150 =========================================================== LAPC-1 SCC-1 TBM GAB HARDWARE ISA slot (bits) 8 8 16 16 Compatibility MT-32 GM/GS GM/GS GM MPU MT-32### Adlib### MPU SB### CONNECTIONS: Mic in - - - stereo Line in - - stereo stereo PC speaker in - - - - Line out stereo stereo stereo stereo Amplified out 2x? W 2x? W - 2x40 mW Joystick - - yes yes MIDI MPU MPU TB# UART CD-ROM - - # SCSI SYNTHESIZER Type LA WS WS WS Chipset Roland Roland Proteus Aria Voices* 32 24 32 32 Channels 7+drum 15+drum 15+drum 32 Instruments 192 317 384 192 Effects Hall Hall Hall - Echo Echo Echo Chorus Chorus Miscellaneous DSP DSP SAMPLING ADC (bits) - - 16 10 DAC (bits) 12##? 12## 16 16 Freq. stereo (Khz) - - 2-44 11-44 Freq. mono (Khz) - - 2-44 11-44 Compression - - by DSP ? ___:1 - - by DSP ? Decompression - - by DSP ? ___:1 - - by DSP ? SNR (dB) 89 70 Dyn. range (dB) 95 ? Harmonic dis. (%) 0.01 0.5 MIXER** Master - - 128 256 Synthesizer - - 128 256 DAC - - ? 256 Mic - - ? 256 Line in - - ? 256 Tone*** (dB) - - - - Balance - - - ? PRICE (est.) $495 $495 $499 $350 REMARKS * Number of voices per channel. ** Volume control in steps. *** Bass and treble. # Optional. ## Only for playing on-board samples. ### By emulation. - Not present. ? I am not sure :-). PLEASE FILL IN! **** CONCLUSION Many manufacturers are now rapidly releasing new soundcards. Game companies are already working on support of a new generation of sound cards, that will offer significantly better quality over the present cards. The GUS is an example of a card with great potential. It's not the Ultimate Sound Card, but it is probably the first of a whole series of high quality cards. Secondly I think the FM-based cards are rapidly going to be replaced by WS-based cards, since WS gives much better sound quality than FM. Watch which cards the software companies are going to support. If you want to buy a card for games, go for a cheap SB compatible card. Maybe you can get an old SB for just a few bucks. If you want a card with better sound quality, the GUS is a good choice. If you want to make 16-bit recordings, then consider the PAS-16. And if you want to connect a CD-ROM, then consider a card with SCSI interface. **** NOTE The information in this article may not be entirely correct or up-to-date! Some info is from my own experience, other is from different sources. If anyone finds any mistake, please let me know. If you want to contribute to this article, please send your info so I can put it in a next release! ** Thanx to: Josha Munnik (GUS, SB-pro/16 info), Bjorn Haavard Kleven, Phat Tran and Stefan Hartmann (general info), Timo Veijola (Roland cards), Teemu Mottonen (MIDI), Matthew Zenkar (GAB info) and a lot of other csips-readers. Jerry (E-mail address is valid until July 1st) *------------------------------------------------------------------------------* Jerry van Waardenberg _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ Tele Informatics and Open Systems _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ Department of Computer Science _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ E-mail: waardenb@cs.utwente.nl _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/