HDA X-Plosion 7.1 DTS Connect Sound Card Review

[V. Slayer]

I have just posted a review of the HDA X-Plosion 7.1 DTS Connect sound card.

Check it out, and post any feedback here.

HDA X-Plosion 7.1 Sound Card Review (http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/hda_xplosion/)

http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/hda_xplosion/auzen.jpg (http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/hda_xplosion/)

[Mavke]

Nice review! I enjoyed it very much!

[Rytr]

Good job Brian, looks to be a very good card. Enjoyed your descriptive analysis!

[thale02896]

I completely agree with the review. I just got this card this week and it sounds incredible coming out my surround system. I had previously had an NForce 2 motherboard with SoundStorm and thought that it was great. Then they discontinued it and I upgraded to a pci-e NForce 4. This card (so far) is an excellent replacement for SoundStorm. Gaming on my 50 inch HDTV with the surround is awesome.

[superklye]

This sounds like a fantastic card and it was a very well written and thorough review. Great work. :)

One question...how come a lot of the Dolby's and DTS's on the first page have a question mark after them?

[Rytr]

This sounds like a fantastic card and it was a very well written and thorough review. Great work. :)

One question...how come a lot of the Dolby's and DTS's on the first page have a question mark after them?

Looks like the 'registration mark' was not read by FrontPage. You would think MS Word would be completely compatible with MS FrontPage.:D

[Clay]

Just needs a little & #8482 ; <-- no spaces action. ;)

™

[V. Slayer]

All the registered marks are fixed on the first page. Ooops. :o

[superklye]

Just needs a little & #8482 ; <-- no spaces action. ;)

™
Or &trade; since I can't for the life of me remember all those various numbers. But yeah...

And I have to laught...MS Word doesn't agree with FrontPage. Delicious. :D

[Geebs]

Nice Review:)

I just got one of these 2 days ago... I thought I would share my initial impressions.

First, there is a 1-2 second delay from when the AC-3 signal leaves the Xplosion and is decoded via a set of Logitech Z-5500 5.1 speakers, so that I always miss the begining of any file or sound that is opened one at a time. If the AC-3 signal is constant, such as during games, the sound is fantastic, if a little quiet in both DTS and DD.

Another thing I am having trouble with is getting the mic volume up to an acceptable level so I dont have to shout in to it to be heard. I have it configured correctly and mic gain +20 db is enabled as well. I use a high quality mic headset, and I have to put the mic right up to my mouth, while speaking quite loudly to be heard by my clan... a good clean mic input is touted by the manufacturer as a feature...

Also, no one, in any of the reviews I have read of this sound card go in to any detail about the upgradeable OPAMP claimed by HDA... Does anyone have any idea if upgrading one of these parts might possibly fix my mic issues? I dont have much info on OPAMPS, so if anyone has any info they would like to share I would be most grateful...

I have been to HDA's website looking for answers to my questions, but it seems as though its still under construction... the link to the forum is currently not very helpful.

Aside from all that, the card does add a whole new immersion into the worlds that are my games. To listen to all those games that support DD, really makes me wonder why it has taken so long to satisfy that market?

I am willing to put up with the aforementioned quirks for 2 reasons, 1 being it's not a Creative, and 2 being it's not a Creative. As soon as Creative release their grip of death on EAX, the sooner all gamers will be able to enjoy what must truly be the best PC sound ever imagined for gaming and such.

But in the meantime, enjoy the HDA Xplosion DTS Connect Soundcard. DTS is a very sweet incentive indeed:)

[CainSyris]

No sound card that I'm aware of since the Santa Cruz has even claimed to offer to "process mp3's" in such a way as you would see a different in utilization in doing this. Your conclusion that your new toy is superior to your old toy based on this change of CPU utilization neglects the difference between Creative bloatware and whatever -ware the newer toy uses. You should update your review to clarify what is really going on rather than implying that the hardware is doing anything more than spewing the sound out digitally.

Your last test is to pump a dvd through Dolby Digital Live and DTS Whatever (equivalent), but you fail to mention that these audio signals are either 2.1 upconverted to 5.1 DTS or DD Live, OR the signal is being entirely passed through and those two respective technologies are not doing anything at all except passing the DD EX 7.1 native signal from the Phantom Menace dvd. If you *really* wanted to test how good DD Live or DTS's equivalent is, you would take a movie file that is Prologic or Prologic IIx and spew it through your DTS or DD Live in such a way to test the actual ability of each card to transmit into a receiver for a home theater's use.

Regardless, since Phantom Menace has no DTS track, the most you did was have the computer resample a DD 5.1 track into DTS and ... if that's the case, then there's no way you could soil yourself over that when it's actually suffering quality loss for the conversion over a straight pass-through.

You might want to fix your review to address these problems.

[mukkyman]

Does anyone know if there is a place where i can get them in the uk? only place that does them is overclockers.co.uk and you have to preorder. cheers

[Geebs]

Does anyone know if there is a place where i can get them in the uk? only place that does them is overclockers.co.uk and you have to preorder. cheers

As far as I know, Overclockers are the only distributors in the UK... and I think that they dont even have them in stock yet, so you may have to wait a little longer... sorry:(

[sxotty]

This is a great sounding card, but I wish it was released in PCIe form factor, as that is the only slot I have left after tv tuners etc...

[schriss]

This sound card is great, but I realy need EAX HD and since I don't have a choice - I bought Audigy4
As an ex-owner of SoundStorm, I of course was missing Dolby Digital Live, but there is a solution: free "redocne" software encoder on www.driverheaven.net
It's not perfect but I am able to play Battlefield 2 with redocne encoding to DD in the background :D (with original Creative drivers, kx drivers are NOT required for this on Audigy4)