BlueGears HDA Digital XMystique 7.1 Gold Sound Card

Captain EBD · Dec 27, 2005, 04:02 AM

Im looking for a better soundcard then my Audigy 2 ZS for my Z-5500 speakers, something with digital connections.

does anyone have a ...
BlueGears HDA Digital XMystique 7.1 Gold Sound Card

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

what do you think? is there a better soundcard out?

Shakey_Jake33 · Dec 27, 2005, 05:00 AM

I'm looking to upgrade too, was going to go for the XF-I XtremeMusic because of the 24-bit Crystaliser, but the DDL support on the Mystique is cool.

sarelc · Jan 2, 2006, 04:09 PM

Creative's are the only cards that support the latest EAX (v.4 now), dunno how much of an issue for you that is though. What's wrong with the digital out on your ZS? I looked at the XMystique for a while, but there were a few things that bothered me:
-uses a CMedia chip (just like my onboard sound, which sounded rather bland)
-"Supports the latest DTS-ES, DD-EX sound (6.1/7.1) playback (also including Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 playback) with Software Decoding Application such as PowerDVD, WinDVD"
I use a receiver to decode surround, and with your speaker set you'd probably want to use its decoding circuitry as well. This seems to imply that it won't throughput pre-existing surround streams, that you would have to decode them with the software, then the card would re-encode them, then your speakers would re-decode them. But they could have translated that wrong.. With your system it wouldn't be a problem for DVDs, but with HD content it could cause some slowdowns.

-"A3D™ 1.0, EAX™ 1.0, 2.0 (powered by Sensaura)..."
Sensaura is completely software based if I remember right... Which means your cpu will be doing surplus audio work if you're playing an EAX/A3D game. I play online, so in pretty games I can see this being a hindrance.

In the end I decided to stick with my AU2 and build an inline mixer so the subwoofer works "properly" in directsound3d games.

Captain EBD · Jan 2, 2006, 04:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sarelc

Creative's are the only cards that support the latest EAX (v.4 now), dunno how much of an issue for you that is though. What's wrong with the digital out on your ZS? I looked at the XMystique for a while, but there were a few things that bothered me:
-uses a CMedia chip (just like my onboard sound, which sounded rather bland)
-"Supports the latest DTS-ES, DD-EX sound (6.1/7.1) playback (also including Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 playback) with Software Decoding Application such as PowerDVD, WinDVD"
I use a receiver to decode surround, and with your speaker set you'd probably want to use its decoding circuitry as well. This seems to imply that it won't throughput pre-existing surround streams, that you would have to decode them with the software, then the card would re-encode them, then your speakers would re-decode them. But they could have translated that wrong.. With your system it wouldn't be a problem for DVDs, but with HD content it could cause some slowdowns.

-"A3D™ 1.0, EAX™ 1.0, 2.0 (powered by Sensaura)..."
Sensaura is completely software based if I remember right... Which means your cpu will be doing surplus audio work if you're playing an EAX/A3D game. I play online, so in pretty games I can see this being a hindrance.

In the end I decided to stick with my AU2 and build an inline mixer so the subwoofer works "properly" in directsound3d games.

i just wanted digital soundcard to take advantage of my Z-5500 speakers. yeah i need the latest EAX, for games and suchhh.

sarelc · Jan 2, 2006, 06:01 PM

Well that's what I was getting at... the ZS has both optical and coaxial digital outputs, what more were you looking for?

**dj_stick** · Jan 2, 2006, 07:12 PM

the digital outputs of the audigy are pure stereo spdif, no multichannel support there

sarelc · Jan 2, 2006, 07:28 PM

I'm still not sure where you're going with this... I use the digital out in passthrough mode for surround in dvds/music files, and the analog cables for games. I don't really see the point in compressing perfectly good discrete X.1 when your speaker set has discrete inputs (and built-in bass processing, so you'll actually get output to the sub in games without messing about with making a mixer like I had to).

Captain EBD · Jan 2, 2006, 08:52 PM

my audigy 2 zs dosnt have any digital plugs

sarelc · Jan 2, 2006, 10:11 PM

Errr hah, nm my last post I was thinking dj-stick was the one who started the thread. Cap'n EBD, the Audigy 2 boards have a digital coax connector on the end farthest from the FireWire port (plastic around it is black). You just need a mono mini-jack to rca adapter:

Captain EBD · Jan 2, 2006, 10:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sarelc

Errr hah, nm my last post I was thinking dj-stick was the one who started the thread. Cap'n EBD, the Audigy 2 boards have a digital coax connector on the end farthest from the FireWire port (plastic around it is black). You just need a mono mini-jack to rca adapter:

oh cool, ill get one of those then ;D

sarelc · Jan 2, 2006, 11:36 PM

I haven't used computer speakers for a while, so I was thinking they just had a minijack adapter for the digital-in since they're meant to be used with sound cards. Don't spend too much on the coax cable if you don't have one yet, but do buy one as opposed to trying to make one unless you want it losing the connection every couple minutes.