Test System:
AMD Athlon64 FX-60
Asus A8R32-MVP Dlx
Geforce 7950GX2
1Gb DDR400 (OCZ)
WD Raptor 36Gb
NEC DVD Writer
Enermax Noisetaker PSU

Gaming Test System:
Intel QX6700@4Ghz
Evga 680i Motherboard
2x 8800GTX
2Gb DDR2-1000 (Supertalent)
Sony DWD-710A DVD Writer
WD Raptor 150Gb
Enermax Galaxy PSU

Creative Gigaworks 7.1 S750 THX
Razer Baracuda Hp-1 Headset

Windows XP SP2 (all updates)
PowerDVD 7.2
.Net 3.0
DirectX 9.0c

AUDIO QUALITY, LISTENING EXPERIENCE

COMPRESSED AUDIO - MP3: For this test we have taken a 48kbps track, Meat Loaf’s Bat Out Of Hell, which as everyone reading probably knows has a whole lot going on audio wise. Initially we played back the track through without any processing (stereo) and despite the low quality of the encoding it was still an enjoyable experience with a reasonable volume level possible and no really noticeable muddiness. We next tried playing the track back with the cards DTS NEO:PC setting enabled which as noted earlier in the review takes a stereo signal and turns it into 5.1 sound. The difference in sound was immediately noticeable, the DTS track sounded much more spacious as expected, also noticeable was how clean and crisp the vocals and higher frequency sounds were. There was a down side to this sound option though and that was the loss of some real oomph to the track and whilst the stereo didn’t have a nice spacious sound it was preferable to the NEO:PC on this particular track. Moving to Dolby Prologic IIx which also remixes the stereo to multi channel sound it was immediately obvious that the meatiness of the track was still evident and despite the fact the crispness of the higher end audio on the DTS mix being lost the overall experience was much closer to the stereo track and without loss of audio quality.

CD AUDIO: Always a thorough and demanding test we put Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon into our drive and sat back to enjoy. The thing with Pink Floyd tracks is that they are not perfectly suited to processing by the soundcard for multi channel and whist the album did sound good with both PL IIx and Neo:PC the stereo version of the audio was the version we settled on. Throughout the session we were presented with a fantastically pure production of the album with real quality shining through from each instrument and the ability to pick out the small nuances which are so often lost when listening to the album on sub standard audio products.

DVD AUDIO – MUSIC: For this test we looked out our copy of Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band – Live in New York. The audio mix on this DVD was Emmy nominated for Outstanding Sound Mixing. The sheer number of instruments playing at any one , whilst also having numerous vocal sources, really makes for a test where we are throwing everything but the proverbial kitchen sink at the card. We selected 6 songs for their varied musical styles (Promised Land, Youngstown, Murder Inc, Badlands, Lost in the Flood and Jungleland) and of all the tests the results produced by the X-MERIDIAN in this area were the most astounding. The audio produced was so real it was as if our speakers were plugged directly into each of the instruments or microphones. A particular highlight was the Telecaster/Esquire sound produced by Bruces guitar in Promised Land and Badlands, if ever a sound reproduction by PC was mouth-wateringly good this is it. Other impressive aspects were that during Lost in the Flood it was possible to hear breaths being taken between lines as if the singer was standing right next to us and both the sharpness of the drum sounds and richness of the Saxophone solo in Jungleland.

DVD AUDIO – MOVIE: For our movie test we looked out our Matrix and Jurassic Park DVD’s. Between these 2 movies we can really test the various qualities of the X-MERIDIAN. Our first test is the Galloping Galimimus scene from Jurassic Park. Using this scene we can test lower frequency sounds and positional audio as the flock of dinosaurs run past the camera with heavy thuds in numerous directions followed by some excellent roars from a T-Rex. As expected the X-MERIDIAN produced perfect positional audio in this scene and the roars, when they occur, are suitably loud and dramatic. Moving to The Matrix we have tested using the lobby scene and find a film sequence which is visually stunning, when played back through a basic audio system it is aurally impressive also. On the X-MERIDIAN as we had expected by this point sounds were further enhanced and whether it be the thud of shoes on the floor, crisp gunfire or the sharp metallic sound of empty bullet casings hitting marble each channel produces exceptional clarity.

DVD AUDIO – MUSICAL: In order to check performance of our test system when playing back the supported audio formats we watched the Your Song sequence from Moulin Rouge. CPU usage was recorded in 2 speaker and 6 speaker configurations and the Dolby Digital and DTS tracks were selected from the DVD menu as required.