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alg7_munif
Supreme [H]ardness
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Edit: I edited the first post because this thread is getting too long and I don't think that all of you want to read this entire thread.
Auzentech, the company that owns the XMystique and the XPlosion sound cards, starting from today is selling the XMeridian sound card which is based on the C-Media Oxygen HD CMI8788 Audio Processor. The X-Plosion and X-Mystique have their market because their digital outputs support Dolby Digital encoding(DTS encoding is also supported on the X-Plosion). DD/DTS encoding is the only way to get a surround sound through a digital output of a sound card, a surround sound from a DVD movie is however can be passed through any sound card with digital output because the sound is already pre-encoded in DD/DTS format. None of the creative's cards can do the DD/DTS encoding so you can only get a stereo sound through SPDIF. Now many new companies try to enter this market by selling sound cards based on the newer C-Media Oxygen HD chip which also supports Dolby Digital/DTS encoding through the digital output. The Oxygen HD is a newer and a better chip than the chip on the X-Mystique/X-Plosion. All sound cards with the new Oxygen HD chip have a SPDIF input. To keep their card as the first choice against other new companies, Auzentech has taken a new approach by making the analogue output on the X-Meridian one the best analogue output you can get for a consumer level PC sound card.
For more info on this card:
Review from Penstarsys
Review from Techgage.
Review from Rage3D
Review from Elite Bastards
Review from DriverHeaven
Review from Guru3D
Review from Club Overclocker
Review from REG Hardware.
Review from nvnews
Review from ThinkComputer.
Auzentech X-Meridian specs
The X-Meridian against a X-Fi Elite Pro.
A very long thread where owners of the X-Meridian hang out
Newegg link
Vista 32 Beta driver from Auzentech
Beta Vista Driver for Oxygen HD, 8738 & 8768 sound chip from C-Media
The LM4562 OPAMP is highly recommended to be used with the X-Meridian
If you can read chinese:
Review 1 & review 2 from FJ007.com.
Review from pconline.com.cn.
Review from Bear eyes
Info regarding Vista/OpenAL from Auzentech's website:
My own review:
17th November 2006:
I got my X-Meridian and I managed to get the my X-Meridian working together with my X-Plosion without any conflict by taking out the old X-Plosion then put the X-Meridian in another PCI slot. After finished installing the X-Meridian, I put the X-Plosion back in and they work without any problem. I noticed that the mixer of my X-Plosion will have less volume control bar than before if I use the X-Meridian as my default sound device. When I use the X-Plosion as the default device, I don't get extra volume control in the mixer of my X-Meridian.
So now my first impression of the X-Meridian:
The first thing that I like about the X-Meridian is it has a front panel connector that is missing on the X-Plosion. Then I really like the Xear 3D of my X-Meridian more than the Xear 3D of my X-Plosion because it has a lot more new features. Some new features that are missing in the X-Plosion: Dolby Headphone, Dolby Pro Logic IIx, Flexbass, and Speaker time delay setting. For me the speaker time delay setting is an important feature to calibrate my surround speaker, before this only the volume can be changed when calibrating. The delay setting really helps if you are not using a receiver or your receiver didn't have this feature like the receiver of my Z-5400. Another thing that is different from the X-Plosion is that the X-Meridian will continously send a DD/DTS/digital signal to the receiver without the need to enable the magic voice feature. My system will be unstable if I use the magic voice feature with X-Plosion before so I had to disable it, but by doing so I'll miss a fraction of a second from any sound played on my PC(I won't get the sound when clicking on a link because the receiver took a little time to detect the DTS/DD signal before starting to decode it).
Now it's time for some sound testing:
My Z-5400 has 2 optical inputs so I can connect both of the card with optical cable. I use foobar2000 to play a .flac file for this test. I only changed the sound card in the foobar2000's output setting to compare both cards. At first I used my headphone(Sennheiser HD595) that I plugged into the headphone output of my Z-5400 receiver. The results: the sound from the two cards is almost the same and I can hardly tell the different between them. A digital 44.1kHz output(same value as the FLAC file) of the X-Plosion sounds the same as 44.1kHz output of the X-Meridian, DTS interactive of the X-Plosion also sounds the same as X-Meridian and Dolby Digital too. When I unplugged the headphone and use the actual speaker of my Z-5400, it also gives me the same result. So what does this means, does the X-Meridian have a same sound quality as the X-Plosion in digital? Maybe but I only used a PC digital speaker, not a HT receiver, so with a HT receiver the result could be different. I've also monitored my CPU usage when playing flac in foobar2000 with 44.1kHZ, DTS and DD setting for both cards, both cards didn't show any different in CPU usage compared to the CPU usage when my PC is idle.
Not it comes to the most interesting part:
When I plugged my headphone directly to the analogue output of the X-Meridian, I was amazed that the analogue output gave me a much better sound than the headphone output of my Z-5400. Before this the headphone output of my Z-5400 will give me a better sound quality than the analogue output of the X-Plosion. This shows that the X-Meridian has a better DAC/circuit than my Z-5400 but my Z-5400 circuit is better than the X-Plosion's analogue. I don't know how good is the Z-5500 compared to the Z-5400 but if you're planning to buy a Z-5400 and connect it digitally with the X-Meridian, I would say forget it, stay with analogue or get a real HT receiver. BTW I've opened up my Z-5400's receiver, it uses the same Cirrus Logic's CS42526 chip like the Z-5500
The X-Meridian also can output a bit perfect sound through the spdif, I've confirmed this by playing a DTS wave sound using 44.1kHz digital out but my receiver detect it as a DTS signal. The fact that the X-Meridian supports 192kHz/24bit in 8 channels means that it is time to say goodbye to my X-Plosion. The mic input on the front panel of my X-Meridian works, on the X-Plosion, the mic input's volume is very low. I haven't tried the input at the back yet, but I don't think I'll try it because I don't really need it. The front input is good enough for my online phone calls.
So if you ask me which card to buy, the X-Meridian or the X-Plosion. My answer would definitely be the X-Meridian but if you are only interested in digital output then get any of the card with the Oxygen HD chip rather than the X-Plosion, the interface is much better than the X-Plosion(continous digital signal and more features).
I've waited long enough for this card and I'm really satisfied with it.
18th November 2006:
I tried GRAW last night with generic hardware and EAX enabled. I didn't play much, I just start a new game, on the bridge there is an oil truck and I shoot it. It explodes and then catches fire, when it is on fire I can hear the sound. I turned around and heard the sound moved to the back. Then I faced the fire and move behind another truck, I can hear the sound changed when I got behind the truck. I've also tried it with Dolby headphone and the result is the same. The X-Meridian is not a bad gaming card at all but it still needs a higher EAX version support to win against X-Fi in gaming.
15th December 2006:
I bought an OEM X-Fi XtremeMusic. Well I got a very good offer for it and I thought that the X-Fi shouldn't be far behind the X-Meridian plus I could benefit from the hardware acceleration in games but the X-Fi disappoints me, the sound difference is HUGE especially when listening to musics with my HD-595, even if I'm deaf, I still can hear the difference between them with my headphones. Note that I don't like any 3D effects when listening to musics, I use neither the CMSS3D nor the Dolby Headphone, I tried the Crystalizer, the audio creation mode and the entertainment mode but the X-Fi can't even come close to the X-Meridian on my headphones. I didn't play games with the card yet though. The X-Fi is not a bad card for musics but I really miss the sound from X-Meridian for musics. It doesn't matter how people said many good things about X-Fi and many bad things about X-Meridian, now I have both cards, I know the difference between them. what I know is I like how musics sound on the X-Meridian much more than on the X-Fi. Btw Robscix on Guru3D forum has suggested a way to use both cards with a pair of headphones to play games. Connect the X-Fi to the X-Meridian using digital connection and let the X-Meridian do the D-A conversion, I did this with my two cards. I can still use EAX 5 and CMSS3D together without losing a better sound quality from the X-Meridian. When I tried this setup for musics, the X-Fi sounds as good as the X-Meridian, actually the X-Meridian sounds good, I'm only using the X-Fi's chip but the sound is actually from the X-Meridian.
To connect the X-Fi to the X-Meridian you need to enable the digital output of the X-Fi and enable the SPDIF input monitoring on the X-Meridian. People have used dual GPU and dual core CPU, I think that the dual sound card idea is very interesting but by using SPDIF, you can only get a stereo sound. If you play games with headphones+CMSS3D, the you will certainly get a better sound using this setup. This setup will also improve performance in games because the hardware acceleration is done by the more powerful X-Fi's chip.
Some info from the thread:
Based on the specs, the X-Meridian should give a better sound quality(crisp, clean, clear and etc.) through the analogue output than a similiar priced X-Fi. It does 192kbps/24bit output in 8channels. The X-Fi can only do 192kbps/24bit in stereo and in more than 2 channels the X-Fi only does 96kbps/24bit. The X-Meridian also has a better DAC than a similiar priced X-Fi and it has a higher sound to noise ratio.
This card will not do EAX higher than 2.0 and it still doesn't support OpenAL so you will not get the "realistic effects"(echo, reverbs and etc.) like you get with the Creative cards in games that support EAX higher than 2.0. However not all games support EAX and OpenAl so in those games the X-Meridian could sound better than a similiar priced X-Fi. If EAX in games is your priority then this card is not for you.
People said that this card will some of your CPU power for processing. You will get like 5-10 less fps if DD/DTS encoding is used but I don't see any good reason why you need a sound card to improve frame rates, for me a sound card is supposed to give a better sound.
This card also supports the Dolby Headphone technology, the Dolby Headphone technology actually can work in two ways, first it can simulate a discreet 5.1 sound on headphones so that you can also enjoy a good sound positioning with your headphones. The second way is it can work together with Dolby Prologic II to upmix a normal stereo sound to a 5.1 sound but the upmix usually didn't give a good sound positioning like a discreet 5.1 sound does.
This card has a good competitor as said by phreak144:
The answer from Auzentech regarding this:
Actually even by changing the cable connecting a sound card to a same speaker, the sound will change so if you change the whole board and components, they will also change the sound, so if you think the b-Enspirer is the same card like X-Meridian, they are actually not. Donnie27 has confirmed this, he has a friend who returned his X-Meridian to get the cheaper b-Enspirer.
Some other cards with the same C-Media Oxygen HD chip:
Club 3D Theatron DTS
Bluegear b-Enspirer
Sondigo Inferno
HT Omega Claro
Razer Barracuda 7.1
Pictures of the card:
X-Meridian
b-Enspirer
Inferno
Barracuda AC-1
HT Omega Claro
The difference between all of them is most likely only the analogue circuit/components(analogue sound quality) and connectivity(front panel output, extension board etc). If you don't plan to use analogue then all of them can be considered same except for supports from the manufacturer.
Original Post:
Auzentech, the company that owns the XMystique and the XPlosion sound cards, starting from today is selling the XMeridian sound card which is based on the C-Media Oxygen HD CMI8788 Audio Processor. The sound card is almost the same with the Bluegear's b-Enspirer but it has a much better analog circuit that will cost you a lot more money. More details on the card are on the Auzentech's website.
Has anyone got the card already? It'll be great if the card can be reviewed here. I've pre-ordered the card before but since I'm living in Europe, the shipment will take some times. I choosed the XMeridian over the b-Enspirer because Auzentech's customer and technical support have never failed to entertain me before. I have the Xplosion sound card and it delivers something that Creative has failed to deliver to me, the DDL/DTS encoding to use with my Logitech Z-5400 speaker. I'm very pleased with the XPlosion. When I get the XMeridian sound card I'll let you know how it sounds.
p/s: No the card doesn't have EAX higher than 2.0 and no the card will not improve your frame rates. It is a sound card, it'll improve the sound! To improve frame rates, buy a better graphic card!
Auzentech, the company that owns the XMystique and the XPlosion sound cards, starting from today is selling the XMeridian sound card which is based on the C-Media Oxygen HD CMI8788 Audio Processor. The X-Plosion and X-Mystique have their market because their digital outputs support Dolby Digital encoding(DTS encoding is also supported on the X-Plosion). DD/DTS encoding is the only way to get a surround sound through a digital output of a sound card, a surround sound from a DVD movie is however can be passed through any sound card with digital output because the sound is already pre-encoded in DD/DTS format. None of the creative's cards can do the DD/DTS encoding so you can only get a stereo sound through SPDIF. Now many new companies try to enter this market by selling sound cards based on the newer C-Media Oxygen HD chip which also supports Dolby Digital/DTS encoding through the digital output. The Oxygen HD is a newer and a better chip than the chip on the X-Mystique/X-Plosion. All sound cards with the new Oxygen HD chip have a SPDIF input. To keep their card as the first choice against other new companies, Auzentech has taken a new approach by making the analogue output on the X-Meridian one the best analogue output you can get for a consumer level PC sound card.
For more info on this card:
Review from Penstarsys
Review from Techgage.
Review from Rage3D
Review from Elite Bastards
Review from DriverHeaven
Review from Guru3D
Review from Club Overclocker
Review from REG Hardware.
Review from nvnews
Review from ThinkComputer.
Auzentech X-Meridian specs
The X-Meridian against a X-Fi Elite Pro.
A very long thread where owners of the X-Meridian hang out
Newegg link
Vista 32 Beta driver from Auzentech
Beta Vista Driver for Oxygen HD, 8738 & 8768 sound chip from C-Media
The LM4562 OPAMP is highly recommended to be used with the X-Meridian
If you can read chinese:
Review 1 & review 2 from FJ007.com.
Review from pconline.com.cn.
Review from Bear eyes
Info regarding Vista/OpenAL from Auzentech's website:
My own review:
17th November 2006:
I got my X-Meridian and I managed to get the my X-Meridian working together with my X-Plosion without any conflict by taking out the old X-Plosion then put the X-Meridian in another PCI slot. After finished installing the X-Meridian, I put the X-Plosion back in and they work without any problem. I noticed that the mixer of my X-Plosion will have less volume control bar than before if I use the X-Meridian as my default sound device. When I use the X-Plosion as the default device, I don't get extra volume control in the mixer of my X-Meridian.
So now my first impression of the X-Meridian:
The first thing that I like about the X-Meridian is it has a front panel connector that is missing on the X-Plosion. Then I really like the Xear 3D of my X-Meridian more than the Xear 3D of my X-Plosion because it has a lot more new features. Some new features that are missing in the X-Plosion: Dolby Headphone, Dolby Pro Logic IIx, Flexbass, and Speaker time delay setting. For me the speaker time delay setting is an important feature to calibrate my surround speaker, before this only the volume can be changed when calibrating. The delay setting really helps if you are not using a receiver or your receiver didn't have this feature like the receiver of my Z-5400. Another thing that is different from the X-Plosion is that the X-Meridian will continously send a DD/DTS/digital signal to the receiver without the need to enable the magic voice feature. My system will be unstable if I use the magic voice feature with X-Plosion before so I had to disable it, but by doing so I'll miss a fraction of a second from any sound played on my PC(I won't get the sound when clicking on a link because the receiver took a little time to detect the DTS/DD signal before starting to decode it).
Now it's time for some sound testing:
My Z-5400 has 2 optical inputs so I can connect both of the card with optical cable. I use foobar2000 to play a .flac file for this test. I only changed the sound card in the foobar2000's output setting to compare both cards. At first I used my headphone(Sennheiser HD595) that I plugged into the headphone output of my Z-5400 receiver. The results: the sound from the two cards is almost the same and I can hardly tell the different between them. A digital 44.1kHz output(same value as the FLAC file) of the X-Plosion sounds the same as 44.1kHz output of the X-Meridian, DTS interactive of the X-Plosion also sounds the same as X-Meridian and Dolby Digital too. When I unplugged the headphone and use the actual speaker of my Z-5400, it also gives me the same result. So what does this means, does the X-Meridian have a same sound quality as the X-Plosion in digital? Maybe but I only used a PC digital speaker, not a HT receiver, so with a HT receiver the result could be different. I've also monitored my CPU usage when playing flac in foobar2000 with 44.1kHZ, DTS and DD setting for both cards, both cards didn't show any different in CPU usage compared to the CPU usage when my PC is idle.
Not it comes to the most interesting part:
When I plugged my headphone directly to the analogue output of the X-Meridian, I was amazed that the analogue output gave me a much better sound than the headphone output of my Z-5400. Before this the headphone output of my Z-5400 will give me a better sound quality than the analogue output of the X-Plosion. This shows that the X-Meridian has a better DAC/circuit than my Z-5400 but my Z-5400 circuit is better than the X-Plosion's analogue. I don't know how good is the Z-5500 compared to the Z-5400 but if you're planning to buy a Z-5400 and connect it digitally with the X-Meridian, I would say forget it, stay with analogue or get a real HT receiver. BTW I've opened up my Z-5400's receiver, it uses the same Cirrus Logic's CS42526 chip like the Z-5500
The chip has a lower part spec than both DACs on the X-Meridian
The X-Meridian also can output a bit perfect sound through the spdif, I've confirmed this by playing a DTS wave sound using 44.1kHz digital out but my receiver detect it as a DTS signal. The fact that the X-Meridian supports 192kHz/24bit in 8 channels means that it is time to say goodbye to my X-Plosion. The mic input on the front panel of my X-Meridian works, on the X-Plosion, the mic input's volume is very low. I haven't tried the input at the back yet, but I don't think I'll try it because I don't really need it. The front input is good enough for my online phone calls.
So if you ask me which card to buy, the X-Meridian or the X-Plosion. My answer would definitely be the X-Meridian but if you are only interested in digital output then get any of the card with the Oxygen HD chip rather than the X-Plosion, the interface is much better than the X-Plosion(continous digital signal and more features).
I've waited long enough for this card and I'm really satisfied with it.
18th November 2006:
I tried GRAW last night with generic hardware and EAX enabled. I didn't play much, I just start a new game, on the bridge there is an oil truck and I shoot it. It explodes and then catches fire, when it is on fire I can hear the sound. I turned around and heard the sound moved to the back. Then I faced the fire and move behind another truck, I can hear the sound changed when I got behind the truck. I've also tried it with Dolby headphone and the result is the same. The X-Meridian is not a bad gaming card at all but it still needs a higher EAX version support to win against X-Fi in gaming.
15th December 2006:
I bought an OEM X-Fi XtremeMusic. Well I got a very good offer for it and I thought that the X-Fi shouldn't be far behind the X-Meridian plus I could benefit from the hardware acceleration in games but the X-Fi disappoints me, the sound difference is HUGE especially when listening to musics with my HD-595, even if I'm deaf, I still can hear the difference between them with my headphones. Note that I don't like any 3D effects when listening to musics, I use neither the CMSS3D nor the Dolby Headphone, I tried the Crystalizer, the audio creation mode and the entertainment mode but the X-Fi can't even come close to the X-Meridian on my headphones. I didn't play games with the card yet though. The X-Fi is not a bad card for musics but I really miss the sound from X-Meridian for musics. It doesn't matter how people said many good things about X-Fi and many bad things about X-Meridian, now I have both cards, I know the difference between them. what I know is I like how musics sound on the X-Meridian much more than on the X-Fi. Btw Robscix on Guru3D forum has suggested a way to use both cards with a pair of headphones to play games. Connect the X-Fi to the X-Meridian using digital connection and let the X-Meridian do the D-A conversion, I did this with my two cards. I can still use EAX 5 and CMSS3D together without losing a better sound quality from the X-Meridian. When I tried this setup for musics, the X-Fi sounds as good as the X-Meridian, actually the X-Meridian sounds good, I'm only using the X-Fi's chip but the sound is actually from the X-Meridian.
To connect the X-Fi to the X-Meridian you need to enable the digital output of the X-Fi and enable the SPDIF input monitoring on the X-Meridian. People have used dual GPU and dual core CPU, I think that the dual sound card idea is very interesting but by using SPDIF, you can only get a stereo sound. If you play games with headphones+CMSS3D, the you will certainly get a better sound using this setup. This setup will also improve performance in games because the hardware acceleration is done by the more powerful X-Fi's chip.
Some info from the thread:
Based on the specs, the X-Meridian should give a better sound quality(crisp, clean, clear and etc.) through the analogue output than a similiar priced X-Fi. It does 192kbps/24bit output in 8channels. The X-Fi can only do 192kbps/24bit in stereo and in more than 2 channels the X-Fi only does 96kbps/24bit. The X-Meridian also has a better DAC than a similiar priced X-Fi and it has a higher sound to noise ratio.
This card will not do EAX higher than 2.0 and it still doesn't support OpenAL so you will not get the "realistic effects"(echo, reverbs and etc.) like you get with the Creative cards in games that support EAX higher than 2.0. However not all games support EAX and OpenAl so in those games the X-Meridian could sound better than a similiar priced X-Fi. If EAX in games is your priority then this card is not for you.
People said that this card will some of your CPU power for processing. You will get like 5-10 less fps if DD/DTS encoding is used but I don't see any good reason why you need a sound card to improve frame rates, for me a sound card is supposed to give a better sound.
This card also supports the Dolby Headphone technology, the Dolby Headphone technology actually can work in two ways, first it can simulate a discreet 5.1 sound on headphones so that you can also enjoy a good sound positioning with your headphones. The second way is it can work together with Dolby Prologic II to upmix a normal stereo sound to a 5.1 sound but the upmix usually didn't give a good sound positioning like a discreet 5.1 sound does.
This card has a good competitor as said by phreak144:
phreak144 said:
The answer from Auzentech regarding this:
For more info about the difference of the X-Meridian see this website.
Actually even by changing the cable connecting a sound card to a same speaker, the sound will change so if you change the whole board and components, they will also change the sound, so if you think the b-Enspirer is the same card like X-Meridian, they are actually not. Donnie27 has confirmed this, he has a friend who returned his X-Meridian to get the cheaper b-Enspirer.
Donnie27 said:
Some other cards with the same C-Media Oxygen HD chip:
Club 3D Theatron DTS
Bluegear b-Enspirer
Sondigo Inferno
HT Omega Claro
Razer Barracuda 7.1
Pictures of the card:
X-Meridian
b-Enspirer
Inferno
Barracuda AC-1
HT Omega Claro
The difference between all of them is most likely only the analogue circuit/components(analogue sound quality) and connectivity(front panel output, extension board etc). If you don't plan to use analogue then all of them can be considered same except for supports from the manufacturer.
Original Post:
Auzentech, the company that owns the XMystique and the XPlosion sound cards, starting from today is selling the XMeridian sound card which is based on the C-Media Oxygen HD CMI8788 Audio Processor. The sound card is almost the same with the Bluegear's b-Enspirer but it has a much better analog circuit that will cost you a lot more money. More details on the card are on the Auzentech's website.
Has anyone got the card already? It'll be great if the card can be reviewed here. I've pre-ordered the card before but since I'm living in Europe, the shipment will take some times. I choosed the XMeridian over the b-Enspirer because Auzentech's customer and technical support have never failed to entertain me before. I have the Xplosion sound card and it delivers something that Creative has failed to deliver to me, the DDL/DTS encoding to use with my Logitech Z-5400 speaker. I'm very pleased with the XPlosion. When I get the XMeridian sound card I'll let you know how it sounds.
p/s: No the card doesn't have EAX higher than 2.0 and no the card will not improve your frame rates. It is a sound card, it'll improve the sound! To improve frame rates, buy a better graphic card!
