Skywell Magic Sound Live 5.1 Channel PCI Sound Card Reviewed by Anurax Lian (29 Aug 99)
Sound Card Specifications
32 Bit PCI Bus Master, PCI 2.2 Compliant
<Introduction><The Good><The Test> <The Bad><Conclusion><Rating>
Introduction
Skywell Technology is a Taiwanese based Computer Peripheral manufacturer which has been around since 1989. Since then, they have been making OEM IBM PC components but their brand name has not been as successful as those like ASUS or Gigabyte. However, over the past 2 years they have been quite successful earning a reputation of producing top-notch quality products at extremely competitive prices such as their range of 3Dfx Voodoo products and of late their Riva TnT2 cards.
This time round, we will bring to you a new line of sound products from Skywell. The Magic Sound Live!. The Magic Sound Live! sound card supports AC3 5.1 channel surround sound acceleration for the PC and offers the most cost effective 5.1 surround solution available on the PC today. It packs a powerful 3D sound processor to handle games with 3D audio and effects. How does this card as compared to others available in the market? Well, just read on.
The Good
Features & Benefits
This card quite resembles the Quad-Xtreme I reviewed earlier on. It packs a lot of features and it does have a few more additional items than the Quad-Xtreme that makes the Magic Live a must have. Its no Creative SB Live but it one of those products that I can say its almost reached there. It supports all the Major Sound Standard APIs and comes with quite a number of interesting features.
At the faceplate of the sound card, you have the standard Input RCA ports for your Line-In and Mic-In etc. However, for output jack, it comes with only a 9pin Digital Din socket. This is very similar to that of the Creative SB Live Digital Din output( In fact I believe it is the same/compatible). If you do not own a speaker utilizing this digital Output port, fret not for a Multi-channel cable is provided to separate every channel for you, from the front channel, rear channel, center channel, sub-woofer and S/PDIF.
The Multi-channel Cable provided.The PCB quality of the card is pretty good. It uses a similar PCB, to that of the SB Live except the layout of the card is very much simple to that of the SB Live, which is quite massive in term of technological layout. At the heart of the card is the Media Forte M801-AS chip controller. There are 3 internal Input jacks which is quite useful for users who have numerous internal input devices like multi CD-ROMs, Internal TV-Tuners, MPEG/ DVD decoder etc.
Audio Input/Output Connector:
- Internal: Audio-In for CD-ROM/DVD-ROM, Video-In for Video card sound
- External: Microphone-In, Line-In, Line-Out (stereo earphones), Mini-Din for Multi channel cables, or connect SkyWell Dolby Digital 5.1 channel Speaker system, Joystick/MIDI Port.
- Multi channel cable include Front (Speakers) Out, Rear (Speakers) Out, Center (Speaker) Out, Sub-Woofer Out, and S/PDIF Out
Sound Standard APIs supported:
- Supports multi-channel EAX games with 4-channel speaker output
- 256-voice Wavetable synthesizer
- Compatible with Microsoft Windows, Microsoft DirectX, EAX, DOS games and DirectSound
- PC 98 standard for audio quality
- Qsound 2.0: positional 3D, A3D compliant, Creative EAX compliant
Software Provided:
- YAMAHA XG50 software Wavetable synthesizer (maximum 128 notes) for Window95/98, Windows NT
- WHQL Win95/98 and WinNT 4.0 drivers
- EzAudio, JetAudio, Willow Talk, MP3 player application, Dolby Digital (AC-3) 5.1 channel Software MPEG-II (DVD) player for DVD movies
The Magic Live supports 6-speakers output. I’m not too sure how many commercial sound cards available that have this feature. The fact that it probably has the same Digital Din Connector as the SB Live, I would say the SB Live also supports 6-speakers configuration, but then again how many people would have 5 speakers and a sub-woofer Speaker set. That's a luxury many of us probably won't be able to afford. To test this feature, I got 2 set of normal speakers, a sub-woofer and a standalone speaker set.
The sound output was very well spaced. I really enjoyed the part when my PC loaded. First it was quiet, then suddenly a sound streak from one end to the other, creating a spacious effect. When playing Unreal the sound was quite impressive. The 3D was much better than most sound cards I’ve heard. However, I still love my Creative SB Live but the Magic Live is no slacker either. In fact it’s almost on par with it. The only weakness was with the speakers. In a 5.1 environment, the room should be quite large for it to take full effect; otherwise a 4.1 solution is more than sufficient. When using a 5.1 sound system, a set of powerful speakers are required to carry the sound all over the room, and in this case, my speakers didn’t really fit the category. In fact, I think it missed it by a long shot. Anyway, the test was on the sound card and how well 5.1 was implemented and not my speakers. The Magic Live really does implement the 5.1 well, in fact users with software DVD like the one provided (WinDVD) will really benefit from this. Further more it does not limit itself to just WinDVD. Cyberlink PowerDVD and other 3rd party software would also benefit from it.
Unlike the Quad-Xtreme, the EAX support on the Magic Live is not only limited to games. Users can implement it on their desktop environment as well. The control panel provided allow users to manipulate settings on the fly. Even though Skywell does not provide as many EAX subset environments as Creative, the subsets available are more than sufficient to meet most user's needs.
Skywell even allows users to control the amount of CPU utilization the Magic Live uses. So if an application is too CPU dependant, lowering the CPU utilization can improve overall performance.
The Test
Installation of this card was a breeze. After popping it into the PCI slot, I loaded my Win98 and it detected the card like all other PCI Multimedia Devices. I placed the CD drivers in and that was all. The drivers loaded immediately without having to reboot.
After the drivers were loaded, the sound control panel automatically loads into the task bar. Users can choose to turn this off and manually enter of the Magic Live Control Panel. The Magic Live Sound Control is quite similar to that of the Quad-Xtreme. I’m not too surprised since both are using Media Forte chipsets and implement Qsound to handle the work. However the Magic Live does provide a few more features that make it a more robust product. Unlike the Quad-Xtreme, the Magic Live was easy to un-install. I had a difficult time trying to remove the Qsound effect from the Quad-Xtreme but the Magic Live was smooth as a baby’s skin with just click a on the “Uninstall” button, shut down Windows, physically remove the PCI Sound Card and that’s all.
The Magic Live faces the same problem as the Quad-Xtreme. The Media Forte Chipset does not support Midi at all. This could be the reason why it comes shipped with the Yamaha XG soft-synthesizer. As we all know the Yamaha XG works fine but there's nothing more. Even worse, it draws quite a hefty load off the CPU and so at times, it is really not worth it. Many people will argue that at this time and age, Midi is pretty dead, most new games now use CD Audio. Well, I tend to disagree as a good general Midi is always a plus point for me. Midi files are small and easy to compress. Games and Internet pages that utilize Midi are generally faster and smoother.
The Magic Live may support a lot of new standard but it does not really implement them the way they should be. When testing the DS3D on the Direct X Diagnostics, I could hardly hear the difference at most sampling frequencies, but it was a bit better on other chipsets like ESS although I still find Aureal and Creative’s better.
When the volume is placed up to the MAX or very high, the audio sounded distorted on my speakers. MP3 music were also not very clear as compared to the top of the line cards. Not to say that the sound is bad, but there tends to be slight/mild distortion occasionally. This could also be due to immature drivers. Hopefully newer version of the drivers could resolve this problem.
Conclusion
The Magic Live is priced quite well. It's good for home-users looking for a sound card that works on almost every games/platform. The utilities for the card are very good. I’d probably love to have this card in my office machine, not too heavy duty on usage but still producing decent audio at an extremely affordable price. Music enthusiast relying heavily on Midi playback would probably stay clear of this one. Anti-Creative users, here is another sound card to add to your list besides sticking to Aureal 3D.
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Overall Rating |
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| Installation | **** |
| Performance | *** |
| Price | **** |
| Innovation | **** |
| Life Span | **** |
| Software Bundle | ****½ |
| Material Quality | ****½ |
| Overall Rating | ***3/4 |
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