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Introduction

Terratec, a German based company, manufactures sound cards and accessories for the PC industry. Being around since 1994, the company is active in the fields of PC speech recognition, TV tuner cards and Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB). Not very popular among the locals for its range of sound products as compared with Creative however it does hold its own.

With a wide range of products available, Terratec does offer users quite a variety of products to choose from. One of which is the DMX advance audio accelerator. The DMX sound card is one of the best quality cards I’ve ever seen. The PCB layout and the connectors used are one of the best I’ve ever seen, but how does it fare among the competition? Well, we will find out soon enough.

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The Good

Features & Benefits

The DMX audio accelerator packs quite a number of features, it has true hardware acceleration of DirectSound™, DirectSound™3D and DirectInput™, 64 voice hardware Wavetable synthesizer, even SoundBlaster™ Pro compatibility under DOS. Experience total audio immersion with sound coming at you from all directions: in front and behind, left and right, above and below. The Sound System DMX has a 3D positional audio system that is compatible with Aureal™'s A3D™, Creative Labs™' EAX™, Microsoft DirectSound™3D and Sensaura™3D. Its Canyon3D™ Engine with MacroFX™ and MultiDrive™ technology is the key to a new world of acoustic experience. The bundled software provides the tools to create your own unique 3-D environments with interaction par excellence. The serious detail: hardware acceleration of more than 32 simultaneous 3D audio streams over 2 speakers, 4 speakers or headphones – Quite impressive eh?! It also comes with a digital gameport with full Microsoft™ DirectInput™ acceleration provides precise control and feedback whatever controller you use, from simple gamepads to full-on force feedback flight yokes and steering wheels.

ESS Canyon 3D

At the heart of the DMX is the ESS Canyon 3D. The Canyon3D processor incorporates Sensaura's^™ patented MultiDrive^™ technology, which produces vertical positioning effects. Other four speaker processors use simple 2D panning techniques to simulate a 3D world. Canyon3D allows you to identify an enemy's location based on sound effects, instead of relying on visual contact. It also provides the vertical audio cues needed for total game immersion. Canyon3D is the only accelerator to support four or two speaker environments with optional sub-woofers, as well as the popular 5.1 speaker configuration. Whether two, four or six speaker environments, it creates the most realistic audio on the market.

You can experience "Adventures in Sound" from your classic DOS applications and from today's high-impact games with the Canyon3D audio accelerator. The proprietary hardware solutions from ESS enable Canyon3D to free the CPU's power for game processing and to provide complete legacy game support. Other audio processors normally rely on power from the CPU for software legacy support and 3D sound production. In addition, Canyon3D accelerates more than 32 DirectSound3D streams, while other processors handle only eight. With its compatibility with old and new game technology, Canyon3D allows you to experience the ultimate gaming environment without sacrificing support for your favorite DOS games.

Canyon 3D: Sound Features

• Four speaker audio capabilities put you in the middle of the action
• World's first true positional 3D PCI audio accelerator
• Adds vertical positioning with Sensaura's patented MultiDrive technology
• Engulfing 4.0, 4.1 and 5.1 multi-speaker support
• Master balance/fade controls
• Individual Wave, MIDI and Analog controls
• Hardware solutions produce industry-leading real-mode DOS support
• AC '97 2.0 architecture
• Ultimate Dolby Digital and PCM support with S/PDIF digital output interface
• Microsoft DirectInput compatible joystick interface
• MPU-401 MIDI interface
• PCI 2.1 compatible interface
• Microsoft DirectSound and DirectMusic compatibility

Comparison with other major chipsets

* 4.1 refers to four speakers plus a sub-woofer
** 5.1 refers to four speakers plus a sub-woofer and center channel

Sensaura 3D position sound

Microsoft Direct Sound and Direct Sound 3D, Creative Environmental Audio Extension (EAX) and Aureal A3D, APIs are common sound standards that are generally known to us. Not many sound cards support this audio standard; other sound cards include the Yamaha XG 192. So what is Sensaura 3D? And what makes it so great. Well let's check it out.

Over its 10-year history, Sensaura has evolved from a technology used in the music recording industry by such stars as the late Frank Sinatra to the complete impressive 3D audio gaming experience, which it now provides. The same unbeatable 3D positional audio used by the music industry has now been made widely available for your PC. Sensaura licenses ESS, Cirrus and Yamaha, who between them supply over 65% of the PC single chip audio market. This ensure that Sensaura leads the way in PC based 3D audio. Sensaura 3D positional audio can now be found in PCs ranging from Dell, NEC, Fujitsu, Dual Group and Compaq.

3D positional audio (3DPA) is now a "must have" for interactive first-person games. The Sensaura 3D positional audio supports the Microsoft DirectX/DirectSound3D API and other industry standard APIs. Sensaura also offers a number of proprietary 3D audio effects, such as MacroFX.

In addition, Sensaura also participates in Microsoft's initiatives to fully support the extension of the capabilities of DirectSound3D - for example hardware voice management.

The key elements in 3D-sound technology lies in the audio filters (which are used to spatially position the sounds in three-dimensions), the Transaural Crosstalk cancellation (TCC) technology (used to reproduce the 3D-effects via loudspeakers), and the efficiency with which these two blocks of audio processing can be carried out.

3D Accuracy

The accuracy and realism with which a 3D-sound technology can position a sound in 3D space from two conventional loudspeakers (or via headphones) is determined by the accuracy of the HRTFs (Head-Response Transfer Functions) used. HRTFs can be measured from an "artificial head" system, or from human subjects. The Sensaura artificial head structure has been developed over seven years of research, and is the most spatially accurate head model available. The patented Sensaura Digital Ear™ technology ensures that Sensaura HRTFs cannot be equaled or copied.

Transaural Crosstalk-Cancellation Technology

Transaural Crosstalk-Cancellation (TCC) technology is used to deliver the 3D-sound effects, which are created by the HRTFs, when replayed over loudspeakers. Sensaura TCC has been developed in what some consider the most critical audio market of all: the music business.

The Sensaura technology has evolved through many recording sessions at the famous Abbey Road studios in London, and Capitol studios in L.A., and “golden ear” producers as well as studio engineers have approved it. Poor TCC results in narrow sound-image and uncomfortable listening effects. In particular, as the listener moves his head, some sounds will appear and disappear. Sensaura TCC has been developed to provide a completely natural listening experience, with no such artifacts. Evidence of this is provided by its successful application in the demanding area of classical music recording.

Efficiency

The length and accuracy of the HRTF filters are primarily determined by the accuracy of the original response measurements on the artificial (or real) head system. The Sensaura filters are efficiently implemented as FIR or IIR filters on a range of fixed and floating point DSPs.

Sensaura technology also uses a highly efficient TCC algorithm. For PC applications, this provides the option of having minimal memory requirement for filter library storage, OR a greater number of positional filters (thus having smaller gaps) for smoother, 3D-sound panning. Inefficient audio-processing technologies result in a smaller number of available channels and also significantly greater chip cost. And, in addition, the HRTF library storage requirement is proportionately greater.

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Installation

The Bad

The Wavetable of this sound card is bad. Even with a 4MB subset loaded (the max. possible) it sounded weak. I enjoy playing midi files but I surely did not find it pleasant coming out of this card. The Yamaha XG 192 sounded much better than this one, hell even Microsoft Software GS Wavetable could pass off better instruments. General Midi is generally fading off, but ESS surely didn’t have killed it off this quickly. RIGHT? Thank God Terratec provided a 26-pin Wavetable connector. This means that if you previously owned a Yamaha DB50XG, well it was time to reuse it, even Creative’s WaveBlaster will do wonders. In fact, any add on Wavetable daughter-card is worth the effort inserting to this board. Maybe that’s why Terratec provided the Wavetable daughter connector because it's rare to find such connectors in newer PCI sound cards.

The joystick port, like many new PCI sound cards that are digital port have serious compatibility problem. The Gravis Gamepad Pro and Thrustmaster Rage 3D digital gamepads simply would not load, or unable to locate the ports. This problem has been known since Diamond Monster Sound 3D. Digital game port simply will not work properly on digital controllers, as the Digital controller driver tend to search for a legacy analog port, even if the Digital port is set at memory base 201. So unless you are using USB for your game controller or you are using analog controllers, be prepared to fork out another $20 on a game port for your digital gamepad/controller.

There are bugs in the drivers, in fact a serious problem. With the DMX control panel enabled, my system resources dropped to 53%. Surely it does not require so much power from a Pentium III 450, right? After unloading it, my system resources returned to 88%. There’s no point in having good utilities when you can’t use it or it takes away too much power from your PC.

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Conclusion

This is a pretty good card, in fact a great sound card. The manufacturing quality is one of the best I’ve ever seen. Gold plated plugs, top notch PCB and a good digital I/O card with both RCA and TOS digital industrial standard connectors. This is the best recording sound card I’ve ever tried out. Recording was clear and clean, using the digital input/output to a MD player. Numerous input connectors also make it great for user who wants to record from different source, especially for those with digital video encoders. The wave/digital (e.g. MP3 or Real Audio Files) sound on this card is excellent, especially with all the API it supports. However, it's not like the SB Live where you can set any environment you want even on the desktop. It only supports EAX/A3D on applications that call for it. Furthermore, it uses Direct Sound 3D to emulate it.

At a cost of over $200 this sound card it pretty costly. If Terratec could solve the problems with the driver and provide a Wavetable along with it, my current top choice would still be the Creative SB Live (Full Retail) or even the Creative SB Live value. However, if you are a professional, and want really good recording, this could be your choice.

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Ratings

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