3DsoundSurge Review: Hoontech's SoundTrack Digital-NX

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Important Info:

Sound Card By : Hoontech
Price : $39 without any bracket, $46 with NX-DB I
API Support : DirectSound, DS3D, EAX 1.0 and A3D 1.0 (by translating to DS3D calls, works with most but not all titles)
S/N Ratio : > 90 dB

Minimum System Requirements:

CPU: Not mentioned
Windows 95/98, Windows NT 4.0 or Linux
Open PCI 2.1 compliant slot
Headphones or amplified speakers
CD-ROM drive for software installation

Reviewers PC:

Mikael
- Win98
- Celeron 300a o/c 450
- 128MB PC100 ram
- Creative TNT
- 6.4 GB Quantum SE
- For four speaker testing purpose I hooked the card up to Videologic's Digi Theatre speaker system using the analog inputs and later in testing I also tried Altec Lansing's ACS54. For two speaker testing purposes I used the same speaker systems but only connecting to the front channels and for headphones testing I used a set of Sennheiser HD5570

Specifications

Advanced PCI DirectSound Accelerator

PCI 2.1-compliant with Bus Mastering optimized for multiple stream operation
On-chip per voice FIFO minimizes PCI bandwidth Up to 20X improvement over ISA DMA on PCI bus bandwidth utilization
Hardware multi-channel digital mixer
REAL DOS mode compatible
None DDMA mode compatible
Full legacy Compatibility(Real DOS games supported)

AC-97 CODEC

100 % compatible with Direct Input.
Convenient Driver Updates
4-speaker support
CD quality audio with higher than 90dB signal-to-noise ratio using an external high quality AC 97 codec
AC 97 support with full duplex, independent sample rate converter for audio recording and playback
On-chip sample rate converter ensures all internal operation at 48KHz
High precision internal 26-bit digital mixer with 16- and 20-bit digital audio output

Advanced Desktop Features

S/PDIF interface to provide high quality playback via digital stereo,compressed AC-3 audio stream or output to consumer electronics devices.
Accepts 32, 44.1 and 48KHz and converts into 48kHz sampling rate only.
4-speaker support for maximum realism Perfectly

Accelerated Direct Sound 2D / 3D

Direct Sound Channel of 64 Voices !!
Accelerated Direct Sound 3D (IDD, ITD, Doppler effect, 3D positioning)
Accelerated Direct Sound 2D (included Static Buffer like Volume, pitch)
QSound(TM) support (QSoft) 3D positioning Audio.

Powerful MIDI with Sample RAM MAX 6MB

Powerful GM/GS MIDI function with 2MB, 4MB, 6MB Sample (Main RAM used)
64-voice polyphony wavetable synthesizer supports all combinations of stereo/mono, 8/16 bit, and signed/unsigned samples
Compatibility with Microsoft DLS MIDI Sample

Software

Direct Sound 2D, Direct Sound 3D(DirectSound 5 & 6)
Direct Music, Direct Input
Windows 95, 98, NT, Linux(Downloadable) & Real DOS(Command Prompt Only, Native DOS)

Included Joystick Port

100 % compatible with Direct Input

Perfect Digital Sound System

96dB Digital Input(Coaxial, Optical, AES/EBU) & Digital Out ( Coaxial, Optical, AES/EBU) with NX DB II & ST DB III
Supports 4Speaker Digital AMP (PA Digital/4ch, ST Digital AMP/4Ch) with NX DB II
Supports Digital Out (Coaxial,Optical) with NX DB I

Update: We still think this card works fine in most games but it's now quite clear there never will be any support for EAX 2.0 and quite uncertain if there will ever be any full featured WDM drivers. WDM drivers are required for Windows2000 and future versions of Windows (Windows XP). You can find more details on the chance of future drivers on our driver/support page

Hoontech is a small Korean company that in the past only sold professional/high-end music cards (e.g. ST 128 DDMA & ST Digital Audio) you could find in music shops but recently Hoontech has started to offer very inexpensive cards with digital connections in the home user & consumer area. Most people probably know them for their inexpensive digital daughter cards for the Live and Live!Value. Earlier this month we took a look at their inexpensive Digital-XG based on Yamaha's YMF744 chip. In this review we will take a look at another inexpensive board from Hoontech, the SoundTrack Digital 4D Wave NX (SoundTrack Digital-NX) which as you may guess uses Trident’s 4DWave-NX chip. The version of the card we tested comes with both coaxial and optical digital outputs on a bracket board. For 3D sound and reverb the 4DWave-NX chip uses QSound’s Q3D 2.0 engine which supports DS3D and EAX 1.0. It also features QSound’s stereo expansion technology, QXpander and 2D-3D.