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The Box Contents: Everything that was supposed to come with this kit was included inside the box. The card was packaged in it’s non-static producing bag, the install CD was right on top of the card, and the other contents were neatly enclosed inside zip locked plastic bags. There was even a form letter from VIA that went into some detail about where the Mad Dog is going to fit into the consumer market in the future as well as some of it’s features.
Visual Inspection of the Card: The card itself has a very small profile and sports a shiny gold back plate. The connectors on the back plate are listed in the following order from the screw down end of the bracket: (Lime Green) Front Out, (Black) Rear Out, (Orange) Center Speaker/Subwoofer, (Orange) Headset Out / Alternate, (Pink) Microphone, (Blue) Line In, (Square Black Plug) S/PDIF Out [Optical], (Square Black Plug) S/PDIF In [Optical].
Now, for a quick visual inspection of the top of the card shows quite a few details into why the Entertainer is aimed at the consumer market and not necessarily the high end market. The first thing that caught my eye was the Mad Dog Multimedia sticker that covers up a chip on the PCB. If curiosity killed the cat, I should have run through my nine lives many years ago and with that comment we peel off the sticker to reveal exactly what I thought it was going to be hiding; the VIA Envy 24 HT-S Digital Audio Processor. VIA’s Envy 24 HT-S and PT audio chipsets are commonly used in some of the higher end add-on peripheral sound cards as well as some proprietary motherboard solutions from some of the top motherboard manufactures in the world. While the Envy 24HT-S processor does provides a true 24-bit sound solution with 192kHz audio, it is important to understand that it only does this with the cards two input and output digital S/PDIF connectors. It does not carry the true 24-bit audio across all of the other analog ports. Those ports will make use of VIA’s Envy Vinyl VT1616 software codec which is responsible for powering all but two (7 and 8) of the capable eight channels as well as the analog recording routines. Ultimately, it will only do so with a sampling of 20-bit audio and up to 48kHz sampling rates not the quoted 24-bit/192kHz sampling rates. Notice how I said quoted and not promised. This is because you can still achieve true 24-bit stereo surround sound but you must make use of a compliment chipset known as the Wolfson WM8728 DAC Processor. The Wolfson DAC is capable of producing the same 24-bit capabilities (24-bit/192kHz sampling rate) as the Envy 24HT-S chipset in this 7.1 sound format. In order for this to happen, you will need to use the Envy Vinyl Control Panel and go to the SPDIF Tab and make sure you check “Enable Hi Sampling Rates (96kHz)”. Once you have done this, you will now have switched your stereo output from the “Front Output” ports to the “Alt Center” port. It is my opinion that you will receive exceptional CD audio playback sound as compared to the VIA VT1616 software codec drivers. It really is a shame that VIA doesn’t tell you about this feature and basically chooses for this option to remain discreet. I would not call this deception on VIA’s part, but it is a way to achieve true 24-bit stereo surround sound with your Entertainer card.
Another thing that I noticed right away was that the Entertainer did not have any options on the component side of the card for internal connectors that could be used to connect a mic or headphones to the front of your case. This lack of options will not give the Entertainer a failing grade in my book, but it would have been a useful option to have on the card especially for the avid gamers out there that are looking for convenience. The Entertainer comes with two analog ports, a “CD In”, and a “Aux In”. For those that don’t understand what these are for, the analog “CD In” ports enable you to connect your DVD-ROM, CD-ROM, or CD-RW drive straight to your sound card for analog data transfer (Sound, Music).
Installation: I have a Sound Blaster Audigy Gamer card in my test system so I fully uninstalled all the programs and drivers for it and then shut the system down. I then removed the existing card, plugged in the Entertainer, hooked up the proper cables and then closed the case back up. Once the computer started up, the new card was automatically detected and the driver installation went off like clockwork. The computer needed to be rebooted so once that was done, I was up and running with the newly installed Entertainer and VIA’s Vinyl Envy Audio control panel and drivers.
The first thing that I looked for on the installation CD was what they might have had hidden that didn’t show up with the swank Mad Dog installer interface. Unfortunately, I could find nothing that I could use to check out the full effect of the sound card. What I would have liked to have seen was at least a demo or at least a couple of sound files that would allow you to listen to some 3D positional sound effects or environmental sounds that would take advantage of the Entertainer’s 8-channel sound scheme right from the gate. Possibly in a future revision. Once inside the Vinyl control panel, you can go in there and setup the proper speaker layout for the type of scheme you have. My Altec Lansing 5100 speakers are only 5.1 (6-channel) sound format, so I made sure to change to the 6 Channel speaker layout. Once you have done that, you can go in and test out all of your speakers with the Speaker Config tab. Make sure you click on each speaker and that will direct sound to the proper speaker for you to listen to.
One quick note on the SPDIF tab, if you are going to take advantage of the Wolfson WM8728 DAC using the “Alt Center” port make sure that when you enable “Enable Hi Sampling Rates (96kHz)” under the SPDIF tab you also make sure that this same option is also enabled under your “Advanced Controls for Master Speakers” window. The very bottom option labeled “HI-SR(96KHz)” should be enabled. The Envy control panel should do this automatically, but I always like to double check anyway.
Sensaura 3DPA (3D Positional Audio): Here is a little explanation about what the Sensaura 3DPA (3D Positional Audio) software drivers are straight from Sensaura’s website. From Neanderthal man, who needed to avoid the attentions of predators, to the football player of today who needs to avoid a lunging tackle from behind, human beings have always had the need to hear in three dimensions. When an individual is taken out of the real world environment and placed in one that is artificial (e.g. a computer game or an aircraft cockpit), how can we synthesize a 3D audio environment? Sensaura technology, the result of more than 12 years research and development into the human spatial hearing process, can replicate exact audio environments using computer software. An exclusive suite of algorithms based on the physics of spatial hearing is used to mimic the acoustic processes which are involved, and simulate the effect of hearing any particular sound at a chosen position in three-dimensional space around the listener. In addition to the core technology of accurately placing sounds in three-dimensional space around the listener, Sensaura has also developed a suite of ancillary technologies which contribute to making a synthesized audio environment indistinguishable from the real thing.
Upon further research, I did find out that the Entertainer did not make use of any hardware acceleration for 3D audio. This is where the Sensaura 3DP drivers come into play. The Sensaura drivers basically emulate hardware acceleration for audio that was meant to be passed through a hardware processor on the card. It will be interesting to see what type of a performance hindrance that might have on CPU cycles while inside a very resource intensive game such as Battlefield 1942 or the new Unreal Tournament 2004? DirectSound and DirectSound 3D which were made to take advantage of hardware acceleration on the component allows for hardware accelerating 3D sound streams using surround sound and a subset of Creative's EAX standard. This is the only real problem that I can see on the Entertainer, it will be interesting to see how well the Sensaura drivers handle the task of DirectSound 3D while emulating hardware acceleration.
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