Prelude to Fidelity?

When it comes to soundcards, the first name to come to mind is perhaps, Creative. Having bought out their main competitor, Aureal Semiconductor, in 2000, Creative has had a virtual monopoly in the market ever since. Few companies have came up to challenge Creative and one of the more notably examples would be Auzentech. Auzentech made its name by producing a line of high quality soundcards based on the C-media 8700 series of chipset. These were the X-Mystique, X-Meridian and X-plosion and offered great features at a good price-point for the Home Theatre PC market. However, most would realise that this market was limited in size and can be considered niche. To reach out to a wider audience and bring high quality audio to more people, Auzentech has tied-up with Creative and licensed their X-Fi chipset. The result is the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude. Would it be the Prelude to something great to come? Join us as we take the X-Fi Prelude for a session and find out for yourself.

Did they choose the X-Fi so that they could carry on with the "X" prefix tradition?

The packaging should be familiar to those who have seen Auzentech's previous offerings. This time round, there are many more logos on the front signifying the various additional technologies made available with the X-Fi chipset. Lets take a look at the basic specifications before we move on to unwrapping the card.

Specifications

Key Components

• Creative X-Fi CA20K audio processor
• One AKM AK-5394 super high performance 96kHz 24-bit ADC for analog input
• Four AKM AK-4396 96kHz 24-bit advanced multi-bit DAC for analog output
• 64Mbytes of memory for audio processing
• High fidelity audio OPAMPs for analog input and output (TI OPA2134)
• Front L/R output OPAMP is replaceable by end-user (National LM4562NA)
• Dual mode S/PDIF receiver and transmitter

Audio Performance (Rated Output @ 5Vrms, Typical Value)

• Signal-to-Noise Ratio (20kHz Low-pass filter, A-Weighted)
• Stereo Output : 120dB (part spec)
• Front and Rear Channels : 120dB (part spec)
• Center : 120dB (part spec)
• Subwoofer and Side Channels : 120dB (part spec)
• Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise at 1kHz (-3dBFS, A-weighted) : 0.001% - part spec
• Frequency Response (+/-0.01dB, 24-bit/44.1kHz input ) : 20khz (part spec)
• Frequency Response (+/-0.01dB, 24-bit/96kHz input ) : 43.5 khz (part spec)
• 16-bit to 24-bit recording sampling rates: 32, 44.1, 48 and 96kHz

IO Connectors

• One 3.5mm MIC input connector in rear panel
• One 3.5mm line input connector in rear panel
• One 4-pin AUX connector on board
• Four 3.5mm 8 channel line output connectors in rear panel (FL/FR/C/SW/RL/RR/RSL/RSR)
• One S/PDIF combo input connector in rear panel for receiving either coaxial or optical digital
• One S/PDIF combo output connector in rear panel for transmitting either coaxial or optical digital
• One 10-1pin front panel connector on board for MIC input and headphone
• One 40-pin digital extension header on board to support AD-Link and other digital functionality

What's in the box?

Unlike their previous cards, the solid polymer capacitors are no longer tinted in green.

The rear of the card is fairly sparse and we are told its RoHS compliant.

We popped the heatsink off and found that they really are using the same EMU20K1 on the X-Fi

One of the features gamers look out for in an X-Fi is the use of the XRam. Auzentech uses Micron memories.

A quartet of AKM AK4396 24bit/ 192KHz DACs are used to provide the 7.1 analog outputs.

A single AK5394 24bit/ 192KHz Analog to Digital Convertor is used on the X-Fi Prelude.

We've seen the pictures so lets move on.

Music Appreciation and Conclusion

Test Setup

For the music listening test, a pair of Beyer Dynamics DT931 headphones as well as a custom built headphone amplifier was used to reveal flaws (if any) from the soundcard's output. I familiarized myself with the setup before hand using a standalone CD player and found it to be tonally well-balanced and neutral enough to be used for the test. The computer used was a Shuttle SN27P armed with an AM2 x2 4200+, 2GB of Corsair XMS2 memory and an NVIDIA 8500GT. The choice of albums used in the test are as follows:
The Ten Tenors - Larger than Life, Coldplay - Trouble, Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory, Simon and Garfunkel - the Best of. (These were ripped to wave files and played using foobar2000 v0.95)

Music Appreciation

I first listened to the different pieces via DirectSound followed by ASIO outputs to determine if the drivers perform and modifications on the output. All of the effects were turned off at the Sound Console Panel including but not limited to: Equalizer, CMSS, Crystalizer. These can be used by end-users to tweak the tonal qualities of their setups according to their own tastes. Listening was conducted in 15 minute blocks and 5 minute breaks in between to avoid listening fatigue.
During playback via DirectSound, I found that the music out of the Prelude had a larger soundstage and was more detailed than the Creative X-Fi Elite Pro. Auzentech's rendition of the X-Fi proved to sound significantly better than the original by Creative. That said, the sound was still very bright with a boost around the 2KHz to 4KHz region. This is common to both the Auzentech X-Fi and Creative X-Fi soundcards. Apparently, there is some processing done by either the drivers or the EMU20K1 itself.
To find out which it is, I switched the playback to ASIO so as to bypass driver/ kernel processing and found that the brightness was tamed significantly although the music was still slighty bright. There was also an extension on both ends which resulted in tighter, full bodied bass and a darker background. My verdict: If you're buying an X-Fi Prelude, do yourself a favour and use ASIO for playback; the difference is signifcant enough to justify the additional effort required.

Gaming

A long time ago, I was wowed by the accuracy of 3D positional sound in games by my Diamond MX300 soundcard using A3D 2.0 technology. When Aureal was acquired by Creative in 2000, I was left with no viable alternative as Creative's EAX proved to be nowhere near what A3D could provide, particularly on headphones. However, the introduction of EAX 5.0 on the X-Fi platform proved to be the turning point. Where the Audigy series was a sore disappointment, the X-Fi showed that Creative had put the acquired technology to good use and I'm glad that there was finally a solution to my gaming woes. As the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude is based on X-Fi technology, it has also inherited the capabilities of the X-Fi. The most important of which is definitely the ability to provide realistic positional sound in games. Here, Auzentech does not disappoint and as I played a quick game of Unreal Tournament 3, I was able to easily pin-point enemy locations based on sound cues alone. Here, the inherent brightness of the X-Fi actually worked in its advantage by making the various specific sounds easier to pick up amidst the chaos that is a heated battle. In short, Auzentech has not lost any of the X-Fi's charm in gaming and the better sound quality out of Auzentech's design worked very well for the X-Fi Prelude 7.1.

Conclusion

All in all, I found the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude to be a decent performer. In music listening, the X-Fi Prelude far surpasses the Creative X-Fi Elite Pro. Where the latter was able to induce headaches, Auzentech's X-Fi Prelude remains very listenable. Sonically, it is still slightly bright but makes up for it with a deeper low end and wider soundstage. Since sound is a subjective matter, I will not try and put users off it simply based on this alone. Furthermore, the output opamp is swappable and one can always adjust the sound according to taste. Failing that, there are a myriad of effects and features like the Eq and Crystallizer which can be used to further change the sound of the card. Although the card was re-engineered by Auzentech, at no point did its performance in games suffer. Positional sound was still as good as with the Creative X-Fi series and we encountered absolutely no driver issues during installation either. Priced in between the X-Fi Fatal1ty Gamer and the X-Fi Fatal1ty, I feel that the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude offers users a good choice over the Creative offerings. Decent for music, opamp rolling tweaks and much better layout and build quality push for it as a viable purchase for gamers who wish to enjoy listening to music every now and then.

 

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