Thanks to Creative Labs,
high-resolution PC audio support is something of an
ambiguous area and as was found with the original
Audigy, using 24-Bit/96kHz DACs
doesn't necessarily mean it the card does play audio at
that rate.
Internally, the
original Audigy operated at 16 bit/48kHz, meaning it
resampled audio above that rate and below it to some extent
also. While the
Audigy 2 operates at 24-Bit/96 kHz the effects engine is
limited to 16/48 kHz, meaning that anything passing through
it is resampled also.
So is the Revolution
a similarly quasi-24-Bit/192kHz soundcard? Well…
Let me introduce to
you M-Audio’s Revolution 7.1, powered by VIA’s
Envy24HT chipset, the card internally supports
24-Bit/192kHz for up to 8 (7.1) channels.Free from AC97 limitations, the
Revolution doesn’t resample sources below 48 kHz, something
pretty much all consumer soundcards do (Audigy 2, Santa
Cruz, etc., most obviously with CD playback, which has a
sampling rate of 44.1 kHz).
While this does seem
to indicate the Revolution 7.1 is truly capable of high
resolution, resampling-free playback, we found a couple of
caveats to this (see page 4 for more) so why don’t
you take a deep breath as we take a detailed look to
M-Audio’s little gem, from the 24 bit/192kHz debate, to
drivers, overall output quality, performance and more...
The Board
The Revolution 7.1
board features Line & Mic Inputs, 4 Stereo Line Outputs and
a Coaxial S/PDIF Output (noticed there is no S/PDIF input).
Interestingly enough no MIDI port is available either, nor
are internal connectors for CD-In and the like. This should
really be of no loss to most users as many of these have
been legacy connections for a long time now. Over the course
of testing the Revolution I connected it to both
MegaWorks 510D and
Inspire 6700 systems using available Line-Out's as well
as conducted some testing using a pair of Philips
headphones. For testing digital output the Coaxial S/PDIF
Output was connected to a SoundBlaster
Extigy.
Out of the box, the
Revolution 7.1 includes a quick start guide and a large
printed manual covering installation, as well as describing
the various options available in the control panel.
In addition to drivers CDs M-Audio also
provides “over $200 of high-quality software”. The complete
software bundled is listed on the
specifications
page, though perhaps the most noteworthy inclusion to most
users will be WinDVD 4 (Dolby Digital Surround EX version),
as well as full versions of Tony Hawk 3, MixMan Studio and
VJ Lite.
