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This is a printable version of the article found at http://onepc.net/reviews/0030/ To print, press CTRL + P on your keyboard now. |
By Kelly Lu (kellylu@onepc.net) - March 21, 2001
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I must pause, now, from all this reminiscence to observe one similar aspect found in all of these scenarios: healthy competition. Intel has AMD and Cyrix, NVIDIA had 3dfx and still has ATI, Thermaltek has every overclocker out there and, well, you get the point. So our conclusion to this little pause? Competition is good! It may not be good for the huge corporations who are behind the advancement of technology since they have to invest more money on R&D in order to get less return because of price cuts, all of this is all beneficial for us, the consumer.
One market in the computer industry that I've found to be lacking in advancement recently is the sound card market. It once seemed that it was going to be heaven for us audio-lovers with Creative having to put up with the competition that Aureal brought to the mix, but all that has changed. With the surprising demise of Aureal last year, there has been virtually no competition under the radar for the multimedia giant, Creative, and it sure seems like the consumer is starting to see the effects of it.
Over the few years that Creative and Aureal were fighting for the title of having the most popular 3D API, we saw them craw over each other with the rapid release of updates to their own proprietary API's: A3D and EAX. Now, however, with Aureal out of the picture, what has Creative brought us recently? … Um… not much, if you're talking about their sound card technologies. They haven't made any changes to their EAX 3D API and all we've seen is them following up on their original SoundBlaster Live! Series with some variations such as the MP3+ and Platinum, which included, unfortunately, the exact same card as any other Live! Series card, but only with a few extra perks.
So, with competition action between the popular corporations virtually eliminated and the remaining company not producing anything worthwhile in the post-battle period, we turn our attention to some of the lesser-known makers of audio products. Voyetra-Turtle Beach is whom we're focusing on today and their high-end Santa Cruz sound card is the product we're reviewing. Don't be fooled by my "lesser-known" talk, however, as Voyetra-Turtle Beach is no rookie in the audio business. The actual company as we know them today was formed in 1996 as a result of a merger, but the companies involved in the merger were both elites in the digital audio market with decades of experience. Voyetra was the maker of some of the most popular audio software products out there, and Turtle Beach was an industry leader in the music and recording business. Together now, Voyetra-Turtle Beach naturally claims to be unique in its "ability to develop full-featured turnkey products that inherently require a strong bond between the hardware and software components."
Although they're not as much of a household name in the minds of computer enthusiasts, they produce a wide-range of quality sound cards for everyone from the basic consumer to the demanding gamer. As a result of their quality, you might have seen their products in personal computers from some well-known brands, but none more prominent than Dell. As far as I can remember, Dell has been using Turtle Beach sound cards in their systems for some time now, so it will be interesting to see why that is so as we take a look at the Voyetra-Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card.
Below are some very detailed specs on the Santa Cruz pulled right off of Voyetra Turtle Beach's website:
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Advanced 3D Positional Audio Support: Sensaura HRTF 3D audio technology places sources in the X, Y and Z planes for true 360° positional effects that appear above, below and all around you. DSP accelerates 32 hardware and 16 software DirectSound3D™ streams. Compatible with A3D™ 1.0, EAX™ 1.0/2.0, IA3D, MacroFX™, MultiDrive™, Virtual Ear™.
2, 4 or 6-Speaker Digital Surround Sound:
Digital Audio Connectivity:
Effects Processing:
Acoustic Sound Fields:
MIDI Wavetable Synthesizer:
Audio Converters:
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Analog (A-A): Frequency Response: 10Hz - 120kHz (-3dB) SNR: 96dB FS A-weighted. THD+N: (-3dB): < -91dB FS (0.0027%). Crosstalk: -105dB @ 100HzDigital Playback (D-A): Frequency Response: 10Hz - 120kHz (-3dB) SNR: 90dB FS A-weighted. THD+N: (-3dB FS): < -87dB FS (0.004%).Digital Recording (A-D): Frequency Response: (-3dB) @ Fs = 48kHz: 10Hz to 20kHz SNR: 93dB FS A-weighted. THD+N: (-3dB FS): < -84dB FS (0.005%).
Digital Output: 48kHz PCM audio or Dolby Digital® AC-3 for external decoder.
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Whew! That was a breath-full! If you don't understand all the technical mumble jumble above, don't worry. Basically, it states that the Santa Cruz is a really powerful sound card that's loaded with features! It has support for 2-speakers, 4-speakers, 6-speakers, 5.1 digital output and, of course, headphones. Also, it is loaded with connectors--check this out:
Well, you can be sure that you'll have enough inputs and outputs to plug just about any audio device you want into this thing. It's got the usual front and rear jacks that you would expect out of any high-end sound card, mic and line-in's and, something that's unique in the Santa Cruz, a jack that Turtle Beach calls "VersaJack." Basically, it's an extra jack that can be programmed to be either a 5.1 digital output jack (for plugging into a Dolby Digital decoder), an extra headphone jack or, this is very cool, another 2 speakers for an added 5th and 6th channel in an analog surround sound set up. Very cool and much better than the yellow jack on the SoundBlaster Live! that only supports digital out.
As you might expect, the Santa Cruz is right at the top of Voyetra-Turtle Beach's pyramid of sound cards. Other noteworthy features are its ability to do hardware-based MP3 decoding, which might help if you have a slow computer (< 300MHz), support for both Creative's EAX (both 1.0 and the newest 2.0) and Aureal's A3D (unfortunately, only version 1.0, most-likely using software emulation, much like how Creative does it with their Live! Cards) 3D API's and support for 2, 4 and 6-channel audio. As you can see, the Santa Cruz is already a feature-packed sound card that can compete with Creative's popular SoundBlaster Live! Series pound-for-pound. Unlike the Live!, however, the Santa Cruz is made up of circuitry and technology developed by a collective group of companies that delivers such features.
At the center of the Santa Cruz is the Cirrus Logic Crystal 4630 SoundFusion DSP processor that enables it to have such a wide range of powerful features. Not nearly as powerful as Creative's EMU10K1 audio processor that's at the center of the SoundBlaster Live! Series of sound cards, the CL4630 is still capable of offloading most of the sound processing from the main CPU. It is also capable of re-configuring itself in real-time, allowing it to allocate and reallocate its resources based on what task needs to be done. This allows it to, for example, devote most of its resources on MP3 decoding, and then switch over to 3D audio acceleration, all based on what the user is doing at that time.
The unique part of the Santa Cruz, however, is not in the audio processor, but in the technology that the audio processor uses to provide it with all the features that it is capable of delivering. This technology is called Sensaura 3D.
Sensaura technology is developed by a UK company by the name of, well, Sensaura. It, the technology, is not a 3D API like EAX or A3D, but a bunch of software mathematical algorithms. Thus, this enables their technology to be licensed and used by audio chip makers in their products-in fact, their technology has been licensed to about 70% of the chips for the PC audio market. Unfortunately, though, the chips that are using Sensaura technology is mostly being used in sound cards that are only going be used for large OEM corporations (such as Dell) in systems that are targeted for beginner or business computer users. Thus, most of these users really wouldn't care for how their sound card handles 3D API's and such. This probably explains why most of you won't even have heard of it before.
Since the Santa Cruz is at the top of Voyetra-Turtle Beach's sound card product line, it's a safe bet that the technology behind it, Sensaura, is fully-loaded with features. First off, it basically supports all of the popular 3D API's. It has built-in hardware support for Creative's EAX 1.x and 2.x and has software emulation support for Aureal's A3D 1.x, much like how Creative does with their SoundBlaster Live!. Finally, it has native support for DS3D (DirectSound3D), but also with some extras that extend the capabilities of DS3D.
One of which is their MacroFX technology, which enables "near-field proximity effects." Put simply, MacroFX allows developers to program how sounds should sound, such as whispering in the ear, wind noises (skiing, running, etc.) and close fly-by's (such as bullets, rockets, etc.), all by just placing the sounds in the right distance. What's unique about this is that most games with DS3D support already take advantage of this feature, since developers have already placed sounds sources about various distances.
Another one is their ZoomFX technology, which enables "big sound realism." Natively, DS3D supports making sounds sound like they're close up and far away by altering the volume. This works great in itself, but what happens if a truck begins far away and then comes rumbling by? It lacks realism because it will be using the same sound, but just increasing the volume as it's moving closer. With ZoomFX, developers can bring in a collection of different sounds, such as the noise of the engine and squeaking of the brakes, depending on how far away the sound source is. This, in effect, makes "big" sounds sound "big." Unlike MacroFX, though, ZoomFX involves current and future applications and games to be specially programmed for it, since it involves the addition of other sound source.
As you can see, Sensaura has a very advanced technology under their wings. We've only covered two of their technologies, but they have a lot more to, such as their MultiDrive, which is a new way of enhancing the user's surround sound experience with 4 or more speakers; however, I think this gives you a rough guideline as to what we should expect from one of the sound cards that uses the technology, the Santa Cruz.
Installation of the hardware was a breeze. All that was involved was for me to pull out my old sound card then plug in the Santa Cruz in the same slot. Powering up the computer, Windows detected the card fine...
But it didn't install the right drivers so that it would work right out of the box. So, I decided to stick in the included CD with the drivers on it, but it gave me a message stating that the software will only install under Windows 95/98 (I was running Windows 2000) and quickly terminated itself. That's weird, I thought. Windows 2000 has already been released for about a year now, and they still don't have Windows 2000 drivers on their driver CD?
Feeling a little frustrated, I tried visiting the Voyetra-Turtle Beach website for updated drivers. After a few minutes of flipping through their site, I found the driver page for the Santa Cruz. They did have Windows 2000 drivers for download (Windows ME drivers were also there as well), but, get this; the newest version is still a beta version! I don't know about you, but I shudder at the thought of installing beta software on my computer. Luckily, though, we should expect some non-beta drivers available for the two OS's as time progresses, but I find it disappointing to see a company take this long to support an OS that has been out for almost about a year now.
Regardless of which, since the beta version was the only one available, I downloaded, extracted and installed it. Luckily, the installation went through quite smoothly. The Santa Cruz was finally installed and ready to go.
After rebooting my computer, I was greeted with a nice green replacement icon for the Windows volume control (I later found out that this only appears with Windows 2000, and doesn't with Windows 95/98/ME-it can be opened from the Control Panel with these OS's). Double clicking on the icon brought up the Santa Cruz control in a very nice-looking interface. Everything, from speaker configuration to reverb effects to volume control can all be configured from this interface. I really liked the Santa Cruz control panel because it allows one to configure every aspect of their sound system right from one centralized interface.
Setting the speaker configuration to 4 speakers, I was all set to test out how this card sounds!
2D Sound Performance
To test out the 2D sound performance, I decided to play a few of my MP3's. At first, when I first listened to my MP3 files through my 4-speaker set up, I noticed that the sound was completely identical to the sound from my SoundBlaster Live! sound card; however, when I plugged in my SoundBlaster Live! back into the computer, I noticed that there was a slight difference in the sound output from the two cards. I couldn't tell what it was, though.
So, I decided to further test out the sound output of the two cards to find out just what it was that was making this slight difference of sound. Using my very expensive set of headphones, I set the sound cards side by side and played my favourite MP3 file. Sure enough, there was a very slight difference of sound quality between the Santa Cruz and the SoundBlaster Live!. I noticed that the output of the Santa Cruz seemed to sound "brighter" and clearer than the output from my SoundBlaster Live! card. This, I finally concluded after switching between the two cards a few times over, was caused by the Santa Cruz accenting the treble tones just ever so slightly. Ask me which output I prefer better, and I have to say the output from the Santa Cruz, because it's slightly "clearer" when I compare it to the output from my SoundBlaster Live!.
3D Sound Performance
To test out the 3D sound, I decided to play 15 mins of the game Half-Life, a game that, although might be over 2 years old, I feel takes the best advantage of sound effects to enhance its game play. It utilizes EAX 2.0, by the way.
After playing the game over and over on the Santa Cruz and the SoundBlaster Live!, I can tell you that the Santa Cruz does EAX 3D API calls as good as the SoundBlaster Live! card. In fact, I couldn't tell a difference between the two cards whatsoever except for the brighter sound output that I mentioned above in the 2D sound performance section.
As mentioned in my introduction, Voyetra-Turtle Beach is essentially made up of two companies: Voyetra and Turtle Beach. Each benefited from the merger because Voyetra gained the hardware technologies from Turtle Beach and Turtle Beach gained the software technologies from Voyetra. So, it's not surprising to see that Voyetra-Turtle Beach has included an interesting bundle of software products with their Santa Cruz product.
One of the pieces of software included with the Santa Cruz is Voyetra's Digital Orchestrator. This is actually a very nice piece of software if you're into music composition as it allows you to compose your own music through the software using MIDI and other audio files such as WAV files. I listened to the included demo and I'm impressed with what this program can do.
Another one is called AudioStation. This program is basically an MP3 music hub, as it allows the user to Rip, encode, play and organize MP3 and other media files. It sounds like a great program, but, unfortunately, I could not run it because it kept on crashing under my Windows ME installation. I'm not sure what could be causing it, but I'm betting that it could be Windows ME, even though everyone knows that Windows ME is basically Windows 98 with a facelift.
There are many other pieces of software included with the Santa Cruz. One other notable is Voyetra's eJay Special Edition. This program allows a user to create their own dance, techno and hip hop mixes. Also on the CD are a few demo versions such as MusicWrite, which allows users to write their own sheet music. Of course, who could forget Sensaura's 3D Player, which demos the features of the 3D API's built into the Santa Cruz by allowing a user to move a sound source around them. I spent hours just playing around with this one.
If you're following with the types of software packages included with the Santa Cruz, you'll notice that all of the software titles are targeted towards music composers, or the like. This is great and all if you're into music composition and I see the point of this since Voyetra makes great music composition software, but don't you think that they should have included one or two game titles just to please the gaming community? I mean, one game, even if it may not be the newest game around, will sure make this product at least a little more pleasing to the average gamer and help to target it to a broader range of users.
The Santa Cruz is truly a powerful sound card that's loaded with features. Pound for pound, it matches every feature that the SoundBlaster Live! has, a card that most users think is the best sound card around, plus a little extra on the side. With support for 2-speaker stereo, headphone surround, 4-speaker surround, 6 speaker surround and 5.1 Dolby Digital surround, it allows anyone with any type of speaker set up to enjoy high quality stereo or surround sound. Sensaura technology allows this card to support all of the popular 3D API's for enhanced gaming, such as EAX 1.x and 2.x and A3D 1.x. The technology also includes a few extensions to DirectSound3D such as MacroFX and ZoomFX that should, if developers use them effectively in the future, put this card ahead of the SoundBlaster Live! in terms of raw features.
Unfortunately, though, the Santa Cruz does have its faults. The fact that drivers for Windows 2000 were not included on the CD shows a lack of support from Voyetra-Turtle Beach on their product. Furthermore, the only drivers that are available for Windows 2000 and Windows ME were the beta drivers that are available on their website. This is a huge downside to the Santa Cruz in my mind, because many people will be turned off by the fact that the only available drivers for Windows 2000 and ME are test versions that are known to be less than 100% reliable.
Nevertheless, the Santa Cruz still outputs some of the best quality sound around. Comparing it with the SoundBlaster Live!, the sound output from the Santa Cruz is ever slightly clearer and brighter. Audio for 3D API's such as EAX were also implemented very well, with EAX sound quality noticeably identical to Creative's own sound card.
Finally, the software package included with the Santa Cruz is one that's completely targeted towards music composers and music lovers. If you're into music composition, the software package will be extremely valuable, but if you're just into gaming, then the lack of any game bundles sets the Santa Cruz a pace back for a lot of users out there.
All in all, though, if you're in the market for a quality, feature-packed sound card at an average price and you're looking for an alternative to the Creative SoundBlaster Live! series of cards, the Voyetra-Turtle Beach Santa Cruz is a great choice. Would I choose this card over the SoundBlaster Live!? If the driver problems mentioned above are eliminated, this card can easily beat the SoundBlaster Live! pound for pound.
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