Aztech Systems is well known as a manufacturer of inexpensive but high-quality multimedia products, including sound cards. Its line of models features the Aztech 386DSP audio adapter, based on the ThunderBird 128 chipset from VLSI. A distinctive feature of this card is that among boards in the lower price category, it is the only one equipped with two outputs for connecting speakers, and therefore is suitable for creating a quadraphonic system.
The quality of digitized sound reproduction on the board from Aztech is average, but taking into account the low cost of the card, it can hardly be considered insufficient. Processed by a digital signal processor, the sound does not sound artificial. I was also pleased with the low-noise linear output – here the board approaches the best in this area. But the quality of the line input was somewhat disappointing.
MIDI playback is performed using a wave synthesizer built into the digital signal processor and using DSP Active Media technology. It is possible to load additional samples in DLS 1.0 format, but, unfortunately, there are no utilities for creating them. The synthesizer provides playback of 64 voices in hardware and 256 in software, and in addition, implements a number of standard effects – reverb, chorus, frequency filtering. But the quality of the included General MIDI samples leaves much to be desired.
The board supports Q3D three-dimensional sound technology. In addition, the ThunderBird 128 chipset allows you to play audio for Dolby Digital systems, and also implements the Qexpander algorithm, which converts stereo into surround sound for headphones, one or two pairs of speakers. ThunderBird can process up to 64 3D audio streams simultaneously and provides support for A3D and EAX. But this is where one of the most serious shortcomings of the Aztech board showed itself – “raw” drivers. Most likely, it was their fault that the inclusion of A3D in the Half-Life game did not produce tangible results.
In general, the product from Aztech looks promising (in particular, thanks to the extensive capabilities of the ThunderBird 128 chipset used in it), but today it is not sufficiently refined. In all likelihood, in the near future, manufacturers will provide this board with better drivers and additional programs, after which it can be recommended for widespread use.
