Diamond XtremeSound 7.1/24 bit Sound Card ( XS71 )

I bought this sound card because the onboard 7.1 audio on my Dell Inspiron 630 desktop was outputting an annoying background hum at higher volume levels. I had this computer for a year and never noticed that hum before recently obtaining a new set of Logitech Z-5500 5.1 speakers. The new speakers are so good that it makes all audio flaws more obvious.

After considerable research I concluded (correctly) that this card would work well with Vista Home Premium (32 bit). I also wanted the ability to connect via the digital SPDIF connection (coaxial). I would have preferred a card that had both optical (TOSLINK) and coaxial, but I had a higher priority to keep the cost reasonable. Cards that have optical, coaxial, and analog connectors are a minimum of 4 times the cost of this card.

After disabling the onboard sound (in BIOS) and in the Control Panel, I installed the XS71 card. Upon booting the system automatically found the best driver over the internet connection.

My first evaluation test was using the new XS71 analog connections which are identical to those I had used on my motherboard. The same annoying hum was still there! I then switched my speaker system to the coaxial connector (both sets of connector types were plugged in at the same time and both were sending audio). To my delight the hum was finally gone!

The coaxial audio has a much lower volume level than the analog connection, but even after increasing the volume all the way there was no sign of any hum or other interference. I'm not an audiophile by any means, but if the audio was improved compared to the onboard sound, I couldn't detect it.

I use the computer primarily for business purposes with occasional viewing of movies and on rare occasions a little gaming (Command & Conquer). For these purposes this sound system really is overkill. If I did a lot more gaming or had a discerning audiophile "ear", I likely would still not be 100% satisfied with the overall audio quality and would be very tempted to try out one of those much more expensive cards.

I purchased this card to use with an internal Blue-ray player, and found it would not output DTS digital 5.1 or 7.1 from the optical SPDIF port (stereo worked OK). When I called technical suppoort they told me that the card did not support either DTS (contrary to claim on box), or Blu-ray. The box indicated that the card would support DVD multi channel playback in either DTS or Dolby digital.

I bought this sound card over a year ago and have been very happy with it. Sound is great with all my games and movies. Only drawback is I cant download a new driver due to Diamond Multimedia's website having some issues. Buy it and you shouldn't be disappointed. One other drawback, I can't find 7.1 speakers locally

Please be warned that there aren't any drivers for Windows XP 64. If you have that operating system you will have to install the "XP recommended" Matrox drivers which do not allow you to take full advantage of this product. For my purposes ('Digital In' from my Yamaha MO6 Keyboard) it works fine with the recommended windows drivers.

Otherwise, good product.

When I first installed this board my computer wouldn't boot. I rearranged it and my other PCI boards and got the computer to boot but it took 10x longer than normal. After I loaded the software no matter what sound effect I selected it sounded the same. The board had two audio connectors for plugging in the output of the CD drives but then I heard nothing. Neither the audio plug-ins nor jumpers on the board were explained in the manual. I gave up and returned the board. Now my computer boots normally again. I have Windows XP pro.