M-Audio Revolution

[stevehp]

Ian,
I see on your front page that you have interest in getting one of these "iffy" soundcards. Read the review at Gaming in 3d here > http://www.gamingin3d.com/reviews/rev71/. The card has very unpolished drivers no analog or spdif cd connections it uses the IDE cable for cd audio which I don't care for, but most don't seem to care. It does though have great sound quality, but until the drivers are improved upon greatly then I would avoid it like the plague. The avsforum has a fair amount of topics on the problems with the Revo many of the posters have HTPC's and they weren't too pleased with the it some got it work some didn't.

[Ian]

stevehp, is the driver problem only with the Revolution or with all Envy24HT based cards?

[stevehp]

I don't know the nitty gritty details, but Terratec has a Envy24HT based card as well as AudioTrac the problem is they are pretty hard to find in the US Compusa sells the Prodigy 7.1 which has the Via chip in it, but reviews so far haven't gone as far as discussing driver quality. I'm not going on my own personal experience, but with that review I read last night and the avsforum posts, but many on that forum were able to find work arounds or live with the problem until drivers that fixed it were released. M-Audio is still a bit immature when it comes to driver quality kinda like ATI back in the day, but look at where they are today. So I'll boil it down for ya if you want to try it by all means don't let my comments turn you away, but do research other options before considering something that might give you a headache.

[Johnny Casaba]

Hey Ian,

I've had this card for a couple of months now and have had no problems with it. I use it mostly for music with a Promedia 2.1 setup and the sound quality is really great. I do game too, but if you are a hard core gamer, you would be better off with an Audigy 2. If you are looking to use this card in a HTPC, you should check out the HTPC section of the AVS forum because I believe there are still some issues that need to be worked out. For my needs, I think the card is great.