mad dog 7.1 soundcard for 20.00 AR BM Compusa

[mdp7]

thanks to Ahole at FW.link

This is instore price only.

There is other card using the same chip VIA 24HT-S Chaintech AV710 available at newegg for $27 with free shipping.

Both the Chaintech mentioned at Newegg and this card use VIA 24HT-S which is a new chip by VIA that is supposed to be a step between VIA 24HT(M AUDIO REVOLUTION) and VIA 24PT. Only the DSP processing is at the advertised 24/192 the analog and recording is at a lower rate(16bit-20bit). Also this card uses an extra cirrus chip onboard compared to Chaintech that makes a little difference in recording quality

Link to Audioforum

The above link also contains a link to a disscussion of this card at avsforum.com which is down for maintenence at the present time.

VIA website info vor 24HT-s


http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?DEPA=0&submit=Go&description=av710[/L[/L]

 

[Quixfire]

Are these cards any good?

 

[Ionizer86]

They have the Via Envy 24HT chip which is nice, but they probably scrimp badly on the other design implement parts. At this cost, why not go for one and try it out? It could be a nice cheapo version of the Revolution 7.1

 

[Montano]

For $20, it's worth a shot

 

[Pingping]

I got the 5.1 predator soundcard from Maddog FAR, and the sound is really wonderful.
However it isn't DirectX compatible in my computer configuration (maybe it isn't DirectX compatible at all).
They didn't reply to emails how to fix this, but I finally found that you can solve this problem by disabling DirectSound (run dxconfig and disable hardware sound acceleration).
My rebate was accepted as valid immediately, but seems you've to wait for Maddog rebates about 4 months. That's what I've read elsewhere.

 

[jsxynn]

I see a price of $59.99 plus a reasonable shipping fee. The rebate appears to be $30. The balance therefore would appear to be $29.00....so the cost is about $30, not $20....am I missing something.

--I cannot find a single review online.
--Compusa has a 2.06/10 6 month rating on Resellerratings.com, that's abyssmal...
--Looking about, I've noticed that there are many, many reports of delayed, or "never received," or "have to fight to get the rebate. Even Mad Dog's site redirects questions about rebates back to CompUSA.

Sadly, the product sounds interesting....but I'd suspect too many problems with CompUSA, and I'd suspect never to see the rebate...

Unless somebody says a lot otherwise, this seems a no-brainer.... Don't buy.

 

[yodayoda]

hey, only 13 more nef posts and you won't be a junior member =P

i tried the link and i see the price as $59 and no rebate... what gives?

 

[BornStar]

Originally posted by: yodayoda
hey, only 13 more nef posts and you won't be a junior member =P

i tried the link and i see the price as $59 and no rebate... what gives?

I have the same problem. I'm also curious about some more specs on the card.

 

[NasdaqTrader889]

For $20 it's worth a try even if I have to drive about 40 minutes to my nearest B&M.

 

[Pingping]

Originally posted by: BornStar18

Originally posted by: yodayoda
hey, only 13 more nef posts and you won't be a junior member =P

i tried the link and i see the price as $59 and no rebate... what gives?

I have the same problem. I'm also curious about some more specs on the card.

You can see rebate here, and the direct link to the rebate form is here.

 

[pxc]

But it's such a cute little card. I just bought one.

It's a VIA ENVY24HT-S VT1721-0316CD under the Mad Dog sticker on the card. It does use the VIA VT1616 codec (for AC'97 compatibility) and Cirrus Logic CS8415 7.1 demux/SPDIF decoder/96KHz receiver. There is no gameport or gameport header on the card, but there are mic in, line in, 7.1 out (4 jacks), s/pdif in & out (optical) and 2 internal audio headers. It also comes with an optical cable. I'm kind of bummed about the lack of a gameport. I still have 2 good gameport joysticks and my motherboard doesn't have a gameport or gameport header built in.

I'm going to have to hear this under good listening conditions, but the card looks fine and sounds decent so far through speakers.

 

[jayster]

more specs Here

 

[ElectricLegs]

Try the drivers from the Via website to get the latest ones.

 

[Mksasquach]

Bah.....i read "Mad Dog" and got all interested....stupid soundcard not being awful fortified wine......

 

[wicktron]

The Via Envy chip is the bomb!

 

[atlr]

Please correct me if I am mistaken, but I do not believe the Envy24 HT-S chip has hardware support for DirectSound acceleration. EAX support is provided through the driver and uses the CPU. This can impact game performance.

Here is a good explanation of this impact with the Envy24 HT.
http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2003q2/maudio-rev/index.x?pg=1

I just bought one of the these before reading much about it. Since its still in the shrink-wrap and I am primarily into gaming, I am going to return it.

 

[NeoV]

good move atlr, this is NOT a good card for gaming or heavy multi-tasking

 

[pxc]

Originally posted by: atlr
Please correct me if I am mistaken, but I do not believe the Envy24 HT-S chip has hardware support for DirectSound acceleration. EAX support is provided through the driver and uses the CPU. This can impact game performance.

EAX 1.0/2.0 has always been CPU assisted, even on Creative's own cards. The Envy24HT-S on this card doesn't support DS *hardware buffers*, but it does support DS3D acceleration.

The only thing I've found so far that doesn't run is the 3DMark03 sound tests since it only uses DS hardware buffers. I'm unaware of any game that has that limitation. DS/DS3D can use either software or hardware buffers, unless an app/game checks "caps" to manually disable a feature like 3DMark03 does.

This link has more information about DS/DS3D in the Envy24/Envy24HT: http://techreport.com/etc/2003q2/envy-interview/index.x?pg=2

"TR: The Envy24 supports 32 DirectSound hardware channels and 16 DirectSound 3D hardware channels. Do the Envy24PT and HT support the same number of DirectSound and DirectSound 3D hardware channels as the vanilla Envy24?

VIA: The Envy24 chip did include support for hardware acceleration. However, in most implementations this feature was not used. For the Envy24HT we took out the support for DirectSound hardware channels.

VIA's view is that hardware acceleration is a legacy feature that can have a negative impact on sound quality. Today's high performance systems with multi-gigahertz processors have plenty of extra cycles to process audio with no noticeable effect on gameplay i.e. framerates. We also definitely see that game developers are moving away from hardware acceleration. This will start with the new Doom III engine which is completely software based (does not use hardware acceleration), and we feel most other game developers will follow this trend as it enables much greater control of the gaming sounds than relying on a third party API. <more blah, blah, blah... it's not important because we don't support it >"

Lacking hardware buffers does make a performance difference. But the faster your CPU is, the smaller the hit your system will take. This card is as fast as any similarly priced competition (sub-$50... not counting hot deals or clearance) and IMO the extra features make it well worth the $20AR price.

If you're really that sensitive about performance, I don't know what you're going to replace it with for only $20 AR with similar sound quality and features. I'm pretty happy with the card after 1 day of use.

(EDIT) extremetech came to a much different conclusion about the Envy24 performance: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1167233,00.asp

 

[meehawl]

Originally posted by: pxcThe only thing I've found so far that doesn't run is the 3DMark03 sound tests since it only uses DS hardware buffers. I'm unaware of any game that has that limitation.

More Extreme Tech here on the Envy24HT (not S), a mixed bag.

http://www.extremetech.com/print_article/0,3998,a=39644,00.asp

 

[Wag]

Different card, different chip.

Someone did some audio testing of it on AVSForum. The components in the Mad Dog card are crap. Don't expect audiophile sound out of it. If you want that buy a M-Audio Revolution.

 

[pxc]

Originally posted by: Wag
Different card, different chip.

Someone did some audio testing of it on AVSForum. The components in the Mad Dog card are crap. Don't expect audiophile sound out of it. If you want that buy a M-Audio Revolution.

Link?

It gets better quality graphs in RMAA 5.1 than my Audigy 2. I've been using the MD card for a week now and it's pretty nice for $20AR. And yes, you can get very nice game and music sound out of it. It doesn't compare to the M-Audio Revolution or Terratec Aureon for recording quality or extra features, of course. It's not aimed at the same market.

 

[Wag]

AVSForum is down at the moment.

I never said it was aimed at the same market- but the testing results for the card were quite poor. AVS looks to be down for a few days.

 

[pxc]

Originally posted by: Wag
AVSForum is down at the moment.

I never said it was aimed at the same market- but the testing results for the card were quite poor. AVS looks to be down for a few days.

Can you provide any details of what was poor? If not, then why did you even post?

I can run RMAA 5.1 again, but the results from that and gaming through headphones and 5.1 speakers have been surprisingly good for me.

 

[Wag]

Gee, I don't know? Why would I post, when I read something was bad, I thought I might share that with the users.

You can look at the info yourself when AVSForum goes back up.

 

[pxc]

Originally posted by: Wag
Gee, I don't know? Why would I post, when I read something was bad, I thought I might share that with the users.

You can look at the info yourself when AVSForum goes back up.

Thanks for confirming that you know nothing about what you wrote.