Warm ??? Monster Sound MX400 (retail) = $34.99 shipped

[CEO]

Monster Sound MX400 $34.99 shipped

Sonic Impact 100 $14.99 shipped

Q: Will the MX400 works in Windows 2000? Review of MX400

 

[rustynail]

does anyone know how this compares to the soundblaster live sound cards?

 

[MattStone]

I wouldn't buy it...it only has A3D 1.0, and crappy EAX from what I understand. It uses a different chipset than the MX300 and the SBLive! cards. I would buy one of the new SBLive!s if it was me. They are dependable...and plus, diamond has gone down the tubes since S3 bought them out. Talk about a company that can't find it's way out of a paper bag...if you're lucky you'll get new drivers in the next 2 years.

 

[bigbug]

I've got an MX400. Don't like it. Lot's of distortion playing mp3s.

 

[Trinity2000]

I had one, traded it for a hollywood plus. My live digital is MUCH better. Not to mention that all the brains at Aureal (which is the chip that this card is based on) are Kaput- Spend ten more bucks and get a live!-

 

[javathehut]

should work fine with win2k, I think that the drivers are actually available at the diamond website for win2K. Suprising, considering that Diamond has by far the worst support in the world. I heard that the MX400 isnt that great. I have the MX300 and it works fine for me even in Win2K with 4 speakers even though I had a tough time getting it to work. My advice, stick to the soundblasters since they have better support.

 

[vlad]

My MX300 was having compatibility problems with my motherboard in Win2K so I got the MX400. I am not at all proud of this card. It had infinite problems with the gameport (fixed by installing the oldest possible drivers), there is sometimes sound distortion in Win2K, enabling Direct3D will screw up most of the sounds in games AND in Win98. A3D 1.0 isn't worth crap, EAX 2.0 is really not true 3d sound at all, and their own canyon API....well nobody uses that.

Keep in mind too that Diamond (which changed name to S3, then changed name to SONICblue) has discontinued the card, and will most likely not provide any more driver updates (think windows2000). I'm in a pretty awkward situation right now: my MX300 does everything better except win2k, and my MX400 does win2k but everything it does drops a notch in quality.

It's really a dreary time for A3D 2.0 right now. It's the best API, but Aureal has just been bought by Creative. Who knows what they'll do.

Vlad