As of late, Creative has had an ice cold grip on the add-in audio market. High end and gaming oriented audio cards are two areas that Creative?s lack of competition has been unwavering, and the biggest threat to their audio stronghold has been themselves, and a few other excellent sound cards here and there. Hercules? Game Theater and Fortissimo line of cards have held up very well, but Hercules has been unable to cause gamers to flock in droves to pick up their latest soundcards.

Today?s ?new? player on the block, at least in regards to consumer level audio, M-Audio has released their high end add-in card the Revolution 7.1. M-Audio is very well known in the ultra high-end MIDI audio community as their cards are frequently used by music professionals. As a result, high quality ASIO recording is not an afterthought in anything that M-Audio produces.

Specifications

24-bit/192kHz audio playback on all output channels.

Supports all speaker configurations from stereo (or headphones) up to 7.1

Analog line in supports recording up to 24-bit/96kHz

Analog mic in supports recording up to 24-bit/96kHz

Coaxial digital output

S/N Ratio A->D: 100dB

S/N Ratio D->A: 107 dB (eight channel/two channel)

Dynamic Range: 106dB (typical, -60dBFs input, A-weighted)

Driver-Level Bass Management

Windows Media 9 Compatibility

Very low CPU utilization

Dolby Digital Decode (Windows)

Supports both CircleSurround II and TruSurround XT

THD+N: 0.003% (typical)

Game Support: Sensaura, EAX (not EAX HD), DirectSound, and A3D

The S/N ratio is the Signal-to-Noise ratio, and is simply the measures the noise introduced by the circuitry to the original audio source. A number of different things can introduce noise before it hits your ear. The sound card, speaker cable, amplifier, and of course the speakers themselves are just a few of the things that can introduce unwanted noise. A higher number (measured in dB) is better.

Next, THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) is generally evaluated along with S/N ratio, but in this case a lower percentage is better. Basically, THD it is the variance of the sound from the original source to the output. The audio processor can occasionally add a bit of color or distortion to audio that is unintended by the source, hence the need for it to be displayed in a calculated value to potential buyers.