Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1 Soundcard

The Auzen X-FI Prelude 7.1 soundcard marks the first time Creative has permitted a third-party soundcard vendor to use the Creative X-FI chipset in its own soundcard design. The Auzen X-Fi Prelude 7.1 soundcard fully supports EAX 5.0 and has expandability similar to that of the Auzen X-Meridian 7.1. Additional features such as Dolby Digital Live, DTS Interactive, and DTS NeoPC are available via driver updates according to the "Features Coming Soon" schedule (right).

EAX
Take advantage of the latest EAX sound card technology of Creative Labs. Enjoy a 3D soundscape during gameplay. Bullets whiz past your head. Explosions shake the room. Take your games to the next level with EAX ADVANCED HD sound effects, available in Vista via OpenAL.

Why X-Fi ?

• The speed you need: Powerful audio processing engine boosts real game performance by more than 15% over ordinary motherboard audio.

• Hear your enemies before they find you: Slip on your headphones or put your multichannel speakers to work for you with positional audio that's so accurate you can locate enemies by sound.

• Revitalize compressed audio: X-Fi Crystalizer technology restores the detail and vibrance to your compressed music and movies. In games, X-Fi Crystalizer makes gunshots sound crisp and sharp and explosions really boom for the most intense gaming experience yet. All the highs and lows are intelligently enhanced so you'll hear everything in crystal clarity.

• Turn stereo music and movies into surround sound: X-Fi CMSS-3D technology expands your stereo MP3s and digital movies into surround sound over multichannel speakers, stereo speakers or even headphones. Voices are centered in front of you and ambient sounds are moved all around you.

• Enjoy clearer voice chat: Talk it up and hear the difference X-Fi makes. Every voice comes through loud and clear.

Gallery

Auzentech X-Fi Prelude retail box
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Auzentech X-Fi Prelude soundcard
View from above, with Toslink-to-mini optical adapters installed (lower left of image).
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Auzentech X-Fi Prelude soundcard
View from above without Toslink-to-mini optical adapters d (lower left of image).
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Auzentech X-Fi Prelude soundcard
View from top.
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Auzentech X-Fi Prelude soundcard
View from bottom.
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Auzentech X-Fi Prelude soundcard
Connectors at the back of your PC.
See specifications for details and additional connections.
(above)

Overview

Additional Features Coming Soon

The following features will be made available via driver updates. See the schedule for driver availability. The X-Fi Prelude 7.1 soundcard is hardware-ready for these features.

Dolby Digital Live
Enjoy audio from your PC or game console through your home theater with Dolby Digital Live. A real-time encoding technology, Dolby Digital Live converts any audio signal into a Dolby Digital bitstream for transport and playback through a home theater system. With it, your PC or game console can be hooked up to your Dolby Digital-equipped audio/video receiver or digital speaker system via a single digital connection, eliminating the confusion of multiple cables and ensuring the integrity of the audio signal. Note: The following Dolby technologies will not be supported on the X-Fi Prelude 7.1 due to feature overlap: Dolby Pro Logic IIX, Dolby Virtual Speaker, and Dolby Headphone.
Available in future drivers : Schedule

DTS Interactive
DTS Interactive provides a single cable connection, either coaxial or optical, to your DTS-enabled surround sound system. An Auzentech sound card that supports DTS Interactive will re-encode your stereo or multi-channel audio sources into a DTS audio signal and send it to any DTS enabled system. The receiving system could be powered PC multi-channel speakers, an Audio Visual surround receiver, or any other surround sound decoder. The installation process is simple and avoids analog cable clutter. Source files may have as few as two- and as many as 5.1-channels before being up-sampled.
Available in future drivers : Schedule

DTS NEO:PC
DTS NEO:PC is an up-mix component of DTS Connect that allows multi-channel output from two-channel sources. It can be combined with DTS Interactive to send the signal to your audio visual receiver.
Available in future drivers : Schedule

Linux Drivers
The first version of the X-Fi Prelude Linux-compatible driver will be very preliminary: expect high-quality output without the full X-Fi Prelude feature set. This driver will help identify which features can ultimately be made available on the Linux platform in subsequent releases. We will post the feature set as it becomes available.
Available as a future driver : Schedule

Creative ALchemy
Alchemy is an ongoing project that supports only a limited, but growing, number of PC games. It is necessary because prior to Windows Vista, the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) enabled DirectSound and DirectSound3D technologies to play advanced audio effects. Many games have used these technologies for dynamic audio, but those same games sound flat when played in Vista. For newer releases, OpenAL has become the favorite technology. But what about the old games? That's where ALchemy comes in: ALchemy translates the legacy DirectSound calls into OpenAL, and then passes control over to your soundcard driver. The result is full hardware accelerated 3D Audio and EAX support, just as the developers intended. Even in Windows Vista.
Creative ALchemy for X-Fi Prelude and Windows Vista available now. See Downloads
Back to Schedule

Specifications

Key Components

Audio Performance (Rated Output @ 5Vrms, Typical Value)

• Signal-to-Noise Ratio (20kHz Low-pass filter, A-Weighted)

• Stereo Output : 120dB (part spec)

• Front and Rear Channels : 120dB (part spec)

• Center : 120dB (part spec)

• Subwoofer and Side Channels : 120dB (part spec)

• Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise at 1kHz (-3dBFS, A-weighted) : 0.001% - part spec

• Frequency Response (+/-0.01dB, 24-bit/44.1kHz input ) : 20khz (part spec)

• Frequency Response (+/-0.01dB, 24-bit/96kHz input ) : 43.5 khz (part spec)

• 16-bit to 24-bit recording sampling rates: 32, 44.1, 48 and 96kHz
  

IO Connectors

• One 3.5mm MIC input connector in rear panel

• One 3.5mm line input connector in rear panel

• One 4-pin AUX connector on board

• Four 3.5mm 8 channel line output connectors in rear panel (FL/FR/C/SW/RL/RR/RSL/RSR)

• One S/PDIF combo input connector in rear panel for receiving either coaxial or optical digital

• One S/PDIF combo output connector in rear panel for transmitting either coaxial or optical digital

• One 10-1pin front panel connector on board for MIC input and headphone: more

• One 40-pin digital extension header on board to support AD-Link and other digital functionality

S/W and drivers

• Creative X-Fi Driver

Compatibility

The Auzen X-Fi Prelude 7.1 is compatible with the following quality audio products.

• Auzen X-Tension DIN:

  • Midi In, Midi Out, and SPDIF Out: Compatible

  • Mic In, SPDIF In, DIN: Not Compatible
    
    Please read the X-Tension DIN Installation Manual for the X-Fi Prelude before purchasing the X-Tension DIN.
    Soundcard User Manuals Page
    
    See announcements about these incompatibilities.

Minimum System Requirements

• Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows XP (Service Pack 2, x64 or Media Center Edition)

• 1GHz Intel Pentium III, AMD or equivalent processor

• 256 MB RAM (512MB for Windows Vista)

• 600 MB of free hard disk space

• Available PCI 2.1 slot