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BlueGears X-Mystique 7.1 Review |
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Good, but not Creative (thankfully) |
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by Josh Walrath |
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Conclusion HDA and BlueGears have delivered a very solid and impressive product for the sub-$100 sound card market. This is a true 24 bit card with fairly extensive hardware capabilities (as compared to the VIA Envy series which supports no hardware acceleration). While the CMI-8768+ does not have the overall DSP power of the NVIDIA SoundStorm or the Creative Audigy 2 or X-Fi, it holds its own in the applications tested. Most online stores sell this card for around $89, and when comparing it to the Creative series of cards it certainly has some exciting features and quality. Being able to utilize the Dolby Digital Live encoding is a huge selling point for this card, and the ability to upgrade the OPAMPS of this card is something that more than a handful of users might consider. Application compatibility was pretty good out of the box, and the only real issue I discovered was with hardware acceleration in Battlefield 2.
A total of 6 mini-jack connections provide 7.1 sound with 2 separate analog inputs. To utilize digital inputs, a separate add-on card is required. BlueGears is a small distributor, and their support is not exactly top notch. Support emails from individuals have a tendency to not be answered, and this could simply be a matter of economics rather than intent. BlueGears is not a large company, and they are trying to break into a field currently dominated by Creative. As such they do not have the resources to provide personalized support for their products. Hopefully they will sell a lot of product and be able to afford a more extensive support system. As it is, BlueGears is trying their best to put out a very high quality product at a good price, and hopefully blunt Creative’s virtual monopoly on add-in sound. Also, BlueGears acts as the distributor for HDA for these products in the North American market. This makes margins even slimmer since they are merely acting as the distributor and support arm for HDA of South Korea. BlueGears does their best, but their resources are limited as compared to Creative. In the end we are all faced with this decision: should I buy a Creative X-Fi Music for $119, an Audigy 2 ZS for $99, or the X-Mystique for $89? The answer is not exactly simple, but suffice to say that the ability to encode to a Dolby Digital Live stream is something that will sell a lot of product. Creative does not support DDL in any way, and even with higher quality audio rendering the Creative drivers leave a lot to be desired. I did not get a single BSOD from the X-Mystique, but it was something quite common with the Audigy I used for comparative testing. Apparently the drivers for the X-Fi are even worse than the Audigy, and there are many complaints about the stability of that product.
The back of the card has the two CD analog inputs (top), a MIDI input (directly below CD Inputs), SPDIF input, and finally at the bottom the CD/DVD digital input. For those wishing to stray away from the Creative way of PC sound, then the X-Mystique is probably the best option for any user looking for hardware acceleration as well as Dolby Digital Live support. The asking price of $89 is not bad considering the quality of the product, as well as the ability to use DDL in a HTPC situation. For daily use the X-Mystique proved to be an excellent product with few issues. The only two applications that did not work well with the X-Mystique were Battlefield 2 and Quake 4 (mainly because it chopped the quality of audio content with anything not Creative). Otherwise the X-Mystique played well with every application I threw at it. BlueGears and HDA have provided a very solid and compelling product with the X-Mystique 7.1. With the ability to handle 7.1 content, as well as encode DD 5.1, the X-Mystique will find a home in many PC’s that require its capabilities. With it being the first product since the fabled NVIDIA SoundStorm to deliver DD 5.1 encoding, many HTPC users are rejoicing at the thought of upgrading their audio to 24 bit sound.
Overall Score: 93%
Pros Dolby Digital Live encoding Upgradeable OPAMPS Solid drivers Good application compatibility Excellent sound quality Hardware acceleration Sub $100 price Recent 64 bit driver support update Easy to navigate control panel PCM 24 bit/96 KHz support Optical and Coax digital outputs 24 bit 7.1 sound
Cons Analog output quality could be better No EAX 3.0 and higher support (not their fault) Support system needs work
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