Never used one myself, but most people here on Vogons seem to regard it very highly. It all depends on the price the seller is asking. What kind of price did they offer you?

Im guessing it will end for 15$.

I have the 64XL. Not worth it. I've only used it briefly.

I have many Terratec soundcards, but not this one. EWS64XL has a quality chipset and a semi-software midi synth which is very capable, but somewhat of a hassle to set-up for DOS games. In comparison a hardware synth is much easier, and the AWE32/64 semi-software synths have a much wider range of soundfonts and utils.

vetz wrote:

I have the 64XL. Not worth it. I've only used it briefly.

Hey, why not? I've never used any EWS64, but why didn't you like the 64XL?

Basically what gerwin said. Found it too much of an hassle to set up for my usage while at the same time taking up lots of system resources. Also I could never figure out how to get the soundfonts converted into a format it would accept. After I got my SC-55 I just started using that since it's so much easier.

It probably can be a good sound card if set up correctly and you know how to use it, but learning everything will take time and involving alot of reading. It's not very userfriendly imo.

Will admit it was pretty cool to have the front module installed..

vetz wrote:

Will admit it was pretty cool to have the front module installed..

Hehehe, ain't that the truth, it just makes everything that much more classy. 😁

I don't even remember if it was 100% Sound Blaster Compatible. It doesn't have a true OPL chip, does it?
Also, how does its MIDI hardware sound like? Anything you can compare it with?

I'm somewhat surprised by some of the earlier comments, as the EWS64XL is a terrific card and certainly worth considering for that price. In fact, if I would be restricted to a single ISA sound card, I'd choose this one without any doubt.

It has a lot going for it:

• - Clean analog audio output, no nasty hiss like on many Creative cards of the time.
  - Digital inputs and outputs
  - Hardware synth (DREAM SAM9407B) with a maximum of 64 voices (38 when you use the built-in effects processor for reverb and chorus).
  - Up to 64MB of RAM for sample data (can also be used by MOD4WIN to play MODs on the EWS64XL with low CPU utilization)
  - SB/SB Pro and OPL2/OPL3 compatible through the Crystal CS4236B Codec
  - WaveBlaster-connector for adding a MIDI daughterboard
  - Nice looking frontbay with plenty of I/O options
  - Card is initialized through a command-line utility in DOS, no TSRs needed afterwards

There aren't as many sound banks available for it as there are for Creative cards, but one of the official ones has the Roland SoundCanvas samples. With the right settings for reverb and chorus it comes pretty close to an actual SoundCanvas, but for less money. Also see this thread for more information and some recordings.

Of course the card isn't perfect: there used to a bug that muted the daughterboard when the Crystal Codec was used for SB Pro emulation (solved here), OPL emulation is not 100% accurate, and the DREAM synth has a weak effects processor when compared to the SoundCanvas and DB50XG. Also, it can be a bit tricky to get it going, as it uses a lot of resources (quite some I/O ports, couple of IRQs and DMAs) and it is ISA PnP. Fortunately, it comes with an extensive EEPROM configuration tool, which usually solves the resource issues. Then there's also the matter of the somewhat confusing audio routing through the board, but it comes with a couple of presets that should be fine for most applications.

Once you've got it going though, it's a simple matter of adding the initialization utility to your autoexec.bat and you're good to go. Just have some patience and you'll be rewarded. 😎

F2bnp wrote:

I don't even remember if it was 100% Sound Blaster Compatible. It doesn't have a true OPL chip, does it?
Also, how does its MIDI hardware sound like? Anything you can compare it with?

The OPL clone on this is relatively good I'd say. I haven't had any problems with SB Pro compatibility either. As for the internal wavetable, it comes with a soundfont that pretty much rips off Sound Canvas, but the reverb on it sounds kinda "metallicy"... think of the reverb in Duke3d here. 😁 Not really my taste for MIDI... also, I haven't yet figured out how to control the volume for it, so it's abhorrently loud especially in Windows.

@Lennart: I never really got why this card is always considered PnP. You determine all the resources in EEPROM, so isn't it more like the equivalent of jumpers...?

The EWS64XL has one big advantage (in my opinion) over the 64S apart from the higher-quality audio section: You can disable the codec completely and use a second soundcard (SoundBlaster for example) for digital audio without any resource conflicts. The synth chip is a full-fledged GeneralMIDI compatible hardware synthesizer and takes only one IRQ and two I/O ports.
As the others said in earlier comments, it is somewhat difficult to set up and you have to fiddle around with the effects settings, but it can be made to sound close to the SC-55.
@d1stortion: The card is PnP-compatible when you set all resources to "PNP" in the EEPROM config utility. If some fixed settings are used the initialization program will simply bail out if the required resources are used by any other card.

Yeah I know that you can set everything to PnP but I never saw anybody recommend doing that. Most people seem to go the manual route with this card, perhaps also because some boards can't run it with IRQ 9, which the card defaults to IIRC. It's a complex sound card in any possible way for sure, be it the configuration or the signal routing, which is where the mute "bug" probably comes from too.

By the way, I never read this anywhere (maybe because it's too obvious) but it's important to run the EEPROM utility after going straight to the DOS prompt when Windows boots, not by rebooting to DOS. Not doing so will produce conflicts when trying to configure the card.

I think one of the weak points of the card that hasn't been stated here is its noise with the amp not disabled, the card is longer than e.g. an AWE64 after all.

Lennart wrote:

...OPL emulation is not 100% accurate, and the DREAM synth has a weak effects processor when compared to the SoundCanvas and DB50XG.

The main point with the effects was that by default the effects are off in the init file used for dos (*.ttm). But this was already solved here at vogons:
Re: Testing a Terratec EWS64XL; includes Doom recording
These settings are recommended to tune the effects to come close to Sound Canvas, but you still have the option to tune it stronger.

Here are the lines to use in autoexec.bat:
ews64xl not right configured

I currently have two EWS64XL and one EWS64S in a system and especially with the EWS64XL you get most out of a single ISA sound card. I usually add a DB50XG or Roland Sound Canvas to the Front Module.

About the configuration it is as always with more complex technology, it is not just plug and play. You can not compare this card with a simple SB16 or AWE32. If you accept the challenge to master this card, you get a fine piece of hardware.

In fact the resources of the card can be cut down for gaming purposes. You wouldn't require less resources if you would plug the components on the EWS64XL as separate cards.
You have basically
SB Pro with I/O, IRQ, DMA1, DMA2 (record+playback) might be combined to one
WSS with additional I/O other resources are combined with SB Pro
Codec Control which is some I/O nothing else uses
MIDI1 with I/O and IRQ
MIDI2 just I/O, IRQ can be set to none