What titles do you want to use it for?

gdjacobs wrote:

What titles do you want to use it for?

Mid-earlylate 90's games. Transport Tycoon, Theme Hospital, Duke Nukem 3D, ROTT, etc
But good support for earlier titles that may only support older SB models is a must (looking at mostly older apogee / Epic Megagame titles)

What card(s) are you currently using?

What are the specs of the rest of your system?

Why do you want a new card?

How many ISA slots do you have?

Do you have any open PCI slots? If so, do you have a PC-PCI/SB-Link header on your motherboard?

Yuuker wrote:

gdjacobs wrote:

What titles do you want to use it for?

Mid-earlylate 90's games. Transport Tycoon, Theme Hospital, Duke Nukem 3D, ROTT, etc
But good support for earlier titles that may only support older SB models is a must (looking at mostly older apogee / Epic Megagame titles)

Sounds like a PAS16 won't be very useful for you. Different story if you played a lot of Sierra or Dynamix games.

You could also make use of Opti 82c929/82c930 or ES688 based cards featuring genuine OPL3 chips or the illegal 100% clones that were floating around. Later ESS chipsets are not completely identical, but I consider them to be among the best of the FM clones. All these options will be cheaper than a 3rd gen Aztech card (which seem to command a bit of a premium).

Which cards command a premium seems to depend on where you are. Here in NL I recently picked up an AZT2316A-based 3rd gen Aztech card for EUR 7.50 and that's not particularly unusual - right now the only 3rd gen card I can find costs EUR 25, but there's a 4th gen AZT2320-based one for EUR 8 and with a bit of patience I'd expect to find 3rd gen for similar prices.

You've really got options, then.

Just got my hands on an ESS ES688F-based card with genuine OPL3 on it. Will see if I can compare it to my Aztech AZT2316 card later tonight or tomorrow.

Nice. Excited to hear what you discover.

Well, n=1 (both in terms of my ears and one sound card for each chip), but there were pretty clear differences:

Setup: my trusty 486DX-33 with Via-based VLB motherboard, a set of Motorheadphones (prejudice would be that they are only good for 'everything louder than everything else' but in fact they have more clarity and less booming low end than my partner's mid-range Sennheisers, and I'd choose the Motorhead ones for classical music 😮 ) and the two ISA cards

As for music, I did Ultima 6 (Ad-Lib OPL2 mono), Descent intro (OPL3) and OMF (sample playback).

Setup limitation: only the Aztech had a line out, so had to test on the speaker port of the cards for fair comparison.

Aztech Sound Galaxy Pro 16 II (38-MMSN824)
+ FM sound slightly 'fuller'
- appallingly noisy output, with both white noise and (worse) other activity inside the case audible.
- line out very, very quiet - had to jack external amp up to near max volume to get acceptible audio, and that was noisy too, though not as bad as the speaker out.

Prolink SoundPlus-ES688
+ much, much less noise; still not exactly HiFi, but the speaker-out on this one was quieter than line out on the Aztech
- slightly less convincing FM sound, sounds slightly clipped/more clinical. Then again, that might just be from hearing it without noise...

Given that the boards are almost identical in terms of features (the Aztech has EEPROM settings where the Prolink uses lots of jumpers) I'd recommend the Prolink over the Aztech any day because of the noise. This comparison was useful for me too as I will start building a Socket 7 DOS (and later Windows 98SE) system with my son and wanted to know which sound card to use for DOS FM in that and which to keep in the old 486 backup. That's pretty obvious: the good system gets the Prolink, the 486 keeps the Aztech.

Of course, this is a comparison between these two (old, battered) cards more than between the chips - the noise difference almost certainly is due to board implementation, not anything inherent in the chip.

Can't judge compatibility based on a few listens, but both chips come highly recommended on that front. Certainly didn't hear any major differences there.

In short, Aztech is a cheap SB Pro clone... So if it's SB Pro you want, get that.
PAS16 is a high-quality card, SB-compatible, but not SB Pro. Better for games that have specific PAS16 support (which quite a few do), but worse when they don't, because you're limited to AdLib/SB only, no stereo.

I'm surprised by how noisy the Aztech card was during the test posted earlier. From what i gathered from the big Aztech thread posted here awhile back, i gathered they where fairly quiet (of course that could be card-dependent).

Would that be more or less noisy then some of those SB16 models? Particularly the AWE32's with integrated OPL Like CT3910 as having an onboard synth next to a genuine OPL chip would personally be enough reason to sacrifice SB-Pro support.

From what i gather, the way some of those early SB16s with OPL where, it would make more sence to get a higher-quality PAS-16. But i havent heard much about AWE cards.

dionb wrote:

Well, n=1 (both in terms of my ears and one sound card for each chip), but there were pretty clear differences: […]
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Well, n=1 (both in terms of my ears and one sound card for each chip), but there were pretty clear differences:

Setup: my trusty 486DX-33 with Via-based VLB motherboard, a set of Motorheadphones (prejudice would be that they are only good for 'everything louder than everything else' but in fact they have more clarity and less booming low end than my partner's mid-range Sennheisers, and I'd choose the Motorhead ones for classical music 😮 ) and the two ISA cards

As for music, I did Ultima 6 (Ad-Lib OPL2 mono), Descent intro (OPL3) and OMF (sample playback).

Setup limitation: only the Aztech had a line out, so had to test on the speaker port of the cards for fair comparison.

Aztech Sound Galaxy Pro 16 II (38-MMSN824)
+ FM sound slightly 'fuller'
- appallingly noisy output, with both white noise and (worse) other activity inside the case audible.
- line out very, very quiet - had to jack external amp up to near max volume to get acceptible audio, and that was noisy too, though not as bad as the speaker out.

Prolink SoundPlus-ES688
+ much, much less noise; still not exactly HiFi, but the speaker-out on this one was quieter than line out on the Aztech
- slightly less convincing FM sound, sounds slightly clipped/more clinical. Then again, that might just be from hearing it without noise...

Given that the boards are almost identical in terms of features (the Aztech has EEPROM settings where the Prolink uses lots of jumpers) I'd recommend the Prolink over the Aztech any day because of the noise. This comparison was useful for me too as I will start building a Socket 7 DOS (and later Windows 98SE) system with my son and wanted to know which sound card to use for DOS FM in that and which to keep in the old 486 backup. That's pretty obvious: the good system gets the Prolink, the 486 keeps the Aztech.

Of course, this is a comparison between these two (old, battered) cards more than between the chips - the noise difference almost certainly is due to board implementation, not anything inherent in the chip.

Can't judge compatibility based on a few listens, but both chips come highly recommended on that front. Certainly didn't hear any major differences there.

Thank you for the analysis. 😀

The difference in noise has me very curious though... is there a significant difference in the quantity or types of capacitors on the two cards? I'm just wondering if there is something obvious that may be to blame for the noise on the Aztech. Higher quality caps on the Prolink (or more of them), for example... or possibly some caps on the Aztech haven't aged well. I'm just throwing this out there because I haven't heard too many complaints about Aztech's later cards being noisy.

If it would be possible to get pictures of the cards you're using, it may be useful to others who are looking at similar cards. 😀

I have both positive and negative experience with noise on Aztech cards. Aztech Sound Galaxy Multimedia 16 ABO (MMSN850) was noisy and this new old stock was quiet.

Could it be the use of the TEA2025 amplifier chip on some Aztechs? CMS/Game Blaster and early Sound Blasters also used this amplifier chip, and it is notoriously noisy (perhaps not so much the chip itself, but poor PCB design from Creative, and cloned by Aztech?).

The Serpent Rider wrote:

I have both positive and negative experience with noise on Aztech cards. Aztech Sound Galaxy Multimedia 16 ABO (MMSN850) was noisy and this new old stock was quiet.

Very interesting - those are the exact same card I have, also an 824. Will see if I have time to get mine out for a photoshoot this evening.

Edit:
Pesky children took their time getting to sleep - but some free time at last. Here's the pic-

Both with real YM262 OPL3, so that's not the cause whatever else is.

those are the exact same card

Mine are missing some elements near the top left corner. Analog Devices AD1845XP vs Crystal CS4248-KL.
Aztech Sound Galaxy Multimedia 16 have Crystal chip too by the way. CS4231A-KL, if to be exact.

But then again: Intensive use over gods only know how many years VS never been used.

I really want to almost bet some money that the Aztech needs some fresh capacitors. Also just from googling - it looks like they had quite a few revisions of that family of cards that used the same PCBs with different support components (typical of various sound card manufacturers). It is possible that some of the various revisions used superior stereo amps, preamps, whathaveyou, of course.

- appallingly noisy output, with both white noise and (worse) other activity inside the case audible.
- line out very, very quiet - had to jack external amp up to near max volume to get acceptible audio, and that was noisy too, though not as bad as the speaker out

While ISA cards aren't exactly designed to be Hi-Fi, it seems like it shouldn't be *that* bad. As far as software control on this, your line-in, mic-in and CD-in are all muted, right? (And sorry if you mentioned that and I overlooked it)

Unfortunately I haven't had any experience with the PAS-16, but I do have three Aztech cards that I can comment on.

1. Sound Galaxy Washington 16 138-MMSN837 AZT2316 chipset

This is using the line-out on the card. My particular card does not have the TDA1517 amp installed on it, it only has the line-out option. All unnecessary inputs were set to 0 (mic, line-in, CD-in)

Very low noise level, no discernible ground hum, white noise or "computer thinking noises" at normal listening levels, even with headphones. Only if the amp is turned up very high you'll be able to hear some low level white noise, this is obviously without playing anything through the card. If you play anything through the card at this level, you'll definitely not hear the white noise.

I'm not sure why DionB's Aztech card is so noisy, must be some issue with it, as all my Aztech cards are very quiet, only my AWE-64 Gold and Turtle Beach Tropez+ are quieter. This is in all my retro PC's from my 386 to Tualatin.

Genuine YMF-262 OPL3 chip. The FM on this card is very clear and crisp, no distortion at all. The only card I've heard with clearer FM is the Turtle Beach Tropez+. I really like the clear FM on this card, however others might not like it as it isn't "grungy" and filtered like it is on the SB Pro and other clone cards.

SB Wave output. Fully SB Pro compatible, haven't come across a game that the SB Pro option doesn't work with it. However, this is the one weak point of the card, There is no low-pass anti-aliasing filter on the SB output, so there is ringing and very slight distortion on the output. Not a deal breaker, but I definitely prefer the output to have an anti-alias filter to clean up the sound. The Crystal CS4232/4235/6/7 chips are the best I've heard when it comes to SB Pro output, the anti-aliasing filters on these chips are just about perfect.

16-bit wave output in Windows 9X is really clear as well, no over-powering bass or highs. The Crystal CS4231A CODEC has a really good S/N ratio, MP3's sound really good through this card.

Has a wavetable connector that is also very good with all the wavetables I've tested on it, no distortion or extra noise introduced as a result. The MPU-401 on it doesn't suffer from the hanging notes bug that plagues most SB16's. The card is also 100% compatible with SoftMPU if you want to attach a Roland MT-32 or similar to it.

The only problem with this card in pure DOS/Windows 9X DOS mode mode is that there are no DOS utilities to change IRQ, DMA volume levels etc. Seems like you can configure it in WIndows 9X only. I found out that the DOS volume control utility in the Turtle Beach Tropez+ software works with the Aztech card, so at least you can change the volume.

This card is very close to the perfect DOS soundcard, the lack of an anti-aliasing filter on the SB output lets it down.

2. Sound Galaxy MM PRO16II 138-MMSN845 AZT2316R chipset

Used the line out on this card, this one does have the TDA1517 amp on it. All unnecessary inputs were set to 0 (mic, line-in, CD-in).

This card is pretty much identical in all aspects and performance to the Washington 16 above but it has better drivers and software, particularly in DOS. It has a utility to set the DMA/IRQ and volume levels in DOS, so it's the better choice if you're in DOS most of the time.

3. Sound Galaxy 16B SRS 3D (sorry, no FCC ID on this card) AZT2320 chipset

Also used the line-out on this card, no TDA1517 amp present. All unnecessary inputs were set to 0 (mic, line-in, CD-in).

It's an OK card, has a genuine OPL3 chip built into the AZT2320. It has the OPL logo on the AZT2320 chip. The FM sounds more like other SB clone cards, a bit grungy and distorted. No anti-aliasing filter on the SB Pro output. It is a very quiet card, no ground hum or white noise at normal levels. 16 bit wave out is also very good. The AZT2320 chip was developed in conjuction with Yamaha, www.thefreelibrary.com/Aztech+announces ... a017449504 so it's probably the predecessor to the YMF-715/8/9 chips.

No hanging notes bug on the MPU-401 and SoftMPU also works fine on this card.

It's a PNP card but can be set up easily on a non PNP motherboard. Has good drivers and software, works fine in DOS and has DOS utilities in the drivers as well.

HP made soundcards using this chipset, they can be found cheaply on EBay, however the HP cards lack a wavetable header.

Jesolo is the resident expert on Aztech cards, he has a bunch of them, so hopefully he'll see this thread and comment on it.

CkRtech wrote:

While ISA cards aren't exactly designed to be Hi-Fi, it seems like it shouldn't be *that* bad.

The budget ones not, perhaps... But the more high-end ISA cards certainly were designed to be Hi-Fi. I would say the Creative and Aztech cards aren't... But cards like Media Vision, Roland, IBM/Yamaha, Turtle Beach, Gravis and such certainly are.