If you're an audiophile or fan of trucker music, use the AWE.
The EMU 8000 is supported by Impluse Tracker, so the CPU is freed from the task of mixing and up/down sampling.
The 8-Bit Soundblaster and the Thunderbird are neat for testing purposes, for best AdLib/OPL2 compatibility.
Don't throw the Protac away, please - it's rare and has extra DSP commands over SB 1.5/2.
The original 8-Bit Sound Blaster also have the correct PCM/FM volume ratio.
Clones don't, often. The Protac doesn't, either.
That's why a 16-Bit card with a programable mixer comes in handy.
It can fix the volume levels, balance them out.
The OPL3 also has 4-OP mode and isn't timing sensitive.
It may work better with EMM386 and other memory managers which cause timing hick ups.
Edit: MIDI music in Windows will also sound way better with a 16-Bit soundcard.
The 8-Bit cards don't have an MPU-401 MIDI interface, at all.
Merely SB-MIDI. The AWE has at least an emulated MPU-401.
And it can also simulate General MIDI and MT-32 via DOS utility.
So you can play Monkey Island with better music, for example.
Games like Mega Man X and Descent can use the AWE's EMU 8000 chip directly to play music.
Not sure how well these run on a fast 386, however.
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