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. 😎