VOGONS


First post, by boxpressed

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For the third time in as many weeks, I've unsealed a vintage NIB sound card. Today it was a Turtle Beach Montego II.

Although I have multiples of this Vortex 2 card, I could not find the Applications CD (Version 3.00) anywhere online. I was using the reference drivers from Aureal, which are probably the best choice, but I wanted to see what the TBS install looked like. In addition to the famous A3D Demos, the app install includes AudioStation 32, Digital Orchestrator Pro Demo, Hip Hop eJay Demo, and Midi Orchestrator Plus. I was hoping that there would be some DLS sound banks on the CD, but there are not.

Here's what you get inside the box:

* Vortex 2 card (AU8830A2)
* CD cable
* Applications CD (Version 3.00)
* TBS Audio sticker
* Getting Started Guide (manual)
* Registration card and leaflets

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Reply 2 of 46, by vmunix

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Where I live this card costed 300 bucks when it was new, I had to wait for a year or so for the OEM in a blister version to arrive for $89.99.
The Turtle Beach Daytona CD had some DLS sound banks included and I think also an utility to upload them or something like that, but not many.
as a matter of fact none of the Turtle Beach soundcards even if the majority of them supported up/downloading sound banks came with "extras", although for the older ISA ones at least you had the utilities to convert any .wav into an instrument or part of your sound bank.

Trailing edge computing.

Reply 4 of 46, by vmunix

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QBiN wrote:

What the difference between this card and the "quadzilla" package?

Quadzilla had a small daughter board which added 4 speakers and SP-DIF

Trailing edge computing.

Reply 5 of 46, by boxpressed

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Quadzilla also requires a different set of drivers. I have a Quadzilla and only used the Turtle Beach installation CD, so I don't know if the Aureal reference drivers will work. My guess is no.

However, I think Aureal marketed a quadraphonic daughtercard of its own, so maybe the drivers for it will work with Quadzilla. The daughtercards may be identical.

Reply 6 of 46, by lilkuz2005

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boxpressed i just ordered this same sound card used, its just the card, is there anyway you can make an .iso of the disc included with your boxed version? thanks

asus p3b-f, intel pIII 1000/133/256 thermaltake golden orb, 2x crucial 256mb pc133, nvidia geforce 3, aureal vortex 2, IDE to SD adapter samsung 128gb evo
asus p3v4x, intel pIII 650/100/256, 256mb pc133, 3dfx voodoo 3 3ooo, awe64 value!, 80gb hdd

Reply 9 of 46, by vmunix

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Bancho wrote:

I actually did the same thing a you earlier in the year! I opened a sealed Montego II! This was it before opening 😁

It is a great card, I'm using one atm in my Slot1 P3 with a NEC XR385. I use it as a drum machine and to record other analog instruments.

Trailing edge computing.

Reply 10 of 46, by lilkuz2005

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it looks like turtle beach has upgraded their website, and have removed support for legacy hardware, sound cards included, so drivers for their old sound cards will have to be sourced from somewhere else from now on, im pretty sure this card was an optional upgrade from dell, so maybe the drivers can be found on dells site, if anyone wants to share the files from the original cd please do so, thanks in advance

asus p3b-f, intel pIII 1000/133/256 thermaltake golden orb, 2x crucial 256mb pc133, nvidia geforce 3, aureal vortex 2, IDE to SD adapter samsung 128gb evo
asus p3v4x, intel pIII 650/100/256, 256mb pc133, 3dfx voodoo 3 3ooo, awe64 value!, 80gb hdd

Reply 11 of 46, by gerwin

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boxpressed wrote:

Quadzilla also requires a different set of drivers. I have a Quadzilla and only used the Turtle Beach installation CD, so I don't know if the Aureal reference drivers will work. My guess is no.

The bare Montego II works with the reference drivers and the Turtle Beach modified ones, but when using Turtle Beach addon boards you need the Turtle Beach modified drivers to activate them.

I have this one: 😀

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Disposed of the box since, but scanned the backside for reference.

I suppose because the Windows 2000/XP support was bad, a lot of people sold their Vortex cards, or trashed them.

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 12 of 46, by boxpressed

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lilkuz2005 wrote:

boxpressed i just ordered this same sound card used, its just the card, is there anyway you can make an .iso of the disc included with your boxed version? thanks

I gave the .ISO to SquallStrife to put on Vogonsdrivers.com, so I'll let you know when it is up.

Reply 14 of 46, by lilkuz2005

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boxpressed wrote:

Thanks box pressed. I'll check it out today when I get home from work.

asus p3b-f, intel pIII 1000/133/256 thermaltake golden orb, 2x crucial 256mb pc133, nvidia geforce 3, aureal vortex 2, IDE to SD adapter samsung 128gb evo
asus p3v4x, intel pIII 650/100/256, 256mb pc133, 3dfx voodoo 3 3ooo, awe64 value!, 80gb hdd

Reply 15 of 46, by lilkuz2005

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boxpressed wrote:

the montego II software cd requires a serial key to be entered to install it, the driver on the cd can be installed manually within windows though, does anyone have a cd key to share to be able to use the included applications ?

asus p3b-f, intel pIII 1000/133/256 thermaltake golden orb, 2x crucial 256mb pc133, nvidia geforce 3, aureal vortex 2, IDE to SD adapter samsung 128gb evo
asus p3v4x, intel pIII 650/100/256, 256mb pc133, 3dfx voodoo 3 3ooo, awe64 value!, 80gb hdd

Reply 16 of 46, by Mastran

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gerwin wrote:
The bare Montego II works with the reference drivers and the Turtle Beach modified ones, but when using Turtle Beach addon board […]
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boxpressed wrote:

Quadzilla also requires a different set of drivers. I have a Quadzilla and only used the Turtle Beach installation CD, so I don't know if the Aureal reference drivers will work. My guess is no.

The bare Montego II works with the reference drivers and the Turtle Beach modified ones, but when using Turtle Beach addon boards you need the Turtle Beach modified drivers to activate them.

I have this one: 😀

IMG_3993s.jpg

Disposed of the box since, but scanned the backside for reference.

I suppose because the Windows 2000/XP support was bad, a lot of people sold their Vortex cards, or trashed them.

I have that same card with the daughterboard that includes the SPDIFs outputs

However everytime i tried to make them work together in Win98 it hang my system

IS working great without the daughterboard connected on WinME now.

I use the Aureal A3D Vanilla Drivers, i got them from @philscomputerlab page.

Reply 17 of 46, by gerwin

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I had the Montego II Home Studio running in Windows 98SE without any problems. The daughterboard was functional, as I often used the S/PDIF input to record from another soundcard. Driver used was probably this one: 46plu9x.zip "Montego II Plus 'Retail' drivers ver. 2046 for Win 95 & Win 98 ONLY".

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 18 of 46, by carangil

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I had one of these back in the day. The A3D drivers and the VIA chipset did not get along. Descent 3 sounded great, but liked to crash every 30 minutes or so.

Reply 19 of 46, by GiSWiG

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I was able to pickup a single Montego II card for $5 yesterday and it works. Not sure if it was the real one or one that came with a Dell but it matches the pictures.

Its working with the drivers from Phil's Computer Lab but I'd like to try the Turtle Beach software from the ISO linked. I know that normally asking for install keys is frowned upon but this thing is no longer produced and most who bought the card, probably threw the install docs away. Does anyone have a key?

Steamer/GOG-er: ASUS Crosshair IV Formula | AMD Phenom II X6 1100T 3.7GHz all cores | Mushkin 8GB DDR3 RAM 1333 w/ 6-6-6-18 1T | Dual AMD Radeon HD 6850s in CrossFireX | X-Fi Titanium | Dual-boot Windows XP and Vista