Well, got it narrowed down a bit. Turns out there are at least 2 cards that fit what I'm looking for. They are the MPU-401AT and the MPU-401 MKII. Both are MIDI only interface cards, and both (according to web research,) have a WaveBlaster header and audio output (for the WaveSynth I would assume.) The other possibility I'm looking at is getting a non-PnP sound card with a WaveBlaster header like the Sound Blaster 16 (17xx series,) or AWE32(27xx series.) Mine is a PnP version. I'm not sure how the CTCM program (misinformed someone earlier about that,) would handle 2 PnP SB cards in the system. If it can handle it (disabling MPU on one and all but MPU on the other,) then I could easily get a second card for very little. Then I'd just have to get the 2+ ISA MB and eventually a DB for the header. So far, I've found 2 for sale, both included WITH a sound card.... On thinking about it, might want to check and see if either of those are ISA and non-PnP. Though one blows my budget out of the water. Really, the prices some people ask for.

Anyway, the next question is, are there any MPU-401AT / MPU-401 MKII clones out there? I couldn't find any for sure. There was one card (LAPC-1??? not sure,) that had an on-board WaveSynth, but from what I was reading, it was extremely poor quality.

Anyway, the next question is, are there any MPU-401AT / MPU-401 MKII clones out there? I couldn't find any for sure. There was one card (LAPC-1??? not sure,) that had an on-board WaveSynth, but from what I was reading, it was extremely poor quality.

Ouch that hurt 😀

The LAPC-I is the KING of LA synths for the PC. Forerunner of GM if you like. Linear Aritmethic, NOT GM / WaveSynth / WaveTable, whatever confusing terms came with the next generation of synths. 😀
Has a good -EXTERNAL ONLY- MPU 401 interface but you need the proper breakout box (MCB-1) or make a substitute

http://queststudios.com/smf/index.php?topic=2796.0;wap2

The Roland MPU-401AT provides a DB header (has 12V so works on modern MOBOs /PSUs). Or you can install a SCB-55 / SCD-15 on your AWE32. I have both but unfortunately those are not cheap. Unless you get lucky / put in a lot of hours on eBay / Craigslist / direct contact with owners it is difficult to get quality GM / GS really cheap.

MPU-401MKII? The only MKII I know about is the SC-55 MKII (external synthesizer). You are probably referring to the SCC-1(A/B) but that card does not have a DB header: it already has the SC-55(MKII) on board plus the MPU-401AT on board as well. It predates the MPU-401AT. The MPU-401AT replaced the SCC-1(A/B) as a bundle: as the SCM-10 (MPU-401AT & SCD-7) & SCM-15 (MPU-401AT & SCD-10).

LAPC-I: this is the Rolls Royce of 1980s MIDI sound cards. It is the CM-32L on a card. It has the MPU-IPC-T 100% intelligent MPU-401 on board as well.

A cheaper (more common) solution to the SCB-7/55 (SCD-10/15) is the RAP-10. It has the SC-7 on board and sounds great in games.

Roland pricing (personal opinion / experience: bought / sold 100+ over the past 5 years):
LAPC-I: $500 - 600 (depends on retail box / MCB-1 included)
SCC-1: $250 - 350 (depends on retail box / cables included)
MPU-401AT: $200 - 300 (depends on retail box / cables included)
SCD-10 / SCB-7: $150 - 200 (depends on retail box / cables included)
SCD-15 / SCB-55: $175 - 225 (depends on retail box / cables included)
RAP-10: $75 - 150 (depends on retail box / cables included / MCB-10 included)
SCP-55: $75 - 150 (depends on retail box / cables included / MCB-3 included)
MPU-IPC: $125 - 150 (depends on retail box / BOB included)
MPU-IPC-T: $150 - 175 (depends on retail box / BOB included)
MIF-IPC: $75 - 150 (depends on retail box / BOB included)
MIF-IPC-A: $100 - $125 (depends on retail box / BOB included)

The S-MPU-AT & S-MPU-IIAT have been excluded: those are not 100% compatible and rely on software TSRs to work in DOS. They were designed for WIndows 95.

Clones (Midiman MM-401 / Music Quest PC MIDI Card) are a lot cheaper but only 95% - 99% intelligent MPU-401 compatible.

The cheapest solution for intelligent MIDI playback are external Roland modules (generation 1 MT-32 & SC-7 or SC-55) and SoftMPU or a clone card. Otherwise there is no way realistically to avoid spending a few $100. Unless you get really lucky of course: that has happened to people and will continue to happen.

Jolaes76 wrote:

Ouch that hurt :) […]
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Ouch that hurt 😀

The LAPC-I is the KING of LA synths for the PC. Forerunner of GM if you like. Linear Aritmethic, NOT GM / WaveSynth / WaveTable, whatever confusing terms came with the next generation of synths. 😀
Has a good -EXTERNAL ONLY- MPU 401 interface but you need the proper breakout box (MCB-1) or make a substitute

http://queststudios.com/smf/index.php?topic=2796.0;wap2

Sorry 🙁 I didn't mean to step on anyone's toes. I may even have had the card wrong, my memory isn't the best any more (why my desktop is just covered with notes.) From what I was reading one card I "did" find on eBay, and I thought it was the LAPC-1 (could be wrong,) gave you 2 choices. Either use an external box or use the on-board synth. But that synth was 512k only (uncompressed,) and sounded more like FM synth than WaveTable. At least that's what every review I found on it said. From what I was reading, it made the MS WaveCrap sound awesome 🙁 So, I put a pass on it and moved on to other things. It's like one of the off brand sound cards I tried back in the day. The FM synth on that card sounded like I was listening to SID music. Now, I like SID music. But it's good on my C64/C128, I don't want it on my PC as well. That card went bye-bye really fast, was supposed to have been an upgrade. Oh, the days when you could return a product for no other reason than you just didn't like it. Nowadays, while you can, they make you jump through hoops, or insist they can only give "credit" on the return. You have to raise a real stink to get cash back any more.

I'm trying to track down and confirm the card I read about, considering the response I'm starting to think the LAPC-1 isn't the one I was thinking of. Could I be thinking LCC-1?? Grrrr, I hate my memory 🙁 The MPU-401 MKII I haven't actually seen anything about. I found it on a list of sound cards that support Wave Blaster Daughter Boards. A list that probably isn't anywhere near complete. It had about 20 or so entries, though some of those covered large lots of cards. Such as "Creative Labs" with the note "All but xxxx cards" or some such. When I stumbled across the list, I started looking into the individual cards it listed. While I've expanded my search to include full sound cards with better MPU-401 WaveSynth/WaveBlaster support (pretty much have to be non-PnP though from what I've read,) the ideal solution would be something like the 401AT, that is a card that is "Only" a 401 interface with WaveSynth/WaveBlaster support.

About the DB on the AWE32, that was my original plan, until I read about the hanging note issue. This was eliminated in the AWE64 (from what I've been reading,) but the AWE64 doesn't have the DB header. If it did, I would confirm which ones fixed the issue, and just get one of those to replace my AWE32. Followed closely by getting a RAM upgrade w/RAM stick linked to earlier in the thread. The whole point of this was I'm tired of having to have the 28k AweUtil loaded into memory to have good quality WaveSynth with games that don't directly support the AWE cards. I'd prefer it if I could have the soundfonts too, but that doesn't seem likely. I don't really have room to add yet another external device, and I'd really rather keep to the AWE card if possible. I'm familiar with it, I know how it works, I like it, (besides, what would I do with my 3+ GB of soundfont files without it, hehe.) I'm not so much worried about authenticity, as I am about good sounding music. I'm afraid the 28MB AWE32 (upgraded the RAM,) has spoiled me. With Windows games, and the right SF loaded, MIDI music is just plain AWESOME. It was this that got me working with MIDI in the first place. A single 12MB SF file, will make 1000's of 10-20k files sound like 20MB mp3 files 😀 Even got a cheap keyboard to attach to my computer for MIDI composition (though for me, it's mostly copying sheet music.) I can read the music, and even play it (verrry slowly,) but I'm not a musician. All I have to do in the SW after that is assign voices and tweak it a bit here and there (where the timing is off.) - Another reason to detest Win7, having problems getting my KB working, as the MIDI interface isn't being recognized 🙁 The software(MIDI Maestro,) also, is giving me problem but I'm not going to worry about that till I get the KB recognized.

Well, I just found out something interesting that may make things easier. According to what I've read, the hanging note only effects "some" DSP 4.13 (which my AWE32 has.) Does anyone know if there is a way to tell which ones it does and does not effect (aside from attaching a MIDI device - which I don't have - and testing?) If my particular AWE32 doesn't have the problem, I'm going back to just looking for a DB, so I won't have to also buy a motherboard.

Some people just can't accept reality as it is:

Meet the AWE64 Gold removable (!) daughterboard upgrade from zx-c64.

Very impressive Bristlehog 😀 But I can't pull that off. Parkinson's has my hands trembling so much that such detailed work is totally beyond me 🙁 Now, if it was more simple, such as just mounting a pin header on an already properly connected but pin-less port, maybe I could do it. though I couldn't make any guarantees about that 🙁 It would all depend on the actual spacing involved, and if the solder is already present (as it is in some cases.) There was one card I mounted a header on simply by heading the pins themselves as pressure was gently applied. That I can do, but not all the little wires and such 🙁 Thanks though.

*sigh* In attempting to see if my particular AWE32 had the bug, I found the chips to look for and dug the card out of the box I had it stored in. Turns out this entire discussion is irrelevant because my card doesn't have the WaveBlaster Header on it. I could of sworn it did 🙁 So, if I want to do what I was planning I have to replace the entire card after all. Well, at least now I can start looking for something a little different. Any suggestions? What other cards supported sound fonts (and preferably 30 pin SIMMs?) I took the 2 16MB SIMMs out of the board and put the 2 1MB SIMMs back on it (had to do a bit of digging to find those.) I can still go with the 2 cards (AWE32 + MPU w/WaveSynth.) But that option looks to be difficult/expensive. Most of the cards I've found are not currently for sale, or are extremely expensive.

Ok, after several hours of searching, and groaning at some of the prices asked for, I got a CT3980 (according to 5 sites, doesn't suffer hanging note bug,) on it's way. For only $15, it's worth the risk if I'm wrong. So, that's straightened out. Back to looking just for a DB, in the hopes that I don't have to replace the MB now. Got quite a list of good ones to keep an eye out for. So, now it's just a matter of patience..... I have no patience 🙁

the CT3890 is a PnP card IIRC, which are all a PITA to deal with... ISA PnP is just shit
I rather live with an intermittent hanging notes bug (never experienced it) than deal with the PnP bullshit and loading the PnP manager in DOS, wasting more resources and having configuration headaches because it or windows can't decide what it wants to use

I have a CT3900 with a 4.13 DSP... so far I have not experienced any hanging notes... it does not have the stupid POS aureal "3D sound" useless shit which distorts audio... it was the last non-PnP card creative made and they had done a good job at it... I have moved my WB2 to it from when I had my SB16 which I killed due to stupidity... I since then had the ability to choose between the onboard MIDI or the WB2... sometimes they sound the same, many times they do not, and that's with using the default creative SF2/SBKs... as said, the WB2 nor any other daughterboard will be able to access the AWE32's RAM... the WB interface was never designed for this as it predates the AWE32... it is also extremely difficult to use both the WB2 and AWE32 at the same time to achieve a theoretical 62 polyphony MIDI... according to what Creative told me when I called them many moons ago, they told me that they only way they know to do this is to playback using cakewalk or some other MIDI sequencer... now, obviously someone should be able to write something that can allow access to both cards at the same time, but this basically is writing a driver and extremely difficult... good luck finding anyone with the skill that cares these days

as for the AWE64, it is just a simplified AWE32, nothing more.... they ditched the CSP chip and WB header, then changed the SIMM slots over to the proprietary RAM module interface... SIMMconn lets you use a 72pin SIMM but it takes up a lot of space... in simplifying the board design and using a newer DSP chip, they were able to improve the SNR slightly, especially with the lack of amplifier in the "Gold" version... they also officially acknowledged/advertised the SPDIF connector which had already existed in the AWE32.... I never got a straight answer from Creative if it can output both PCM and MIDI audio, but seeing as how it still is connected to the EMU8000, I think it is still MIDI only... anyone can confirm? so basically, what really makes the AWE64 are the drivers, which was later released by Creative as the WS/WG upgrade package... it's more trouble than it's worth as it eats up system resources and only works properly on intel CPUs and not very fast CPUs

for any DOS/Win9x era machine, it is so much better to have a jumpered/non-PnP card, trust me

I've never actually had a problem with the PnP AWE32 card. Yes, when you run the software install program, it installs all kinds of DOS drivers and such, but I always pulled them right back out. All I ever run is CTCM.EXE (I believe,) and of course AweUtil.com. The first configures the card to your Blaster variable and doesn't stay In memory. It just sets the card and exits (the same thing diagnose.exe does with PnP SB16's iirc.) The second just configures the SoundFont Synth. It will only stay in memory if you tell it to take over the MPU-401 calls (to use the WaveTable instead of the MPU-401 port.) I may not be remembering the CTCM.EXE command 100%, I "believe" it used the blaster variable, but it may have needed the info in command line instead (CTCM /A220 /I5 /D1 /H5 /P330 etc....) I just don't remember. I know for a fact it didn't stay in memory, and my card worked just fine, including WaveTable with games that supported it. The drivers that Creative installs, as far as I can tell, are completely unnecessary. Now, they may be needed by the Creative Labs DOS utilities (piano player or whatever,) but I never used those, so I couldn't say. I used 3rd party software for everything.

As for the daughter board, I've done some testing and narrowed the list down. The remaining contenders at this time (not listing the ones where I actually prefer FM synth,) are:

• TopWave 32........................Korg
  Pro Wavetable Upgrade.........Media Vision
  Super Sound Module.............Trust
  NEC XR386 (DB60XG)...........Yamaha+
  DB50XG / DB51XG................Yamaha
  SCB-55 (SCD-15 or SCM-15)..Roland
  SCB-7 (SCD-10 or SCM-10)....Roland
  WaveSystem Proffesional.......Terratec
  Wave XTable........................Terratec
  AdWave32...........................Diamond Multimedia

Formatting is a bit of a pita 🙁 (type / preview / type / preview ... and it still doesn't look just right.) Anyways, I actually fell in love with the Korg chipset the first time I heard it (playing samples off the net.) Which is why those 3 are on top. I put my least favorites at the bottom. The Wave XTable, I'm not sure is even compatible (the picture didn't look like it would be,) but I could be wrong. Despite it have 16M of ROM samples, the others just sounded better. The Yamaha+ has the plus because the NEX XR386 was actually produced by someone else, but is completely identical to the DB60XG from what I've read.

The following are daughter boards I've read about, but have not yet found samples for.

• Creative Labs:
  • Wave Blaster 32 (???)
  Turtle Beach:
  • Kurzwell Homac (2MB)
  Orchid:
  • WaveBooster (2MB)
    WaveBooster/4 (4MB)
    WaveBooster 4FX (4MB)
  Diamond Multimedia:
  • AdWave (.5MB)

From how the other Wave Blasters sound, I'm not holding much hope for the 32. I couldn't find anything on the Kurzwell Homac at all except the web page that had a picture of one. And, all the AdWave's I found were of the AdWave32, but with .5MB, I'm not holding much hope for it either.

Check out these for more information:
www.wavetable.nl
http://members.home.nl/c.kersten/

IMO (for games) the Roland SCD-10/15 (SCB-7/55) are the best choice.

That is a nice selection of midi daughterboards (referring to the first list).
I am uncertain about the AdWave32, but all the others listed will give agreeable midi music. The Terratec professional with SAM9233 is just as good as the Roland IMO. All the Korg based ones are nice too, some for the Yamaha. A big step up from FM of course. There is a standalone card of the Yamaha called SW60XG. There is a standalone card of the Terratec, but it is very rare. The Standalone card of the Roland is SCC-1. A Roland RAP-10 may also be able to serve as such.
Roland gear is generally above my budget, in that I will not feel happy about such a purchase.

Again, forget about the DSP number! v4.13 can hang often or be quite OK, depending on the card. For sure. The OK one is associated with the CT1747 chip (with the 'OPL' mark) on the AWE32 or SB16. You never mentioned the CTxxxx number of your card right?

I also have the tendency to complement a SB16/AWE with a Roland MPU-401AT. But I have just one of those. I can also use a Midiman card or something together with this thing I made in the picture. This bracket can be used to give a midi DB header to about any soundcard. I made it so that it can have two midi inputs (brown and orange wire). The blue wire is the darn -12V. It took me a while to find a reset circuit that works with all midi daughterboard types. If stereo sounds reversed the CD audio cable can be mounted up-side-down to make it OK again.

You can also just obtain an ESS 1868 (ES1868) based card with WB header for peanuts. It may not be SB16/AWE but is the most straightforward and fail-safe approach to get SB-Pro + FM + Daughterboard header.

Interesting. I just play games and connect / install my MT-32, CM-500 or SCB-55 / RAP-10 with a MPU-401, MPU-401AT and/or SB16. 😀

And rare DBs other than Roland are usually pretty expensive as well.

The wavetable.nl link is one of the places I used to listen to the different boards. There was another site (in German,) that had some good samples for most of the boards as well, but I lost that URL, I had listened to all the one it had anyway. The second link gave me some more entries into my list (and links to other places that gave me even more.) It also gave me the link to the German site I mentioned a moment ago:

http://www.amoretro.de/

As for the AdWave32, it's on the bottom because it is significantly better than FM synth, but not near as good as any of the others. Also, I've come across several of those for sale, and only 1 (for a reasonable IMHO price,) out of all the others (even the ones I completely removed from the list,) combined.

The SC-? and the DB??XG each are awesome. in the samples I listed to, there were aspects of the DB??'s I liked better than the SC's, and vice versa. On all 4 of the games (Duke3D, Dark Forces, Battle Isle II, and Ultima VII - on the german site,) of the Korg engine cards, I just loved it. Were they perfect, well, no, but you aren't going to get perfect unless you have a good synth engine and the ability to custom tailor the instruments for each and every game/song. Even then, it all boils down to a matter of taste (IMHO.) Going through the new materials you provided for me, the acceptable & preferred list is growing 😀

Well, I've updated my list and made some corrections. The ones I'm currently looking for in *rough* preference order are:

• DoX-1 ..................................MIDITemp
  AG-WB..................................Korg
  Ai20......................................Korg
  TopWave 32...........................X-Technology
  MIDI-KG/EX...........................I-O Data
  Pro Wavetable Upgrade...........Media Vision
  Super Sound Module...............Trust
  Korg Wave Upgrade................Guillemot
  NEC XR386 (DB60XG).............Yamaha+
  DB50XG / DB51XG.................Yamaha
  SCB-55 (SCD-15 or SCM-15)...Roland
  SCB-7 (SCD-10 or SCM-10).....Roland
  GMW-1000 ...........................Gallant
  Wave XTable.........................Terratec
  Vivaldi PT-202A ....................Pine
  DB333..................................Hizon
  WaveSystem Proffesional........Terratec
  AdWave32 ............................Diamond Multimedia

And the ones I couldn't find samples of are:

• Acer:
  • S551-SA (1)
  Avancd:
  • Pro32AW (.5MB)
  AVM Technology
  • General MIDI Engine
  Aztech:
  • CS9233 (1MB)
    Sound Galaxy WaveTide (2MB)
    Sound Galaxy Wave Power (2MB)
  BTC:
  • EPC-Wave (??)
  Casio:
  • WG-130 (??)
  Compaq:
  • ESS AudioDrive (.5MB)
  Creative Labs:
  • Wave Blaster 32 Basic (4MB)
    Wave Blaster 32 Pro (4MB)
  Diamond Multimedia:
  • AdWave (.5MB)
    Monster MIDI (4MB)
  Digitan Systems:
  • WT-100 (1MB)
  EMU Systems:
  • EMU8801 Sound Engine (4MB)
  Formosa:
  • 16bit AudioStar Wave (1MB)
  Terratec:
  • Dream GSWave (4MB)
  Hizon:
  • DB555 (4MB)
    DB666 (??)
  IBM:
  • S-W1/C (1MB)
  I-O Data:
  • MIDI-CS/EX (1MB)
  Malifax Computers:
  • WaveVision (2MB)
  MediaForte:
  • SoundForte SF32-WTS-01 (1MB)
  Miditemp:
  • WaveTable DS-48 (4MB)
  NEC:
  • PC-9821C3-B02 (4MB)
  Oberheim:
  • OP-1 Piano Card (??)
  Orchid:
  • WaveBooster (2MB)
    WaveBooster/4 (4MB)
    WaveBooster 4FX (4MB)
  Pine:
  • Vivaldi Xtra PT-2030 (1MB)
  QVision:
  • MIDIStar/GS (2MB)
  Ricoh:
  • PCM Sound Generator (2MB)
    PCM Sound Generator (4MB)
  RMS Studio (NavCom Research):
  • NS9503 (4MB)
  Samsung:
  • Wave Magic (1MB)
  Shark Multimedia:
  • Tsunami Wavetable (1MB-2MB)
  Shuttle:
  • SpaceWalker SoundSytem HOT-243Y (1MB)
  Sunrise High Tech (translated from 日出ハイテック)
  • Audio-A DB (2MB)
  TA Horng
  • MS32 Wavetable (4MB)
    T26 Board (4MB)
  TeleVideo:
  • WaveImpact Q32 (.5MB)
  Terratec:
  • Dream GSWave (4MB)
  Turtle Beach:
  • Kurzwell Homac (2MB)
  Unknown:
  • MPB-000028 (.5MB)
    MPB-000040 (1MB)
    OPTi82C941 (.5MB)
    QSonic QS501 (??)

I've generally been testing with the following game music "Battle Isle II - Track 4", "Dark Forces - Intro", "Duke Nukem 3D - Intro", "Dune II - Intro". I'm familiar with all those games, and they represent a decent spectrum of music types.

TheMAN wrote:

I never got a straight answer from Creative if it can output both PCM and MIDI audio, but seeing as how it still is connected to the EMU8000, I think it is still MIDI only... anyone can confirm?

AWE64 Diagnose / AweUtil error

The distaste for all things PnP is a bit exaggerated, in my opinion, and I've yet to encounter one of the nightmarish scenarios that others describe. Enjoy the CT3980, FeedingDragon.

In all honesty, I probably would have preferred the 2760, the exact same card except jumpers i/o PnP. Mainly for the direct control, and the ability to use a second SB card if I have to for the MPU port. It would have given me the option of getting either jumpered or PnP on the second card. The problem is, the only 2760 I found had an asking price of $250... so, $15... $250... you do the math 😀

Really, the only time you get into trouble with PnP is if you have a large mix of PnP cards taking up multiple port types (PnP on AGP, PnP on PCI, PnP on ISA, etc....) The OS can start getting confused as it tends to treat the different port types separately. You can also face difficulties if you have a mix of PnP & non-PnP cards, but usually only if you have the non-PnP set to non-standard values. It's in these cases, with early PnP OS's, that you had to start setting things manually in BIOS and in Device Manager. Even then, make a list of the cards, what they need, what the "default" values are, and map it out early and it's not that big a problem. It's really a toss up, with PnP you face the OS creating a snarl for you to fix, but with non-PnP you have to open your case every time you find a conflict. In both cases, planning ahead can save a lot of heartache. What is really bothersome is if you have more card functions than you have IRQ's for. Finding devices that can "share" an IRQ can get tricky. I only had to face that once, though, and that was with an old video card that "required" in IRQ for some reason. Don't remember the card, I do remember they never could give me a straight answer as to why it needed an IRQ in the first place. Without the IRQ it would only display up to 640x480x8, with the IRQ it went up to 1024x768x24, one of the early "true-color" cards. I ended up forcing it to share with another device, and never had a problem 😀

I too use the CT3900 combined with an SCB-55 and I have to say that I'm more than happy with this setup. I'm also yet to run into any hanging notes or compatibility issues. I believe the CT3900 is creatives flagship Awe32 but unfortunately they're not easy to find (in my searches anyway). Overall, my favourite sound card 😀

For early dos games I prefer to go with a SB Pro 2 CT1600 combined with an MPU-401/AT + SCB-55 but this setup can get rather expensive.

The Yamaha DB50XG is also a great daughterboard that can be had for around the $100 most of the time and they're also a lot easier to find. It actually sounds better in my opinion than the roland when it comes to games like doom and duke3d due to its awesome guitar/drum sounds. For games that don't have heavy bass sounds etc though, I prefer the roland.

I'd say if you want a cheap(er) way to truly enjoy Dos games I'd go with the SB16 CT2230 combined with a DB50XG. I haven't experienced hanging notes with my CT2230 + DB50XG combo at all. Got recommended this combo on vogons before making the purchase.

At the top of my list, the Korg chipset DoX-1 is actually still being sold retail (in Europe.) But unless something radically changes the price tag is just a little out of my reach. Which isn't much of a surprise really, it has a 32MB ROM. Also, anyone have any direct experience with the DB60XG or it's clone the NEC XR386? I've actually been finding those at price tags within my budget. I'd also really like to know how those others sound (mp3 or ogg samples if possible,) before I make a commitment 😀 Just to be thorough. Cannot find any websites about them though, except general information sites.