I'm also a fan of cs423x FM sound

Marmes wrote:

I'm also a fan of cs423x FM sound

😎

Do you have a favorite card? I'm looking to try/buy a few different ones.

I have a CS4232 based card with the companion Crystal FM/3D chip. The PCM output is fantastic, but FM... I'm not a fan.

I understand the FM implementation on CS4236 and CS4237 chips is better.

Just ordered a CX4237 based card to get some variance.

Are there any manufacturers that used these chips on PCI cards? Or is there a Sound Semiconductor version of the CS chips?

Edit: Found another really cheap CX4237 here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-ISA-ACER-A-O … U8AAOSwvihY8tOx

(For posterity's sake, this is an Asus/AOpen 97353-2.1 with a CX4237B)

dumpsterac1d wrote:

Marmes wrote:

I'm also a fan of cs423x FM sound

😎

Do you have a favorite card? I'm looking to try/buy a few different ones.

Turtle beach Malibu 64

I also like CrystalFM, but it depends on the game or demo. Some high-quality FM stuff does NOT sound so good, or wrong, or with failures.

This was my first FM chip, back when Dad bought our first computer in 1998, an Acer Aspire 2856. Contains a Crystal CS4237B chip, and is actually one of my favorite FM clone chips after hearing a few other recordings over time. System is out of commission after 20 years, as the proprietary power supply died. I have old recording samples from 2003 (!) that probably should be redone, as they are loud, distorted, and somewhat noisy.

Did also have a Dell Optiplex GX1 (tower version) with the Crystal CS4236 chip, but the mainboard eventually died nearly a decade ago. Unit was never particularly stable. And I have no recording samples of that particular FM chip...

dumpsterac1d wrote:

Marmes wrote:

I'm also a fan of cs423x FM sound

😎

Do you have a favorite card? I'm looking to try/buy a few different ones.

For nostalgia purposes, I bought a card that uses the CS4237B FM chip; it also happens to utilize the CS9236 wavetable chip in PLCC socket form, which I do have in possession. (And have recording samples of that wavetable as well.) It is the S-16WP1/L(WT1) KD100606 card, IBM FRU 01K2154. Seems to have originally come from an IBM Personal Computer 300 variant. I also got the card so I wouldn't have to record samples from the old Acer machine anymore.

CS4630 is nice. 😀 And the Game Theater XP has very clean analog output. Santa Cruz less so.

I prefer Crystal ISA sound chips since... 2009 it seems. But usually I am using a card with CS4232 and Yamaha OPL3. I did obtain a nice card with CS4237B and CS9236 two weeks ago. That one has Crystal digital sound, Crystal FM and Crystal Wavetable. Nice to use that for a change. The FM sounds perfectly fine to me. Boxpressed has a review of just this card in his Wavetable Sample Thread
Actually I have cards with all the common Crystal ISA sound controllers now: CS4232, CS4235 (Bugged FM), CS4236, CS4236B, CS4237B. More then a dozen in total.

I don't believe I have any Crystal ISA cards... The Ensoniq cards use Analog Devices chips. I also have some Creative cards and did have a few ESS cards for awhile.

There was a CrystalLake wavetable card called "Series 140" that I always hoped to run into. It used Crystal chips. CGW mag raved about it. Pretty rare and I don't want think they are actually anything special anyway.

swaaye wrote:

I don't believe I have any Crystal ISA cards... The Ensoniq cards use Analog Devices chips. I also have some Creative cards and did have a few ESS cards for awhile.

The Analog Devices chip you mean is just the Codec with DAC functionality. The Crystal equivalent for these is CS4231 or CS4248. The presence of such a codec does not make it much of a Crystal or AD soundcard. CS4232 is the first actual Crystal sound card controller chip, with its own drivers and utilities.

swaaye wrote:

There was a CrystalLake wavetable card called "Series 140" that I always hoped to run into. It used Crystal chips. CGW mag raved about it. Pretty rare and I don't want think they are actually anything special anyway.

Yes I remember. Made these notes about them:

CRYSTALAKE ISA SOUNDCARDS Crystal-Clear Wavetable Big square 160 pin chip?, CS4231, OPL3, CS-9203CL with 2MB CS4110-CS ROM, M- […]
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CRYSTALAKE ISA SOUNDCARDS
Crystal-Clear Wavetable Big square 160 pin chip?, CS4231, OPL3, CS-9203CL with 2MB CS4110-CS ROM, M-CD, PCB-ID AD928-3 V1.1
CLMI 105 OPTi 928, CS4231, 1Mb Dream Wavetable, WBH.
CLMI 140 CS4232, CS9233 Wavetable with 4MB ROM, IDE.

That makes CLMI 140 very similar to a Terratec Maestro 32/96 Sound Card. Not bad, to be compared to that one 😀.

I have several CS423X ISA cards (as well as a lot of CS46XX PCI ones) and I simply love their warm and soft FM synthesis implementation. ESS I laud for their near genuine ESFM clone but one has to commend Crystal for going out and doing their own thing and making it sound different yet still good.

appiah4 wrote:

I have several CS423X ISA cards (as well as a lot of CS46XX PCI ones) and I simply love their warm and soft FM synthesis implementation. ESS I laud for their near genuine ESFM clone but one has to commend Crystal for going out and doing their own thing and making it sound different yet still good.

How are the CS46xx PCI cards? I want to grab one possibly, as I don't have any PCI sound cards at all.

Is there a list anywhere of cards and boards that have Crystal Audio ICs as their main device? I'd be very interested in collecting this info and maybe adding it to Vogons Wiki.

Edit: actually, found gerwin's list. Pretty amazing stuff!

dumpsterac1d wrote:

How are the CS46xx PCI cards? I want to grab one possibly, as I don't have any PCI sound cards at all. […]
Show full quote

appiah4 wrote:

I have several CS423X ISA cards (as well as a lot of CS46XX PCI ones) and I simply love their warm and soft FM synthesis implementation. ESS I laud for their near genuine ESFM clone but one has to commend Crystal for going out and doing their own thing and making it sound different yet still good.

How are the CS46xx PCI cards? I want to grab one possibly, as I don't have any PCI sound cards at all.

Is there a list anywhere of cards and boards that have Crystal Audio ICs as their main device? I'd be very interested in collecting this info and maybe adding it to Vogons Wiki.

Edit: actually, found gerwin's list. Pretty amazing stuff!

CS46XX are my favorite PCI cards now, even moreso than Vortex 2. They support EAX; A3D and Sensaura, have CrystalFM for OPL, come with wavetable headers and tend to have fantastic fidelity. Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, Terratec DMX Xfire 1024 and DMX SixPack 5.1 are my favorites.

Any Crystal card that has SB compatibility and no YMF262 or a known clone chip on board is CrystalFM.

I have two CS4630 cards. Turtle Beach Santa Cruz and the Hercules Game Theater XP. The GTXP is my preference because of the super clean output from the breakout box. Santa Cruz picks up noise in some systems.

The Sensaura audio is great and these chips do indeed work with A3D 2.0 games in many cases. You just need Aureal's A3DAPI.dll. Install Aureal's A3D API package 3.12, but don't tell it to overwrite the Sensaura A3D.dll that comes with the CS4630 drivers.

I'm not a sound person but the chipset in the Dell Optiplex struck me as pretty good... I fired up Warcraft and thought "damn, for an office machine this sounds pretty swell!".

The other Crystal based card I own is bearing a 4280 and looks pretty low key but the sound, as far as I can remember, was respectable too.

Yep another fan here - I try and use a range of hardware in my builds but both of my socket 7 machines are rocking Crystal based ISA sound cards, a CS4232 with OPL3 and a CS4235 based Magic S23a, which does have the bugged FM but makes up for it with excellent onboard GM.

I’ve tried a LOT of sound cards and find the Crystals to be super compatible, easy to use, cheap, and sound lovely. The WSS support is also great and really comes into play with later DOS era games.

I’m interested to hear that the PCI chipsets are also useful.

My FSC D6 has Crystal-Onboard and it's good and compatible.

CS4232's okay, CS4231A is terrible