CT3900! Real OPL3, (one of) the best of the AWE32's, and it's a perfect fit for a MMX Socket7 build.
Also note it's non-PnP.

The only potential downside would be buggy MIDI but as you said you don't care about it..case solved.

Another vote for the CT3900.

Since you don't plan on using an external MIDI device, you might as well make use of the AWE in games that support it. While the on-board ROM samples aren't that great, you can always add some memory to the card and load a decent soundfont onto it. If you run DOS games under the Win9x DOS prompt, they will happily use your loaded soundfont for General MIDI music. Here are some recordings made using the GM35REVC soundfont.

Additionally, a few games sound pretty good on an AWE card even when using the stock ROM samples. See here: AWEstruck...

I second what others said about going with the AWE32 CT3900. Some of the AWE cards (CT3900 is one of these due to the EMU8K being routed into the CT1747) grants you in addition the ability to set reverb and chorus on the FM synth thru AWEUTIL.

The type 2 hanging note is much less frequent, but you have to try the MPU-401 there to see if that annoys you if one day you change your mind about MIDI devices.

Another vote for CT3900 with a tiny caveat: it depends on what bugs irritate you most.

MIDI hanging note isn't relevant here, but the 'full' SB16 cards also have Single Cycle DMA clicking, and the CT3900 is one. If that irritates the hell out of you, a Vibra might be preferable. That gives you Vibra hissing/ringing and clipping instead, so not perfect either. Most people would find the Vibra issues more irritating, but it's alway subjective. Same applies to OPL3 vs CQM. These three Vibras have CQM, the CT3900 OPL3.

Also some CT3900 have an old CT1703-T, which is moderately noise. Others have CT1703-TBS or CT1703-A, which are much quieter. The Vibras are equally quiet regardless. To get the best of both worlds, you need an SB64 variant with CT8903 DSP. That doesn't have DMA clicking and also lacks the Vibra artifacts - and very quiet as well. Still has MIDI slowdowns though - perfection doesn't exist in the SB16 world - but that's not an issue here.

Thanks alot guys! This is so much information I wasnt aware of at all.

The possibility to play around with reverb/chorus and such things absolutely calls for the AW32 with AWEUTIL. I've read this tool's name a thousand times through driver's installation but actually never used it due to lack of knowledge of what it actually does. I'm pretty sure there's much more stuff I also dont know about all those Sound Blasters (and other sound cards as well).

The sound samples in comparison of the AWE32 and the Roland CM 500 is also pretty interesting. There are some tracks I'd prefer more on the one, some more on the other device. My favourite DOS OSTs however come from Epic Pinball (not MIDI but Screamtracker or something similar iirc - the Android table's theme is my ringtone since many years ^^), DooM TNT Evilution -> especially "Smells Like Burning Corpse", "Aim, Shoot, Kill" and my absolute all time favourite MIDI track: "Into The Beasts Belly", Descent and Dune II.

Guess I'll have to learn how to handle soundfonts. I do have 2 MB RAM on my AWE32 but never really used it - again, due to lack of knowledge.

Is there a way to load a soundfont in DOS 6.22 and having games use said soundfont instead of the common MIDI sounds? I'm not sure if I want to run all of my DOS games through Windows 95 (and I'm not even sure they would run without problems). Because if it's not possible to load soundfonts under DOS, I might also go with the SB16 CT1770 which also features a dedicated OPL3 chip.

DJMadMax wrote on 2021-09-16, 18:14:

I do have 2 MB RAM on my AWE32 but never really used it - again, due to lack of knowledge.

Consider upgrading that to at least 4 MB. More would be better, but you can squeeze some pretty decent soundfonts into that amount of RAM.

Is there a way to load a soundfont in DOS 6.22 and having games use said soundfont instead of the common MIDI sounds?

For some older, real-mode games (e.g. Space Quest V) it can be done. But for newer, protected mode games (such as Doom, Duke3D etc.) that is not possible. In comparison, soundfonts work fine with all games under Win9x.

DJMadMax wrote on 2021-09-16, 18:14:

My favourite DOS OSTs however come from Epic Pinball (not MIDI but Screamtracker or something similar iirc - the Android table's theme is my ringtone since many years ^^)

This screams for hunting for a GUS or compatible as a future upgrade, if you can find one for a decent price, which is not easy 😁 Epic games on GUS is something else!
And I'm a huge fan of Epic Pinball's music too, particularly the main theme 😉

Boohyaka wrote on 2021-09-16, 18:48:

This screams for hunting for a GUS or compatible as a future upgrade, if you can find one for a decent price, which is not easy 😁 Epic games on GUS is something else!
And I'm a huge fan of Epic Pinball's music too, particularly the main theme 😉

While the GUS is the best for these kind of games that uses tracker style music, there's a workaround for SB which improves the sound quality which was unusually low on SB (especially with having a low-pass/brickwall filter that most clones lacks) due to some poor DSP version checking.

Very interesting, thanks for sharing! It makes sense that something was wrong, SB sounds unusually bad for sure.