Yep , things are exactly like 640k!enough explains 😀

Last year we had covid and restrictions to deal with - this year we deal with shortages, price inflations and long delivery times of parts.
To add more to the insult even old/retro parts are now 2~3x more expensive - the sellers saw an opportunity since everything else is more expensive and adjusted their prices for all their inventory , no matter if it's a 30 years part or a 3 months one...

I'm curious if you guys noticed a surge of interest around the time that LGR made his video? This so when I first heard about it and added my name to the queue.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-01-02, 22:35:

I'm curious if you guys noticed a surge of interest around the time that LGR made his video? This so when I first heard about it and added my name to the queue.

I personally waited a long time before getting on the queue. However, I figured that holding off would be a bad idea. I am building a P3 Coppermind 933 on a Gigabyte Mobo and eventually this will be the Orpheus' new home.

Who knows, maybe even Edro and Leo will be unable to source parts in a few months for this project. Yes, I know that these crystal chips are common and all, but what about the OPL chips? With the purported instability in the market, I am somewhat afraid.

Heh, worry worry worry.

What I should be doing is giving a hand to Leo and Edro for doing this for us. I purchased mine a few days back and even though it has not shipped yet, I have a very good feeling that I am going to get my money's worth. Heck, the Orpheus is actually priced fairly unlike half the crap on market right now.

Why buy a noisy and buggy Awe32 for $1820987593762.999999 (SUPER RARE RETRO!!!)
that may or may not crumble in shipping, when you can purchase this NEW card, with NEW* components, and improves upon the Soundblaster in almost every concievable way.

Hopefully, I should be recieving a tracking number in a few days time🙂

Whenever it comes I am planning on uploading some comparison videos. I can compare it against a PCI Yamaha YMF 754 on a Labway Xwave card, another decent quality card with real OPL on board. If those legendary DSXG YMF-754-R chips are still available en mass, they would be perfect for a clone card project wink wink:

Looking forward to receiving my Orpheus! Ordered and paid already. But no idea if it has been sent or not. But really looking forward to it. Great project!

For some reason I needed to record the Sound Canvas that is attached to my Orpheus, I was considering hook it to my DAW but then I realized the Orpheus would probably be up to the job considering all it's DAC/ADC praise in the review. Reading the datasheet on page 63 it state that if SRC is disabled then it can only sample at 44.1, so I assume it's what we can call it's native resolution and the best recording setup for it would be 44.1/16bit stereo. Also because on page 79 it state that all part work at 44.1 internally I would assume I would avoid unnecessary sample conversion at source if I record at 44.1khz. What do you think ?

While recording, the VU metering bar seem to have a wide dynamic range and the recorded sample sounded very crisp! at the end of the day that's what's matter, but it would not be too much of a burden to remake the shot if someone have an suggestion. Thanks.

Oh! and btw, nice job on the web site front page, who draw the four pixel art soundcard ? It's really neat, I like it !

yeah in simple words one can say that the "native" resolution is 44.100hz/16bit so this would be the preferred recording parameters

the pixel soundcards are mine 🤣 simple representations of the cards glad you like them ElBrunzy 😀

Hi,

From which country are the cards sent from?

LuigiStone wrote on 2022-01-14, 20:12:

Hi,

From which country are the cards sent from?

Portugal or Greece

keropi wrote on 2022-01-14, 20:26:

LuigiStone wrote on 2022-01-14, 20:12:

Hi,

From which country are the cards sent from?

Portugal or Greece

OK, nice. Maybe I’m receiving mine soon then!

I recieved the Orpheus and I must say that I am quite impressed. The OPL tickles my ear and everything feels right!

The card is very quiet and this alone makes it incredibly desirable. The quiet parts of OPL soundtrack are so distracting.

I have noticed that the Windows 95 drivers possess some sort of annoying latency issue. Sounds in Windows games are delayed by about 3/4 of a second as well as having low volume. Doom in a dosbox runs at normal latency however. Dosmode applications have proper volume and latency. Quite puzzling.

I have heard that Windows drivers for this thing are likely a dead end so I am not sure how much you can help me...

I know that the card is essentially designed around pure dos gaming. But a high quality basic Windows sound card would also be useful... Who needs A3d and EAX anyway when you have the quality this thing has.

Its probably Windows reinstallation time. Just wondering if anyone else had the same odd behavior.

Thanks Mr Dallas and Ferreira! 10/10!!!! Highly satisfied!

Shcookius wrote on 2022-01-25, 03:49:

I have noticed that the Windows 95 drivers possess some sort of annoying latency issue. Sounds in Windows games are delayed by about 3/4 of a second as well as having low volume. Doom in a dosbox runs at normal latency however. Dosmode applications have proper volume and latency. Quite puzzling.

Thanks for the kind words Shcookius! I am very happy to hear you are enjoying the Orpheus 😀

I have not heard this windows issue before... what cpu does your system have? the latest PV2860 version of the driver is working very well with a P1 system whereas a 486 for example is better if it uses the previous 272 version. It is possible that 9x messed up drivers so a re-install will certainly help there.
The 9x drivers are pretty robust (if you exclude the fact they are locked to using CSFM for OPL) and should work just fine. Keep in mind to disable SRS (or alter it to your needs) from the icon in the taskbar.

I received my Orpheus today! Thank you for delivering on a great retro sound card, guys. I'm excited to try it out with a bunch of other gear soon.

It appears we have a new revision v1.0j with a surface mount MPU EEPROM. This package must be a lot easier to source. The card looks neater, although it's lost a little bit of its visual character along with that big labeled DIP chip.

Yeah it's just a package change for the rom... instead of DIP28 it is PLCC32 - same functionality, different looks
Generally speaking the effort now is not make more things surface mount while depleting our stock of hole thru parts.

firage wrote on 2022-01-25, 20:02:

I received my Orpheus today! Thank you for delivering on a great retro sound card, guys. I'm excited to try it out with a bunch of other gear soon.

It appears we have a new revision v1.0j with a surface mount MPU EEPROM. This package must be a lot easier to source. The card looks neater, although it's lost a little bit of its visual character along with that big labeled DIP chip.

I noticed that too, I have two 1.0i and two 1.0j versions and the 1.0i version looks more retro-ish to me 😀

Would someone share a photo of the new revision, please?

Orpheus I v1.0j

firage wrote on 2022-01-26, 16:56:

Orpheus I v1.0j https://i.imgur.com/UzvVf93l.jpg […]
Show full quote

Orpheus I v1.0j

Would look nice in black or red

I have a question with drivers on Windows 95, as the MPU portion of the card cannot find a driver. Do I have to use the Windows 9x/ME MPU-401 MultiPort drivers? Thanks.

mihai wrote on 2022-01-26, 20:46:

I have a question with drivers on Windows 95, as the MPU portion of the card cannot find a driver. Do I have to use the Windows 9x/ME MPU-401 MultiPort drivers? Thanks.

If you are referring to PCMIDI MPU then use the windows 9x built-in MPU-401 drivers or the multiport ones.
Keep in mind that PCMIDI is *not* a PnP device so you either search with the "add new hardware" wizard or add driver manually.

Got my Orpheus. I gotta say it’s sweet and works perfectly. Using Orphinit. Waveblaster header pins were a little bent but was able to fix them. Thanks for the device.!