I have been using this card in my daily driver retro PC (Cx5x86-120) for three days now, and this is by far, by a long long long far, the most amazing ISA sound card I ever used.

I mean, just listen to this recording. This is captured from the card's Analog Line Out using a Behringer UMC22 USB DAC. Brilliant..

Dune - Arrakeen Palace

Lucky you! I can't wait to (hopefully) grab one. I have a new build coming along that I want to do just for it 😉

That DUNE recording was pretty damn good. Looks like another winner from Keropi. I can't wait to see how it sounds with a bunch of different Waveblaster boards!

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2022-05-08, 18:48:

That DUNE recording was pretty damn good. Looks like another winner from Keropi. I can't wait to see how it sounds with a bunch of different Waveblaster boards!

I currently have a Dreamblaster S2 and a YucatanFX I can record with. I will soon have a Dreamblaster X2GS as well. Let me know if any of these interest you, I can record any game you want.

And now, some hardware porn..

And some more.. Please note the audio grade Nichicon caps used on the card, and the board/soldering quality..

I am glad you are enjoying the prototype card appiah4 and it did not set your house on fire 🤣 🤣 🤣
I have a really soft spot for the pcmidi daughterboard , I just looks awesome to my eyes 😁

appiah4 wrote on 2022-05-08, 19:29:

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2022-05-08, 18:48:

That DUNE recording was pretty damn good. Looks like another winner from Keropi. I can't wait to see how it sounds with a bunch of different Waveblaster boards!

I currently have a Dreamblaster S2 and a YucatanFX I can record with. I will soon have a Dreamblaster X2GS as well. Let me know if any of these interest you, I can record any game you want.

Try whatever you want with the X2GS, but I wouldn't bother with the usual suspects (Descent, DUNE, Sam & Max) that have already been demo-recorded and try to make a variety of recordings that shows both the quality of the soundcard audio and the GS sound of the X2GS, with both the pre-loaded GS bank and the Buran bank, if yours was loaded with that. I myself really like the QuestStudio MIDI files, which are (apparently) optimized for the SC-55/SC-88/Whatever Is Good GM, which the X2GS should handle quite well. Based on my own listening through what I have, I think the Leisure Suit Larry MIDI files would be a great place to start, because they incorporate a solid range of Jazz/Rock instruments and for a "wide-range", I'd try Quest For Glory 4, Space Quest 4/5/6, and Gabriel Knight which have both Rock and Classical sounds in their soundtracks. If you go through VGMIDI, you can dig up all sorts of MIDI files to test, including ones from Japanese games that were designed for GS synths, as well as many other relatively unknown MIDI treasures. That's just my two cents, so feel free to do whatever you think would be interesting to hear.

The PCMIDI as an addon board is super sexy, looks awesome! Any hint on a potential preorder date Leo? I wasn't joking, I'm really preparing a new build for this card 🤣

well it's been already delayed once but I want to say during the next week we will order some PCBs
parts for these are already bought - except for the pcmidi addon because there is a cpld shortage atm
it will come down the road once we get some more chips from a different trusted source since mouser moved expected delivery of more stock in 2023 (!)

the pcmidi addon is user-installable: you just assign midi devices to mpus with a jumperblock that is now the same as the one on Orpheus and you plug the addon on your card
so hopefully this shortage won't cause much issues , it will just take a little more time to have the mpu addon....

Thanks for the info and keep rocking! 😀

Any clue how much the card will cost with included MPU daughterboard? 😀

I cannot tell you exact price about the pcmidi addon... it all depends on the prices we get for parts 🙁
it's not only the modern chips that got inflated - it is also the OLD ones that got an increase from 2x to 4x 😮
it will certainly be cheaper than the corresponding Orpheus, that much I can guarantee

shortages and inflated prices like these are also the reasons I cannot make more MegaCards for the few more people that need them: for the ~20eur FPGA I get now quotes on the 250~350$ range per piece which effectively means the card got "cancelled" for the time being... one is forced to look for chips on Asian resellers and they are quick to update their prices according to demand and next availability date stated by factories... so when there is an expected delay of 18+ months they just price at 15x

Damn that sounds awful. Then let's hope the situation clears up sometime.

Thanks for the clarification! At least I still have a standard PCMIDI card from you for a couple of years now 😀

While it may look like the card is more 'complete' with the MPC-010Add-On, that is not entirely true.. For what it's worth, I have tried the card's CMI MIDI without the MPC010 add on and the MPU401 works flawlessly. If you are using it on a 386 or later, with SoftMPU it drives my MT32-Pi and Sound Canvas devices perfectly fine.

The real appeal of the addon card as far as I am concerned is that:

a) It's a great great great ISA card and an intelligent mode MPU in one ISA slot, which may be a super big deal if you are using a platform with very few ISA expansion slots (It happens..)
b) The release version will allow you to enable PCMIDI alongside CMI MIDI on different ports and IRQs.. So in theory you could run a GM wavetable daughterboard or a Sound Canvas device on CMIMIDI while the PCMIDI drives a WP32 McCake or an external MT-32 device. This is a very desirable setup, but not necessarily something everyone would need, not to mention can be achieved with a discrete PCMIDI card regardless.

So yeah, don't be afraid to pull the trigger on this without the addon. It is absolutely unmatched for quality in its price bracket. Leo and co did a fantastic job on this. Now I need to go back to playing some games 🤣

I will record some more FM game music tomorrow, I am thinking Sim City 2000, Daggerfall, Ultima Underworld and UFO: Enemy Unknown. Cheers.

Sounds really great!

Doom e1m1 and Warcraft 2 human1, please. My personal favorites. 😀

appiah4 wrote on 2022-05-08, 18:24:

I have been using this card in my daily driver retro PC (Cx5x86-120) for three days now, and this is by far, by a long long long far, the most amazing ISA sound card I ever used.

I mean, just listen to this recording. This is captured from the card's Analog Line Out using a Behringer UMC22 USB DAC. Brilliant..

Dune - Arrakeen Palace

If it's not too much to ask - could we please have a comparison recording, with the same recording equipment and audio samples, but using a more mundane enthusiast ISA card (say an Audician32) ?

Without that, it's impossible (from a recording) to actually objectify how it differs from the norm.

Shreddoc wrote on 2022-05-08, 21:58:

appiah4 wrote on 2022-05-08, 18:24:

I have been using this card in my daily driver retro PC (Cx5x86-120) for three days now, and this is by far, by a long long long far, the most amazing ISA sound card I ever used.

I mean, just listen to this recording. This is captured from the card's Analog Line Out using a Behringer UMC22 USB DAC. Brilliant..

Dune - Arrakeen Palace

If it's not too much to ask - could we please have a comparison recording, with the same recording equipment and audio samples, but using a more mundane enthusiast ISA card (say an Audician32) ?

Without that, it's impossible (from a recording) to actually objectify how it differs from the norm.

For me all that obsession with getting the "cleanest" analog output are an audiophile thing. The most practical purpose I see for this is when using headphones.

Don't get me wrong, I would recommend that sound card considering the breath of compatibility with DOS games once it is released.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-05-08, 23:12:

Shreddoc wrote on 2022-05-08, 21:58:

appiah4 wrote on 2022-05-08, 18:24:

I have been using this card in my daily driver retro PC (Cx5x86-120) for three days now, and this is by far, by a long long long far, the most amazing ISA sound card I ever used.

I mean, just listen to this recording. This is captured from the card's Analog Line Out using a Behringer UMC22 USB DAC. Brilliant..

Dune - Arrakeen Palace

If it's not too much to ask - could we please have a comparison recording, with the same recording equipment and audio samples, but using a more mundane enthusiast ISA card (say an Audician32) ?

Without that, it's impossible (from a recording) to actually objectify how it differs from the norm.

For me all that obsession with getting the "cleanest" analog output are an audiophile thing. The most practical purpose I see for this is when using headphones.

Don't get me wrong, I would recommend that sound card considering the breath of compatibility with DOS games once it is released.

I would not consider myself an "audiophile" (at least not the snake oil consuming, confirmation biased and objectivity challenged type), but I confess to being an OCD fuelled "measurebator" at times.

Also, I do primarily use headphones when listening to music and playing games .

I am looking forward to this card.

Oh, and I have noticed that unlike every other CMI8330 or HT1869v+ based card that I have seen, this one actually has a 14.318MHz oscillator on board rather than sourcing that clock from the ISA bus. Is that a first for a card based on that chip ?

EDIT : Corrected typo