Well, initial thoughts are that yeah, it sounds cleaner then Awe 32 to me, but thats based off limited testing, so I cant even begin to say compared to Awe 64. As far as selecting Ultrasound versus Awe mode goes in Doom II and Duke 3d for music playback, it varies. Some of the midi sounds are more synthetic sounding compared to Awe, but, and this is the thing, it sounds more like the Ultrasound is playing the tracks like they were intended to be heard in the case of Doom II, compared to the Awe playing the tracks as it interprets them, which is the same issue I have with SB live midi music playback on Doom II also.
On Doom II, right off the bat, if you let the demo run, that first stage it shows, the Ultrasound playing the music track for that stage , and the one after it sound better then on Awe or Sb Live. The awe and SB live make that one stage music sound almost like a happy and slow Caribbean melody or something, and the following demo stage after that, the music playing on the Ultrasound comes off as colder and more menacing.
Duke Nukem main theme on other hand, I think its better represented on Awe and SB Live. It sounds great on Ultra, dont get me wrong, but thats one track that really does seem to take advantage of Creatives tech. On Ultrasound mode it kinda sounds like something coming off the Atari Jaguar. More advanced then SB 16 playback by far, but not at Awe level.
It may end up being a toss up for me with other games too as I go. Its just too early to say. Oh yeah also, I had to manually set the irq for the Ultrasound modes. Had to do it in Windows, then carried same settings over to Dos mode. Otherwise it would set at irq 11 for the Ultrasound modes, which Duke 3d needs 10 or below.