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Sound Blaster Pro 2 CT1600 Revisions

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Reply 20 of 104, by James-F

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Here are photos of the two known CT2600 Revisions:

019310
029323 [Thanks to AmoRetro]

The 01 revision looks like the 06 layout of the CT1600, and the revision date matches that period.
The 02 revision looks like 07/08 of the CT1600 with a completely new layout.

Last edited by James-F on 2016-09-30, 16:41. Edited 8 times in total.


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Reply 22 of 104, by James-F

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Credit is where credit's due.
I trimmed all the images and saved them on my mediafire in case they disappear.

EDIT: Changed 29323 to the original URL from AmoRetro.
Sorry FGB, I had no intention to infringe copyright whatsoever.
I trimmed all images to have the same look over the PCB and archive on my mediafire.

Last edited by James-F on 2016-09-30, 15:35. Edited 4 times in total.


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Reply 23 of 104, by FGB

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Yeah, that's my photo with my copyright removed by someone.
That's the original file: http://www.amoretro.de/ebay/2014/01/ct2600.jpg

www.AmoRetro.de Visit my huge hardware gallery with many historic items from 16MHz 286 to 1000MHz Slot A. Includes more than 80 soundcards and a growing Wavetable Recording section with more than 300 recordings.

Reply 24 of 104, by Cloudschatze

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James-F wrote:

The 19 revision...

As firage mentioned earlier, and as I described in a post several years ago, the format is almost certainly VVYYWW, or version, year, week. Referring to the (at least eight, not counting pre-production, "00" models) SBPro2 cards as anything other than 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08 versions/revisions is bound to lead to unnecessary confusion.

Reply 25 of 104, by FGB

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James-F wrote:
Credit is where credit's due. I trimmed all the images and saved them on my mediafire in case they disappear. […]
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Credit is where credit's due.
I trimmed all the images and saved them on my mediafire in case they disappear.

EDIT: Changed 29323 to the original URL from AmoRetro.
Sorry FGB, I had no intention to infringe copyright whatsoever.
I trimmed all images to have the same look over the PCB and archive on my mediafire.

No problem as long as you don't make them available in the public.

www.AmoRetro.de Visit my huge hardware gallery with many historic items from 16MHz 286 to 1000MHz Slot A. Includes more than 80 soundcards and a growing Wavetable Recording section with more than 300 recordings.

Reply 26 of 104, by James-F

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Cloudschatze wrote:

As firage mentioned earlier, and as I described in a post several years ago, the format is almost certainly VVYYWW, or version, year, week. Referring to the (at least eight, not counting pre-production, "00" models) SBPro2 cards as anything other than 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08 versions/revisions is bound to lead to unnecessary confusion.

Thank you for clarifying this, I will refer to the revisions properly from now on.
I also edited the posts with proper numbers.
Any information you know about CT1600/CT2600 and can share Cloudschatze?

FGB wrote:

No problem as long as you don't make them available in the public.

I prefer not to use my trimmed image at all.
Sorry again.


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Reply 27 of 104, by FGB

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No worries, James-F, everything is fine.

www.AmoRetro.de Visit my huge hardware gallery with many historic items from 16MHz 286 to 1000MHz Slot A. Includes more than 80 soundcards and a growing Wavetable Recording section with more than 300 recordings.

Reply 28 of 104, by squareguy

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I'll post pictures tonight. I seem to have an even newer one with DSP 3.02 and CT1345-T1

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Reply 29 of 104, by James-F

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Counting the revision change weeks of the CT1600:

039151 -> 049219 = 20 weeks.
049219 -> 059234 = 5 weeks.
059234 -> 069237 = 3 weeks.
069237 -> 079337 = 52 weeks.
079337 -> 089414 = 29 weeks.

These dates tell us that the SBPro2.0 lived side by side with the SB16 for years, so one cannot say that the SB16 replaced the SBPro.

squareguy wrote:

I'll post pictures tonight. I seem to have an even newer one with DSP 3.02 and CT1345-T1

What is the revision number? What is the model number 1600 or 2600?

Last edited by James-F on 2016-09-30, 16:36. Edited 3 times in total.


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Reply 30 of 104, by FGB

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James-F wrote:
Counting the revision change weeks of the CT1600: […]
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Counting the revision change weeks of the CT1600:

03 -> 04 = 20 weeks.
04 -> 05 = 5 weeks.
05 -> 06 = 3 weeks.
06 -> 07 = 52 weeks.
07 -> 08 = 29 weeks.

squareguy wrote:

I'll post pictures tonight. I seem to have an even newer one with DSP 3.02 and CT1345-T1

What is the revision number? 1600 or 2600?

The CTxxxx is the model number, not the revision number. I think what you try is to show the differences between the different revisions of a certain model. IMO a "model" by Creatives definition always has the same featureset while the revisions of a certain model show technical differences without changing the featureset the company is advertising.

www.AmoRetro.de Visit my huge hardware gallery with many historic items from 16MHz 286 to 1000MHz Slot A. Includes more than 80 soundcards and a growing Wavetable Recording section with more than 300 recordings.

Reply 32 of 104, by FGB

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I wonder if we can prove that the output quality is affected by the 1345 hardware mixer chip. I once had a CT1600 with mixer 1345 and a CT2600 with a 1345-S mixer. The CT2600 sounded noticible cleaner and also had better bass (and also trebles, I don't remember exactly) response from the OPL3. Of course it can be coincidence but maybe you can fact check this with your knowledge.

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Reply 33 of 104, by James-F

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Indeed I will.

In my experience the mixer chip revisions on the SB16 have nothing to do with self noise.
In fact, older mixer chips (non S) appear on newer silent revisions like the SB16 CT2950 and vise-versa.
Also, if I would have to guess, the mixer chip has a completely analog audio path that changes volumes by a bunch of internal opamp gains.
My guess is based on the knowledge that the line-In on the SBPro do not go through the 8bit 22kHz DAC, but goes only through the Mixer without degrading the input signal sampling rate or bitdepth.

Visual comparison and user reports showed that actually the DAC chip has the biggest contribution to noise, not the Mixer chip.

Last edited by James-F on 2016-09-30, 17:37. Edited 2 times in total.


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Reply 36 of 104, by FGB

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kixs wrote:
Found a picture of my 2600: […]
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Found a picture of my 2600:

r30OdtJt.jpg

Anything special about it? 😉

Nothing but the fact your CT2600 is a CT1600 in reality. One of the older revisions with a 1336 instead of a 1336A 😵

www.AmoRetro.de Visit my huge hardware gallery with many historic items from 16MHz 286 to 1000MHz Slot A. Includes more than 80 soundcards and a growing Wavetable Recording section with more than 300 recordings.

Reply 37 of 104, by keropi

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the SB16 thread made me wanting to replace my CT2230 in my main DOS build with a CT1600 , my hopes is that this thread won't make me replace the CT1600 with something else... just saying 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

I am about to install the CT1600 in my ss7 build, see how that fares... I don't really care it's 22k only, trouble-free operation is more important to me 😀

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Reply 38 of 104, by James-F

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keropi wrote:

the SB16 thread made me wanting to replace my CT2230 in my main DOS build with a CT1600 , my hopes is that this thread won't make me replace the CT1600 with something else... just saying 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

🤣 I take complete and full responsibility for that, but you know, people thought the world was flat once.
Science is science, "facts" become "wrongs" and disappear in the pages of history.
The only sure thing is change...

This thread will produce some results for sure, so get ready. 😁

keropi wrote:

I am about to install the CT1600 in my ss7 build, see how that fares... I don't really care it's 22k only, trouble-free operation is more important to me 😀

Don't worry about the 22kHz limit, not a single DOS game actually uses 44kHz samples.


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Reply 39 of 104, by James-F

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FGB wrote:

Nothing but the fact your CT2600 is a CT1600 in reality. One of the older revisions with a 1336 instead of a 1336A 😵

The CT1336 Bus Interface chip is like a "brain" or a "Control Center" and is not responsible for the audio part.
So I would not worry at all about the difference between the A and non-A changes.

SBP 1336.png
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As for the DAC in the SBPro2, it is not a single chip like on the SB16 but a bunch of 3403 and 4053 ICs.
edit: I was wrong, it is very much the DSP.

As for the DSP versions, it looks like 04 introduced v3.02 till revision 08, where prior to 04 the DSP was v3.01.

Last edited by James-F on 2016-12-16, 05:49. Edited 4 times in total.


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