Well first of all, thanks to the fine guys at Tube Time that have retro engineered the Sound Blaster, they did a meticulous job, all those schematics, the PCB replica free to print..
Back in September/October i sent the gerber files to Jlcpcb, didn't spend too much for the minimum order of 5 cards.
Started ordering lots of different IC's from China probably including many 'fakes'. (Old chips sanded and rebranded) But oh boy they were so cheap, and i have enough to make 4 more cards.
Scrounged some components from old cards.
Decided to put sockets to every chip, to test and replace potential faulty ones.
Here it is
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Well the good news is it fully works, even with all shady components imported from China. Had no issues with programming the microcontroller on the card.
Here i am testing the microphone input with a famous (at least for me) parrot.
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I 3d printed the bracket using Thermalwrong files. Had to adapt it to my out of standard Jacks, very nice tho.
Bad news i didn't find the original potentiometer for cheap, i did use another (working really fine). I'll replace it in the future,or glue a new wheel on it.
Midi sound is excellent, digital audio works fine.
I did even try the SAA1099 with Monkey island and it works. Really interesting sound.