I also bought an Aztech Sound Galaxy Waverider 32+ (I38-MMSN826) last year but, sadly, the card was DOA.
I recently acquired a later version (I38-MMSN847), which is on its way and is based on a different MIDI chipset.

I have the Guillemot Maxi Sound Home Studio 2 sound card, which also has the SAM Dream 9407 and ES1868F chipsets.
However, all my soundfonts are loaded into memory upon startup (it uses the .94b extension 4MB soundfont).
The MIDI quality is quite good when I load the standard soundfont in DOS but, I noticed one day that there was a different 4MB soundfont stored in the Windows folder (which the sound card's setup utility installed).
Upon listening very closely, I realised that this particular soundfount was an exact (or very close) copy of the Roland SC-55 MIDI samples.
So, now I use that soundfont instead.

As for the ES1868F chipset.
It's Sound Blaster Pro 2 compatibility is quite good and I've never had any problems with it.
You will find that most Sound Blaster Pro 2 clones can only mix up to 22.05 KHz stereo in Sound Blaster Pro 2 mode but, most of these clones also supports the Windows Sound System which can mix up to 44.1 KHz stereo in DOS (I've tried this on my Sound Galaxy sound cards in Inertia Player and it works if you choose Windows Sound System in the setup). Unfortunately, very few DOS games supports the Windows Sound System natively.
In Windows, most 16-bit sound cards can mix up to 44.1 KHz stereo via the sound card's Windows driver.

Are you sure you aren't perhaps mixing 44.1 KHz mono in Sound Blaster Pro 2 mode in Inertia player? If you are mixing in stereo, then I would say it's more of an exception than the norm, since the original Sound Blaster Pro 2 specficiation only allows you to mix up to 22.05 KHz in stereo and up to 44.1 KHz in mono.

jesolo wrote:

Are you sure you aren't perhaps mixing 44.1 KHz mono in Sound Blaster Pro 2 mode in Inertia player? If you are mixing in stereo, then I would say it's more of an exception than the norm, since the original Sound Blaster Pro 2 specficiation only allows you to mix up to 22.05 KHz in stereo and up to 44.1 KHz in mono.

Yes i am absolutely sure. The YMF-71x cards unlike other clones i've tried can indeed play Stereo at 44KHz in SB Pro 2. It is just something particular of the YMF chipsets. Not only Inertia does report it is playing in Stereo, i also run my sound cards via a mixer, where i can separate and mute each channels. The other clones have the same behaviour just like a true SB Pro 2. Sampling Stereo at 44KHz results in very slow playback, because the cards can't simply mix at that speed. The YMF cards don't suffer from this and results in better playback quality.

Of course there aren't any games AFAIK that will take advantage of this. I do notice a playback quality advantage on some games like Wolfenstein 3D where the most likely 8bit samples sound definitely better/cleaner on a YMF card than on the ES1868F or my SB CT1600. This is one of the reasons i insist on using YMF cards so much. Maybe the the YMF chipsets do real time resampling? I don't know but many people don't use YMF cards because these don't sound exactly like old Creative cards. Some people prefer keeping the experience they had for nostalgia reasons.

And this reminds me how much i would like to own an Audiotrix 3D-XG card.

jesolo wrote:

I have the Guillemot Maxi Sound Home Studio 2 sound card, which also has the SAM Dream 9407 and ES1868F chipsets. However, all m […]
Show full quote

I have the Guillemot Maxi Sound Home Studio 2 sound card, which also has the SAM Dream 9407 and ES1868F chipsets.
However, all my soundfonts are loaded into memory upon startup (it uses the .94b extension 4MB soundfont).
The MIDI quality is quite good when I load the standard soundfont in DOS but, I noticed one day that there was a different 4MB soundfont stored in the Windows folder (which the sound card's setup utility installed).
Upon listening very closely, I realised that this particular soundfount was an exact (or very close) copy of the Roland SC-55 MIDI samples.
So, now I use that soundfont instead.

Good to know, i will definitely try different sound fonts. I'm wondering if there are any wavetable daughterboard cards that sport the SAM Dream 9407 chipset.

carlostex wrote:

Of course there aren't any games AFAIK that will take advantage of this. I do notice a playback quality advantage on some games like Wolfenstein 3D where the most likely 8bit samples sound definitely better/cleaner on a YMF card than on the ES1868F or my SB CT1600. This is one of the reasons i insist on using YMF cards so much. Maybe the the YMF chipsets do real time resampling? I don't know but many people don't use YMF cards because these don't sound exactly like old Creative cards. Some people prefer keeping the experience they had for nostalgia reasons.

In what way do these YMF cards sound different?
Which fairly well known cards utilise this chipset?

I have a Guillemot Maxi Sound Game Theater 64, and It Works quite well, there's two kind of fm playback, one when played in Windows, that's made by ess, and another one, that's played in dos mode, that's kind of a opl3 clone (The only dos game that could play the ess fm synth in dos was warcraft 2 ).
I have some vídeos showing his opl3/wavetable quality video 1 video 2, also here's a link with some flac quality recordings from it

carlostex wrote:

The DOS drivers have a hard time recognizing the card.

Posting from 2012: Re: Guillemot Maxi Sound home studio 64 pro - no music in pure DOS
I would also recommend the 94B soundfont package which is also available on vogonsdrivers as well as reading the ews64xl related thread.
The guillemot cards use an SAM effects setting by default which is not as dry as the the one from the EWS64XL.