I am in sound paradise
Written: Nov 02 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: 4.1,5.1,6.1 or 7.1 sound!!!
Cons: It should have come with a remote
The Bottom Line: If you are into gaming and DVD movies, this is the sound card for you.
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| PKM_Assassin's Full Review: Guillemot Maxi Sound Game Theater XP |
Two months ago, it was time to upgrade my system; among the various parts to be replaced was my aging sound card. I have always used SoundBlaster cards since my first system, back in the stone age of 1990 and I had no hesitation but to buy the SoundBlaster Live Platinum card. I had mentioned I was going to buy this card to a few of my online friends, most agreed with me as they too had various flavors of the SoundBlaster Live card; One did not, he had mentioned that he had just bought the Hercules Game Theater XP, he enjoyed it much better then the SoundBlaster Live Platinum that he had just taken back to the store because of Hardware conflict issues (this happens quite often). He told me to at least check it out before I commit my self; “sure, what the heck, I will at least check it out” I said.
I went to the Hercules site located at http://us.hercules.com to see what all the fuss was about, I very quickly became impressed. I was able to see exactly what he meant by “an external rack” and I was able to read numerous independent reviews, written by big name computer magazines, that gave very high marks for this new comer; I decided to take the leap and I bought the Game Theater XP the very next day.
The installation on my Windows 2000 computer was very straight forward, turn the machine off, pull out the old card, pop in the new card, close the cover, plug one end of the thick cable into the card, the other end to the rack, power up the rack, plug in my new DeskTop Theatre™ 5.1 DTT2200 speakers and turn on my system, voila, done in 5 minutes. All I had to do was install the driver, again very fast and painless, reboot and I was in sound paradise. I just verified that all the speakers where working and everything was installed properly via the desktop icon that allows you to test and tweak the whole sound system. The general Windows sounds sounded great, but because the Game Theater is also an EAX sound card, I downloaded the EAX patch for Unreal Tournament and said “lets really take her for a spin”. All I can say is “un-%$#’n believable” it is like I was deaf and now I can hear, the true 3D sounds are just too hard to describe. My only disappointment was that CD’s and MP3’s only played in stereo; I was really hoping that they would play like a Dolby Prologic receiver and would play in at least 4.1 sound.
All this has now changed with the new 6.1 driver that Hercules just released on there web site to coincide with the new Windows XP OS. Not only will the system now run on the XP OS, but the system now runs as a 6.1 sound system!!!! But you do not have a sixth speaker you say, the rack only accepts 5 speakers you say, not to worry, the sixth speaker is a virtual speaker that works with the new Dolby Digital 7.1 sound standard, the two new speakers are joined and given a virtual sound, it is hard to describe, but it sounds great. This 6th speaker also works in EAX games, man, I thought UT sounded great in 5.1, you should hear it in 6.1.
This new driver also plays all stereo sounds as 5.1 pro logic, CD’s and MP3’s sound even better. But wait, that is not all, from poking around in the help files and on the web site, I found that the 6th virtual speaker is only for if you do not have the two extra speakers, if you want true 7.1 sound from the new Dolby Digital 7.1 standard, all you have to do is set an option in the hardware console, not the Game Theater Icon, then plug the other two speakers into the headphone jack and voila, true Dolby Digital 7.1 sound. Now, I could not get PowerDVD, DVD software that comes with the Game Theater, to work with the 7.1, but I have now upgraded to the Windows XP operating system and the new DVD player in Windows Media player, will play it no problem. I confirmed this when I bought the first episode of Star Wars, one of the first 7.1 movies available. I was able to go to the THX setup and test all seven channels, they all worked and the movie was even better then I had anticipated.
OK, now onto what this rack thingy is. Basically it is very similar to the drive mount of the SoundBlaster Live Platinum, but way way better. The rack is completely external to the computer it self, attached only by a thick black cord to the back of your computer. The front has a headphone jack with volume control, line input and 2 USB ports. The USB ports are for you to plug in USB joysticks or other USB game paraphernalia. The back of the rack look very much like my home receiver, it has analog connections out for Front, rear, center and subwoofer (also known as Low Frequency), it also has digital, in and out connections for both co axle and fiber optic, plus MIDI in and out and two more USB ports; that is one heck of a lot of in/out options.
In conclusion, all I can say is WOW…You get a much better system then the SoundBlaster Live Platinum, better sound, less hardware conflicts and way more options, the best part is, it costs about $70.00 CDN less then the SoundBlaster. If you are in the market for a high end game/DVD sound card, then I 100% recommend you have a look, you will not be disappointed.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 199.00 CDN
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Epinions.com ID:
PKM_Assassin
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Location: Ontario, Canada
Reviews written: 26
Trusted by: 10 members
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