The Card

The DigiFire 7.1 features a blue PCB, like the other cards in the Hercules line, and would look good in any case, especially one with a window mod.  The coloring has no effect on the overall performance, but it adds points in the cool category.  Looking at the input/ouput connectors on the edge of the card is somewhat overwhelming at first.  Hercules has included so many different connectors that the joystick/midi port has been relegated to a separate bracket.  The most noticable inclusion are the two FireWire ports.  For video transfer and other FireWire peripherals, this comes as a huge bonus to an already excellent sound card.  A third FireWire connector is hidden internally on the card.  The DigiFire is capable of creating a FireWire network, thanks to the Agere FW323-05 IEEE 1394 controller.  This chip provides three cable ports, each supporting 400 Mbits/s, 200 Mbits/s and 100 Mbits/s.  An optical output gives additional flexibility to the card for MiniDiscs or an external audio decoder/amplifier and speaker system.  One component that had us guessing was the unused Feature connector on the PCB.  This could be used in the future to connect this card to a Game TheaterXP style external rack, which would be an interesting combination.  Dominating the bracket, though, are the speaker outputs for the 7.1 audio playback.  Most of us are used to seeing two or three outputs on the I/O bracket.  On the DigiFire 7.1 there are four.  To understand the new 7.1 sound, a basic understanding of surround sound systems is required.  Of course, you could just take my word for it and buy the card.  Either way.

I’m sure most people are familar with stereo sound.  Two speakers, right and left.  This was pretty cool when we where still using Hi-Fi VCRs watching Top Gun in VHS.  As movies and home theater advanced, so did the audio equipment in the typical living room.  The major difference between the audio at the movies and your house is the sheer number of speakers.  If you have ever taken the time to notice the placement of the speakers at the local theater, you’ll see that you are litterally surrounded by speakers.  Hence the mystical surround sound is born.  Now, this is more than just putting dozens of speakers in a room and calling it surround sound.  True surround sound has separate, distinct tracks for each of the speakers, or channels as they are called.  Like all things tech, surround sound has evolved since the original Dolby Stereo in 1975.  The first surround sound systems used six speakers; front left, center, front right, subwoofer, and typically two surround speakers in the rear.  The rear surround channel was a matrix, meaning the rear speakers shared the same signal or sound.  The effect was considerably better than plain stereo.  Dolby Digital brought an even higher degree of separation to the sound field, by utilizing five separate channels; front left, center, front right, rear left, rear right, and a subwoofer (the .1 in the 5.1 designation).  Dolby Digital EX takes this concept one step further, and adds yets another channel to the surround sound field.  EX includes separate front left, center, front right, surround left, surround right, rear surround, and the subwoofer.  This completely encompasses the listener in sound, in all 360 degrees of the sound field.  This new Dolby Digital EX is already in use on several mainstream DVD titles, which we will be using for testing during the performance section of this review.

Some of you may have noticed that the DigiFire 7.1 is equipped with the Cirrus Logic Sound Fusion CS4624.  This chipset is only capable of supporting up to four audio outputs, which would be the typical sound setup for a home PC.  Taking a closer look at the DigiFire’s PCB will reveal not one, but two separate CS4294 AC97 CODECs along with all of the supporting hardware.  Each of the CODECs handles half of the audio load, or four speakers.  Not a bad use of existing technology.

We installed the card in our latest test system, hooked up several different sets of speakers for comparisons, and let the audio torture tests begin.  Here’s a quick look at the test system and methods:

Testing:

• Star Wars Episode II:  Attack of the Clones – Dolby Digital EX


• Lord of the Rings – Dolby Digital EX


• Black Hawk Down – Dolby Digital 5.1


• Soldier of Fortune II - Gaming


• BattleField 1942 – Gaming


• Unreal Tournament 2003 – Gaming


• AudioBench99 – Synthetic CPU Usage Benchmark


• Various CD/MP3 Audio – Subjective Listening Tests

System and Drivers:

• Abit NF7-S nForce2


• AMD AthlonXP 2100+


• 256MB Mushkin PC2100 DDR


• ATI Radeon 9700 Pro


• Ricoh DVD/CDRW


• PowerDVD Pro EX (Supplied with the DigiFire 7.1)


• Windows 2000 Pro


• DirectX 8.1


• DigiFire 6.07 Driver


• Altec Lansing 5100 5.1 and 2100 2.1


• Altec Lansing 641 4.1


• Logitech Z560 4.1

For the PC user seeking the ultimate surround sound experience for their system, the DigiFire’s 7.1 is more than adequate.  The only difficulty with the system is finding a true 7.1 speaker system that doesn’t exceed the cost of the PC.  Currently there are few 6.1 or 7.1 speaker systems available for the PC, with the Creative Labs Inspire 6600 6.1 System being the only mainstream system I could find.  We were able to create our own 7.1 system by combining a 5.1 and 2.1 system, using two systems from Altec Lansing.  Rumor has it that Hercules will be releasing their own 7.1 speaker system to address this issue, so hopefully we can get a set of those once they hit the market.