Tag : catalina 8, turtle beach, sound card, channel pci, 3430 01

Company : Turtle Beach List Price : $49.99 Amazon Price : Used Price : Average customer review :

Accessoies

• Targus PA400U DEFCON 1 Ultra Notebook Computer Security System
• Cyber Acoustics ACM-500R Multi User Stereo Headphones
• Altec Lansing 120 Two Satellite Speaker PC Music & Gaming System
• Altec Lansing VS3151 6-Piece System
• Sennheiser PC145 Behind The Neck PC Gaming Headset with USB Connection

Features

• Optical S/PDIF In/Out for recording & playback of pure digital audio at resolutions of up to 24 Bits at 96KHz sample rate - allowing for pass-through of Dolby Digital & DTS multi-channel DVD sound to external A/V receivers
• Selectable 2, 4, 6, or 8 analog line output channels with 18 Bit resolution at up to 48 KHz sampling rate
• Converts stereo sound sources to multi-channel format - so you can listen to 2-channel MP3 music or movies with an enhanced multi-speaker surround sound environment
• Supports Game Surround Sound APIs such as EAX 2.0 & A3D
• Inputs - Mic, Stereo Line, S/PDIF, Internal connectors for CD & Aux audio sources

Product Description

Turtle Beach Catalina 8-Channel PCI Sound Card - Whether you're an avid PC Gamer, or building your own HTPC, this 8-channel sound card will take careof all of your audio worries. Supporting 5.1, 6.1,&7.1 surround sound speaker configurations, you can enjoy games&movies in an incredibly realistic environment. Outputs - Front L/R, Rear L/R, Center/Sub, Back L/R,&S/PDIF Includes - Intervideo WinDVD, Voyetra AudioStation LE, Voyetra AudioSurgeon LE, Voyetra music sampler suite,&control panel

Customer reviews

Customer support unavailable from company; product is "discontinued"
Don't count on Turtle Beach if you need customer support because they have "discountinued" the product. I was having a heck of a time getting my S/PDIF output working with my Onkyo receiver until windowsupdate.com updated the driver (NOTE: I had to go to windowsupdate.com, select Custom update, and then I was able to select the driver -- drivers are not an automatic update from what I can tell). In the end, I got it working, but had a few days of frustration with it not working.

As with many sound cards, the master volume control does not affect the volume level of the S/PDIF output, however the company has released a "patch" which is a seperate application you put in your Startup, which will tie the master volume control to the S/PDIF output volume.

I haven't tested any of the multi-channel stuff. I'm just using this for listening to music on my receiver in 2-channel mode.

bang > buck
My old sound card bit the dust and I found myself scrambling for a replacement. After trying different low-to-medium-priced options, and finding none of them suitable for my needs, I did some reading and bought this card.
The main purpose of my sound card is for the archiving of analog material to digital format. For this, I needed a card that would record my source with clarity, leaving as little artifacting as possible, and without hogging system resources. I will say that this card performs this task BEAUTIFULLY: the detailing of the music I record is accurate and deep, the noise floor is virtually imperceptible to the ear, and after giving it a series of 20-80 minute archiving chores to perform, not once did it cause any anomalies (stutters, skips, clicks, etc.) associated by bogged-down system resources.
In short, this card outperforms any other card (that I've tried at least) of equal or lesser price by such a wide margin that it's hard to believe. Not only that, but you'd have to spend twice as much-- or more-- to find a card as good as this one, and probably three or four times as much before finding one that performs better. And, honestly, if your archiving needs are such that you'd need better performance than this card can provide, let's face it: you're looking at the $250+ cards, and not reading this review anyway! Otherwise, buy and enjoy!
(As for the software bundled with the card: I haven't given any of it a very thorough test. It looks like good stuff at first glance, though, and even if it isn't, you've already gotten more than your money for the card itself.)

Great 7.1 Sound Card
Just to respond - while the Catalina is a *different* card than our older Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, it does have some things the Santa Cruz just didn't have.

7.1 outputs
Both digital in and out - S/PDIF optical connections.
24 bit / 96 kHz
Pass through Dolby® Digital and DTS®


So while a Santa Cruz might have been more what you were looking for - this is still a GREAT card.

Not as many features as the Santa Cruz
I bought this card mainly because of the digital input so I could use it with my digital multi-track recorder. I had already purchased and returned the Sound Blaster Audigy because of some static during playback. When I saw that Turtle Beach offered a card w/ digital inputs I thought it would be great. The sound on this card is excellent but the lack of features has caused me to return it and put my old Santa Cruz card back in. The digital-in works and you can monitor it through your speakers. My problem was that I couldn't record it. For some reason Acid Pro software does not recognize that signal. It could be because of the sampling rate being much higher but I don't know. The Audigy would let me at least record it. If you were watching DVDs and sending the audio to a digital receiver I could see where it would be helpful. Also the lack of the versa jack was also a major drawback. I use the versa jack on the Santa Cruz to monitor with my headphones. I still couldn't get the headphones to work along with the other speakers or to get it to where I could easily switch it back and forth from the software. Anyway, Turtle Beach cards sound great. I use it with the Klipsch Pro Media 2 speakers and the sound is incredible. I took all my other components out and just use the sound card and speakers. My advice would be to stick with the Santa Cruz model if you can find one. I am giving it three stars not because of sound quality but because of a lack of features.

Get the Santa Cruz instead!
This card have less features than the Santa Cruz. It does not even come with any tweakable parameters such as an Equalizer. I have the Santa Cruz in my other pc and wished that I bought that card instead!