Although we would consider this card to be meant more for movies and music, a point to which Auzentech also suggests, this card can hold its own for gaming.  We think with the CPU becoming more powerful and offering multiple cores, software based cards can now compete closely with hardware based gaming cards in many situations.

During our tests, the Bravura offered great sound quality, with wide sound stage, great clarity and great bass.  Based on our examination it seems precedence was given to output sound quality for the given price point.  The card has some design considerations that are meant only to improve the cards output sound quality such as the capacitors used for the opamp circuits, power circuitry or the higher grade opamps.

We quite enjoyed the sound of this card; it has a very musical profile that makes you want to listen to the next song.  The card is very detailed and balanced in either headphone or multi-channel output modes.  Although we did find the Win XP drivers to be somewhat lacking, we can only fault Auzentech so much considering the age and many have moved on to the newer Vista and recently released Windows 7.

The swappable opamps offer a great deal of sound signature options, allowing the end user to tune their card to their personal taste or tune the card to being a better match for their amplifiers and speakers or favorite headphones.

Given the price point, great sound quality, opamp options, powerful headphone amp and component choices we give the Bravura our recommended award.  This is a great sounding card and you can make it your own with some simple modifications!  If you’re looking for a new soundcard and the Bravo 7.1 has the features you want, you should definitely put this card on your list. 

Until next time, this is Robscix in the Guru3D Audio lab signing off.

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