Info: M-Audio

Price: ~$99 USD

The M-Audio Revolution 7.1

I must thank a certain guru3d.com reader, Roj, whose name I won't change because he's been a pain in the ass.  He kept at us with each new sound card review to take a look at the M-Audio Revolution. Ok, I thought, he's just a fanatic.  I've been a fanatic, I understand the mentality.  He probably uses a Mac, too.  Then I just had enough, my email inbox literally flooded with email:  "Review the M-Audio!!!"  He wrote.

Fine.

Dude, you're getting a Revolution.

Let's do a meet-and-greet of M-Audio.  I had never heard of M-Audio before Roj's suggestion, but I had heard of a company called Midiman.  Midiman was founded in 1988, producing audio products for the professional studio recording crowd.  In 2001, Midiman became M-Audio and launched a consumer-grade division to bring the company's professional expertise to the mainstream.  It was a smart move, as just about anybody with a computer and a CD burner could now record and master their own high-quality CDs.  Enter M-Audio's fruit of labour, the Revolution 7.1.