Electronics Overview

Electronics Overview

We have always added these sections to our reviews to help people understand what they are buying when they slap down their hard earned audio dollars. 

Soundcards can look very similar to each other but can sound drastically different.  This is mainly due to the component choices made by the cards designers. 

In the next section, we will attempt to give you a better idea of what the individual components offer and a brief note about their quality.

Digital to Analog Converters (DAC) - AKM AK4396 (output)

This DAC can be seen in many audio designs; it features Delta Sigma Architecture with a 120dB SNR and 24 bit 192 kHz operation from stereo to 7.1 surround operation.  For those new to audio designs, this chip is mainly responsible for the output sound quality.

Analog to Digital Converters (ADC) - AKM AK5385 (input)

This chip takes the analog input and converts it to digital for use by the chipset and system.  These chips are seen in many high quality units such as the ne Mackie Onyx series audio mixers.  This chip offers 24/192 KHz operation with a dynamic range and Signal to noise of 114dB.

Opamps

NE5532  

This chip has to be the definition of Generic, with that being said, this chip has been used in everything from professional quality audio mixers to high end receivers.  This opamp has a very "analog" tube flavor.  In our opinion, this chip was chosen based on price to performance ratio.

This opamp could be changed by the end user and still provide good sound quality for those who opt for a stock layout.

JRC4580

These opamps are found in various places on the board and are used for buffering and level adjustment for the line input and microphone sections.  They are a low cost, low noise opamp and were used on the original XM for output opamps.

Power and Grounding

We were quite impressed to see the modified power section on this card.  This card offers some beefy capacitors for power filtering and supply.  Since audio designers know signal quality is closely related to power supply quality, it is nice to see companies are paying special attention to this section.

The XM 7.1 2G marks the second card to offer this unique grounding selector switch, this switch changes the ground point from the chassis to the signal.  This switch would prevent or cure any ground issues with the PSU and chassis. If the end users system has some type of grounding issue, this switch can prevent it from affecting the cards sound quality.