Page 9 - RMAA
RMAA 6.0.5
Back to my old saying, another review, another RMAA version, this time to 6.0.5. The gradual improvement on this program is just about as fast I can write reviews anyway, so this is good. RMAA 6 tests the electrical components of a sound card, by playing and recording a set of sounds designed to reveal flaws. Two summaries are presented here, along with three graphs of the important bits.
The X-Fi Prelude shows its pedigree with the cleanest measuring THD and IMD to date. Excellent! One thing to notice is that for the 16 bit/44.1 KHz numbers I mistakenly left the Prelude in 96 KHz mode in AudioCreation mode. If you notice the IMD+Noise, you can see the action of the X-Fi's SRC engine at work, increasing IMD about .0030%. Excellent!
The only thing better would be some professional studio stuff.
The X-Fi Prelude is an excellent card. However, according to RMAA, the super X-Fi Prelude is just a nudge above the X-Fi XtremeMusic and the X-Meridian. What is striking, and I did not notice during listening tests, is the slightly lower crosstalk. Basically, if crosstalk is 0, youve got monaural sound, not stereo. I believe this is most likely a recording artifact and not the actual playback fidelity. In listening tests, I found the stereo imaging excellent.
Frequency response isnt so much of a problem these days, unless youre using tubes; most consumer cards have great frequency response. You want this as ruler flat as you can. No doubt about it, the X-Fi Prelude is the flattest weve measured, too.
With Total Harmonic Distortion, you obviously want this number to be as low as possible. The X-Fi Prelude possesses the lowest THD weve ever measured.
Intermodulation Distortion is the product of playing two dissonant sounds together, and seeing how well the sound card can handle it.
Overall, the X-Fi Prelude produced a lot of bests with RMAA 6. It has the flattest frequency response, the lowest harmonic distortion, and least amount of intermodulation distortion. Regardless of whether you know or not what these measurements mean, it means that all that high-end hardware on the Prelude is doing its job. A new reference sound card coming in 3... 2... 1...
