Audiotrak Prodigy HD2 Gold Sound Card
Today we're going to review a Hi-End sound card. This product was the first Hi-End card to use a top DAC from AKM and high quality additional components. Prior to this product, top DACs used to be installed only in expensive limited-edition studio cards for $1000 and higher, such as LynxTwo, ProTools HD, etc. Along with high quality components, the card uses multifunction drivers.
The price of the ProdigyHD2 Gold on the Russian market is quite acceptable - about $180 including shipment fees to deliver the card from Japan. Delivery time is about one month.
As far as we know, Audiotrak offers two cards for the European market - Prodigy HD2 (without Gold suffix) and Prodigy Hi-Fi. These cards may appear on our market as well.
The low-profile card can be installed into a stylish and small HTPC with other Hi-Fi/Hi-End components. The most difficult problem will be to choose a noiseless PSU for your low-profile PC case, because they have non-standard dimensions. You might want to use a PSU as a stand-alone unit, so that you could choose any PC case you like and any PSU installed in a well ventilated place. If you choose a PSU with removable cables, you may make then longer and put inside a shielded pipe. A low-profile bracket is included into the bundle.
The Prodigy HD2 Gold contains high quality opamps for the line-out with the Triple OPAMP technology - two OPA2134 from Burr-Brown + JRC5532. Dip connectors allow to replace opamps without soldering. Headphones-out is based on two JRC4580 chips that provide the output power of 120 mW. The card for the European market (Prodigy HD2) uses the NE5532 instead of the OPA2134. Thus, you can replace the NE5532 with the OPA2134 for $16-20 to upgrade your card to the Gold edition. The only competitors of our card under review are new Auzentech cards on CMI8788 and the Auzen X-FI Prelude 7.1 to be launched this year.
AK4396 Specifications:
- Sampling rate: up to 192kHz
- THD+N: -100 dB
- DR, S/N: 120 dB
Features AK5353 ADC.
- 24-bit / 96 kHz
- SNR: 96/102 dBA
The ADC offers mediocre parameters just like common sound cards - X-Fi, Revolution5.1, Prodigy7.1. This quality level is quite enough to digitize an external TV tuner, radio, etc.
Reference drivers from VIA
By default, the card comes with reference drivers from VIA. They look user-friendlier now than earlier versions of reference drivers from VIA.
The drivers offer two modes - dual channel mode and Digital In (the card does not have SPDIF IN as such).
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Universal drivers always have funny bugs. The Digital In mode only activates line-in monitoring in this card, sending a stream to the analog output. Analog input level cannot be controlled. Besides, the analog input can be activated only when the sound card is not used by any program. Otherwise, you'll see an error message.
Having activated SPDIF IN, the audio stream does not go from the DAC to the output. So you can listen to either DAC or line in. The card can always digitize audio from the line-in.
It's inconvenient that RCA/HP cannot be controlled separately. And you have to use a jumper to amplify the headphones-out signal by 250%. The Prodigy7.1 does it with a software-controlled relay. On the other hand, the relay resulted in higher channel crosstalk. So the relay was replaced with jumpers to increase audio quality.
Note the sample rate automation, which can be disabled.
QSound (3D sound in games, equalizer with timbres and reverberation) is available only for 64-bit systems - an unobtrusive hint to upgrade.
RMAA Diagnostics
Device: Envy24 Family Audio (WDM) (Envy24HF.sys)
Features:
Device has not enough hardware 2D buffers
Device has not enough hardware 3D buffers
EAX 1.0: N/A
EAX 2.0: N/A
EAX 3.0: N/A
EAX 4.0: N/A
EAX 5.0: N/A
Rates:
dwMinSecondarySampleRate 8000
dwMaxSecondarySampleRate 192000
Free buffers stats:
dwFreeHw3DAllBuffers 0
dwFreeHw3DStaticBuffers 0
dwFreeHw3DStreamingBuffers 0
dwFreeHwMixingAllBuffers 0
dwFreeHwMixingStaticBuffers 0
dwFreeHwMixingStreamingBuffers 0
Max buffers stats:
dwMaxHwMixingAllBuffers 1
dwMaxHwMixingStaticBuffers 1
dwMaxHwMixingStreamingBuffers 1
dwMaxHw3DAllBuffers 0
dwMaxHw3DStaticBuffers 0
dwMaxHw3DStreamingBuffers 0
Misc stats:
dwFreeHwMemBytes 0
dwTotalHwMemBytes 0
dwMaxContigFreeHwMemBytes 0
dwUnlockTransferRateHwBuffers 0
dwPlayCpuOverheadSwBuffers 0
There is no game support. It means that there may be no sound in games, or some samples may drop out. Sound processing will be mediocre. It's like you when have a new GeForce, but it plays as if it's an obsolete Riva TNT.
The state-of-the-art sound algorithms use X-Fi now. Advantages of the X-Fi will not be used only in those games, where sound is processed solely by a game engine, no features of the sound card driver being used.
Thief III has an option to activate sound card hardware features. For example, E-MU1616m with hardware acceleration enabled plays only a couple of audio streams, like Garrett's steps, and produces no background town noises, guards' dialogs, etc. Speaking of the Prodigy HD2, the sound just disappears. When hardware acceleration is disabled, both cards produce all the sounds. This example shows that there may be no sound problems in some games at all. But you may come across games, which have problems with detecting hardware acceleration. It's impossible to test all games with all patches, you can only lower the risk by using a gaming sound card.
