Elite Bastards has posted the first review of the new Auzentech X-Plosion 7.1 PCI card.  It claims to bear the first real DTS Connect logo, and should be able to turn any 2 channel audio into 7.1 surround.  According to thier tests, the card uses 2% of the CPU at a constant rate, which would put it well below the Audigy’s peak usage.

“The big addition to the X-Plosion along those same lines is support for DTS’ equivalent to Dolby Digital Live, named DTS Connect. The X-Plosion is actually the first sound card to support this functionality, adding a rather nice feather to its cap. As with Dolby Digital Live, DTS Connect allows on-the-fly encoding of audio, only this time using the rival DTS standard for digital audio, producing a digital bitstream that any DTS capable decoder will be capable of making use of. As well as this, the X-Plosion is also capable of handing the full bit-rate of which DTS is capable (1.5Mbps), allowing for a full audio experience in the smallish number of DVD titles that make use of this high bitrate for audio.”

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