Home > Consumer Reviews > Diamond XtremeSound 7.1/24 bit Sound Card ( XS71 )

I left Creative's sound blaster USB because they did not support Vista; I searched Amazon and found The Diamond by searching for "Vista sound Cards", I ordered it overnight, it arrived, but the software did not work with Vista although the generic windows driver does.

I called Diamond, because the card inside said "Do not return to vendor call us first." I did and was told, impatiently, that the box did not say Vista and that I should return it to Amazon.

So I am going to keep it, it does work, where the Creative did not. I received about half of what I thought I had bought.

Amazon showed this under a Vista search, Diamond was rude. The hassel of returning it and starting over, is too much.

So Cavet Emptor - be careful, make sure it is what you want, if it does not say Vista do not buy it no matter what the website claims.

Diamond has performed well in the past.

And, yes, I should have been more careful, I was too easily misled, by my pressing need for sound, and my desire to get on with it.

Ken

Bought this to add more speakers to my system and it installed without problems and works just fine. Included software is simple, but works. Bigger, better cards do more of course, but if you don't need more this is perfect for the job. And at about $25 is a bargain also..

Be sure and dowload the latest drivers for it at Diamond web site.

I bought this sound card because the onboard 7.1 audio on my Dell Inspiron 630 desktop was outputting an annoying background hum at higher volume levels. I had this computer for a year and never noticed that hum before recently obtaining a new set of Logitech Z-5500 5.1 speakers. The new speakers are so good that it makes all audio flaws more obvious.

After considerable research I concluded (correctly) that this card would work well with Vista Home Premium (32 bit). I also wanted the ability to connect via the digital SPDIF connection (coaxial). I would have preferred a card that had both optical (TOSLINK) and coaxial, but I had a higher priority to keep the cost reasonable. Cards that have optical, coaxial, and analog connectors are a minimum of 4 times the cost of this card.

After disabling the onboard sound (in BIOS) and in the Control Panel, I installed the XS71 card. Upon booting the system automatically found the best driver over the internet connection.

My first evaluation test was using the new XS71 analog connections which are identical to those I had used on my motherboard. The same annoying hum was still there! I then switched my speaker system to the coaxial connector (both sets of connector types were plugged in at the same time and both were sending audio). To my delight the hum was finally gone!

The coaxial audio has a much lower volume level than the analog connection, but even after increasing the volume all the way there was no sign of any hum or other interference. I'm not an audiophile by any means, but if the audio was improved compared to the onboard sound, I couldn't detect it.

I use the computer primarily for business purposes with occasional viewing of movies and on rare occasions a little gaming (Command & Conquer). For these purposes this sound system really is overkill. If I did a lot more gaming or had a discerning audiophile "ear", I likely would still not be 100% satisfied with the overall audio quality and would be very tempted to try out one of those much more expensive cards.

I purchased this card to use with an internal Blue-ray player, and found it would not output DTS digital 5.1 or 7.1 from the optical SPDIF port (stereo worked OK). When I called technical suppoort they told me that the card did not support either DTS (contrary to claim on box), or Blu-ray. The box indicated that the card would support DVD multi channel playback in either DTS or Dolby digital.

If you are looking for an upper mid-range card to replace onboard sound, then this is definitely a good choice. The software that comes with the card is not spectacular, but it gives you quite a few options and it is easy to use. One of the great selling points is the ability to dynamically configure the output / input jacks on the back of the card (through the software).

Definitely recommended.