Wavetable add-on card for Diamond MonsterSound MX300 - 45 cents+shipping@geeks

[Sanjoelo]

Monster Soundcard 2 MB Hardware Wavetable Add-On Module

Shipping was $5 (UPS Ground) for me. I know there are a lot of people in the forums with these cards, so figured I'd pass it along.

They also have a bunch of cheap sound cards -- Vortex 1 based cards or the Creative PCI64. These cards are great for a second or third system. I have a PCI64 card running on my "overclocked 300A Frankensystem". Running WindowsXP RC2, and the card still sounds great. No Dolby or anything, but nice, 4 channel sound for cheap.

-JB

 

[Emulex]

lf i recall those boards plug into all the sb GM slots too..

 

[MisterE]

Thanks for the deal! I went ahead and picked up 5 just in case my multitude of Vortex2 cards can make use of these. For $.45 each, it doesn't matter if they work!

 

[pukemon]

I bought one of these a while back for my MX300, and it'll work on pretty much any sound card that has a Waveblaster type upgrade header.

It's cheap and worth the $0.45 but soundwise, if you think the default Aureal AU30GM.ARL sounds awful, imho this one really doesn't sound much better. But then again if all its going to be used for is to listen to cheesy web MIDIs then hey it'll work.

In order to use the upgrade/hardware wavetable just set your MIDI in the Multimedia control panel to use the MPU-401 Out instead of the default Aureal MIDI.

 

[Kraeji]

What exactly does a wavetable addon do for the soundcard? Just play midi files betteR?

 

[Glow]

yeah what does it do? I have an mx300. in trying to figure out what it did, i found this: but that isnt of much help.


3DGW: There has been talk about the "MX-Link" card, an addon for the MX300. Is this an addon for just certain cards or will all Vortex 2 boards support
daughter card upgrades like this?
David: The MX-LINK add-on will only be for the Diamond MX300. Turtle Beach will continue to use the same header they did on the Montego I and will be
creating their own add-on board(s) which I heard will work on both the Montego I and Montego II

it seems to me like it just improves the midi sound?

 

[Sanjoelo]

That is all it does; improves MIDI output and puts the MIDI process in hardware (rather than a software function). Takes a bit of load off your CPU if you do a lot in MIDI.

The MX-Link is just the 34-pin connector on the MX300. It allows the use of an entirely different daughtercard-- the MX-25, which gives the MX300 digital input and output (S/PDIF). MX-25 is very hard to find.. I picked one up at an auction on Diamond's site right before they were bought out. If you can find one, grab it. It gives you 5.1 digital output, which makes this already awesome card a pretty viable competitor with just about any other sound card, even current ones.

There's some great info on Vortex 2-based cards over on Vortex of Sound.



-JB

 

[Madferret]

nice deal..
but shipping is a whopping 5 bucks for me.. a bit too high :frown:

 

[peang]

do u guys think this will fit in my AWE 64 sounblaster?

 

[MisterE]

peang, Yes, it should fit if your sound card has the header pins for a MIDI add-on card.

After I ordered mine, I decided that I will probably not use them. I usually load an 8MB or greater sample set when I am doing some hard-core MIDI listening. Still, I collect silly stuff and this will go nicely in the pile.

 

[manly]

as MisterE alluded to, wouldn't the AWE64 sound better w/ a memory upgrade and a nice GM SoundFont? I thought the EMU8K already has credible hardware wavetable support.

I have an unused AWE32 w/ 8 MB add-on RAM if anyone is interested. MIDIs sound pretty good w/ an 8 MB GM SoundFont.

 

[CookieCrunch]

How does this wavetable card compare to the absolutely AWESOME Yamaha DB50XG?

 

[MisterE]

CookieCrunch, The Yamaha will probably be better if it is truly "awesome." I don't know the specs on this 2mb daughtercard. If the sample set is "compressed" to 2mb, then it will have quality that is better than if the stored sample set is an uncompressed 2mb (because the sample set will actually be bigger than 2mb). I usually load a 4mb sample set with my Aureal cards (and with my 1 SBLive card), and use an 8mb sample set when I'm actually listening to some MIDI files.

I remembered that I've got a few Soundblaster16 and other sound cards laying around that can probabaly use these daughter cards. That is where I will probably install the bunch that I bought. I wonder if these come with nylon stand-offs like my Turtle Beach Rio daughter card did?