Customer Reviews

Diamond XtremeSound 7.1/24 bit Sound Card ( XS71 )

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

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

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.

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.

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.

This is a great product for turning your computer into a home theater system. The installation is very easy as well as the programming. Probably best if you have 5.1 surround, I don't so I didn't get all the potential out of it. But with the speakers I have, it sounded great. I would recommmend this product to people who are trying to turn their regular computer speakers in to a surround sound theater.

When I first installed this board my computer wouldn't boot. I rearranged it and my other PCI boards and got the computer to boot but it took 10x longer than normal. After I loaded the software no matter what sound effect I selected it sounded the same. The board had two audio connectors for plugging in the output of the CD drives but then I heard nothing. Neither the audio plug-ins nor jumpers on the board were explained in the manual. I gave up and returned the board. Now my computer boots normally again. I have Windows XP pro.

I've been upgrading my Dell XPS 400 for awhile now and it finally came to a point where I needed a new sound card. I searched Amazon and came upon this one. The price was right, it gave me what I was looking for; updating an old sound card to the latest technology thus giving me additional sound options (like Stereo Mix) that my old card lacked. I was hesitant at first to make the purchase, after reading a number of reviews regarding the install on Windows 7. I'm relatively tech savvy, and I figured you'd have to be a bit more Magyverish to get the thing installed. I took my chances and purchased the card.

It arrived today and the install was easy. Very easy after reading the reviews and going about it myself. Had the card installed in less than five minutes and was playing surround sound to my hearts content. For those of you that wonder here and need help and you have a windows 7 machine, don't be afraid to buy this card. Here's what I did, with the help of some of the other reviewers here:

1) Before installing the card in your machine, go to the Diamond Website and download their latest drivers for Win7 here: diamondmm dot com /XS71 dot php

2) The drivers will be zipped so unzip them on your desktop to be prepared to install as soon as you boot your computer after installing the card.

3) Shutdown your machine and install the card in a open PCI slot.

4) Reboot - The manual says to disable the old sound card in the BIOS. I didn't bother with doing this. You can uninstall the old sound card drivers manually in the device manager.

5) After you reboot and windows start, it will automatically try and install the generic crap windows audio drivers. If you can STOP THE INSTALL. I wasn't quick enough to do this but even so, Windows was not able to find the driver for the card. If for some reason it finds those generic drivers uninstall them.

6) Go to the unzipped Diamond driver folder and click on the .EXE file to start the driver install.

7) After the install, restart the system. And you should be good to go.

You should notice a lot more additional Recording options. Also, you should see the C-Media PCI Audio Device as your new audio card. If you see any other audio CODECS (like Sigmatel) just uninstall those, you won't be needing them any longer.

All I can say is my music and audio is much crisper and rich with this card. I'm very happy with it so far but I am not an audiophile so most likely I couldn't pass a typical frequency range test. But for those of us who don't have hearing like a audiophile, this card should provide what you're looking for. Hope this review was helpful!

I was looking for a Coax digital out for pass through from my PC to my AV receiver. I am running Windows 7 x64. I was a little disappointed to learn that this card only outputs 2 channel through PCM. After doing a lot of research I found there are open source drivers for C-Media 8738/8768 based soundcards that open up the pass through. The installation of these drivers were a little tricky but I followed the instructions on the website. I know get UNBELIEVABLE sound through to my receiver running a 5.1 setup. I can go on for days about the sound!

Diamond XtremeSound 7.1/24 bit Sound Card ( XS71 )

Thanks to everyone who posted reviews. You've helped me choose to buy this sound card used for eleven dollars. It's just what I needed, a nice improvement over my PC's AC97 on board sound and previous sound card, a SoundBlaster Live Value. I only use the XS71 with my 35 Ohm and 60 Ohm headphones, and it powers each well and to deafening volumes. I downloaded the drivers and software from Diamond's website. My PC has Windows XP Home SP3, and I've had no problems after a few days of use.

Pros:

- it works

- sounds good

- adequate power for easy to drive headphones

- surround sound for speakers

- digital in and out

- inexpensive

Cons:

- skewed to the upper frequencies

- bass is light compared to better sources

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.