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Sound Blaster ZxR – A Closer Look
Getting into the boxed material we find the Sound Blaster ZxR, its daughter card stacked, and Audio Control Module used for plugging in speakers and headphones. The dock allows you to switch between devices without having to unplug wires.
The mother card is covered by a protective shield which helps to reduce sound distorting electrical noise coming from other components. The secondary purpose of the shield is to protect the components from physical damage. The mother card comes in at 6.5 in / 165mm in length, and should fit in most standard computer cases.
The DBPro daughter card offers more connectors and doesn’t use a PCI-E slot, but occupies the space above one and extends the capabilities of the mother card without having to crowd connectors onto the mother card. The DBPro daughter card length runs 3.6 in / 91 mm in length, and as mentioned, doesn’t use a PCI-E slot so it can be located over an empty spot as long as the provided ribbon cable will reach.
Shown without shielding in place, we find fine gold capacitors, 8 op amps, the pair of JRC2114D op amps and the pair of LME49710 op amps are socket based and easily replaceable for audiophiles wishing to upgrade. The rest of the amps are four surface mounted JRC2114 op amps. Audio is driven by three digital-analog converters and a TI Burr Brown PCM1794 and a pair of TI Burr Brown PCM1798s. The 600 ohm amplification is driven by a TI 6120A2 amplifier chip and you will be hard pressed to find any audio cards this well stocked with audiophile quality equipment.
Peeking at the daughter card we find another Creative CA0113-4AG audio processor, as well as two more JRC2114 op amps.
Creative and Asus really need to up the game with audio cards. I have a onboard realtek and still has great sound. The drivers are sometimes hit or miss. The main thing is that they continue to release drivers. Whereas Creative and Asus have drivers that are usually 2 years old.