M-Audio Revolution 7.1 review

If you believe that any more than two speakers is overkill, then stop reading now.

The M-Audio offers surround sound with a vengeance. Allowing you to use up to a whopping eight speakers at once, this is not a sound card for those that go queasy at the sight of cables, either! Like the Audigy 2, the Revolution has the necessary high-resolution outputs for the recently emerged DVD-Audio standard, too. Thing is, is it actually any good?

Installation is simple: just pop the card in a spare PCI slot, point Windows at the supplied driver disc. One reboot and voil! We were immediately impressed by the clarity on offer. There was a genuine sparkle to treble, a tight deep bass and vocals in music and movies were handled with refined aplomb.

The supplied Intervideo WinDVD 4 player fully supports the Dolby Digital EX 6.1 standard, which goes some way to justifying the 7.1 output. But at the time of writing, no 7.1 speaker sets are actually available in the UK yet - and only 3D games can deliver a 7.1 output. We created a makeshift 7.1 setup for testing by using speakers from two 5.1 sets for testing. Immediately, we were impressed by the genuine feeling that the sound was coming from all around us. The mass of wires and cables that it took to do it was far less impressive, though. I really can't see many people putting up with the spaghetti junction required to take advantage of the benefits of an eight-speaker setup. If you can, you're in for a treat, though. Even standard CDs can be played through all speakers, and although some CDs can sound a bit muddled, this 'virtual 7.1' is a novel and impressive experience.

The card's software allows you to tweak settings, and is refreshingly simple to use. You can even tell the Revolution how far away each speaker is from your listening position so that it can spread the sound more evenly, so that no speaker appears louder than the others. In fact, there's very little that the Revolution's control panel can't do - it makes light work of getting the best from your speakers.

The M-Audio has some fab features - serious musicians will appreciate (and understand) ASIO support at 24/96 - but it can't avoid comparison with the mighty Audigy 2. Ultimately, the Audigy 2 bounds ahead with its superior EAX Advanced HD for gaming and a FireWire port, plus support for DVD-Audio discs out of the box - the Revolution's hardware may be up to the job of playing DVD-Audio's high-resolution audio, but without the necessary playback software this becomes somewhat academic.

M-Audio's card sounds fantastic, but at the end of the day, the Audigy 2 is a whole lot more fun.

Sasha Muller