Cheap soundcard for music..

Via has been famous in soundcard era for the recent years - thanks to its flagship Via Envy chipset. Via Envy has a characteristic that make it very suitable for music lover-the chipset never resamples any sample rate for songs. Every songs will be played "as is". This feature is really important for audiophile because fidelity and accuracy is the most determine factor for high quality music.

But Via Envy also has always been associated by its high price, especially for guys like me who cannot afford, or maybe at least must think ten thousand times before buying a Via Envy soundcard priced more than $100. Of course, Via offered us a cheap alternative solution - Via Envy PT, which was used in Chaintech AV710. Unfortunately, the card is rarely be seen in the market. Once in a time, I even has tried to contact Chaintech distributor in Singapore, asking about this $30 soundcard and got answer "out of stock".

Maybe Via sees this matter and recently, Via had launched some new chipset intended for cheaper market - Via Tremor. Via Tremor will support maximum 6 channel output and 2 channel input. And it will support maximum resolution 24 bit and 48 KHz sampling rate for analog, while for digital, Tremor will support resolution 24 bit and 96 KHz sampling rate - very similar to Via Envy 24 PT. Along with Via Tremor, Via also launched Via Envy 24 MT which is intended for notebook or mobile devices. But forget about Via Envy 24 MT as this seems not a cheap solution anyway :P. Let's see all the features Via Tremor offers below...

Benefits of VIA Vinyl Tremor

• High audio performance - With up to 24-bit resolution/96kHZ sampling rates for digital input/output and 20-bit/48kHZ analog connections, the VIA Tremor is capable of providing superb audio playback and recording quality to the PC audio enthusiast.


• Flexible range of connection options - 6 outbound streams and 2 simultaneous input streams, along with an integrated S/PDIF transmitter, allow for a wide range of connections that can support Dolby Digital/Dolby Digital EX Surround Sound. A direct access general purpose connector allows for easy use of expanded connection boards, and a MIDI port is also provided.


• Multiple applications - Applications include gaming, high fidelity home theatre entertainment, music playback and recording.


• Easy to integrate - I²S and AC-link input and output for easy connection with many codec or ADC/DAC solutions. Also supports Windows® WDM drivers.

So has any company decided to use Via tremor and produced cheap soundcard for music lover? Yes, there are several company like PPA International and Encore Electronics that has started producing several soundcard based on this chipset. This soundcard is really cheap, some even can be found as low as $10 in newegg.com! But please keep in mind that you will always get what you've paid for. For a $10 soundcard, you cannot expect the card will use a high quality ADC and DAC from respective companies like AKM or Wolfson :).