Diamond Multimedia Monster Sound MX300 used tested

Description

Up for sale used
Sound card
Diamond Multimedia Monster Sound MX300 PCI
Tested and sounds great!
Dispatch within 3-5 days from the date of payment.
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The Diamond
Monster Sound MX300 is the fourth 3D sound card to be released by Diamond following the MonsterSound, MonsterSound M80, and the MonsterSound MX200, it is also the first shipping card based on the Aureal Vortex 2 chipset. This is the best sound card available now (some may say the SB Live! is, but SB Live can't compare to the MX300's awesome API support), so if you want to learn more about 3D sound and the MX300, read on.
The Specs
The card itself is fairly long, but it is very light. All of the plugs at the rear are gold-plated which is supposed to improve performance, but there isn't a way of proving that really. Maybe gold allows less distortion or interference or something? I don't know, but it does look cool on the black plastic. The writing is in white on black plastic which means it is real easy to look around when you are behind your computer trying to find the right plugs. Better than engraved writing on silver metal like before - you had to go and grab the damn flash light.
The following jacks are on the MX300: Line Out 1 (front speakers), Line Out 2 (rear speakers/headphones), microphone input, line input, and a joystick/midi connector. All are Gold Plated and the Joystick Input is also accelerated with DirectInput to allow better Joystick control (less lag mainly). If you don't plan on having 4 speakers, you can plug your speakers into one Line Out and your Headphone's into another. Then enable Stereo X2 mode instead of Quad Speaker mode so the same sound comes out of both the speakers and headphones.
On the card itself there are connectors for CD Audio, AUX, and Modem. There also is a Wavetable Header for Midi-Rom daughterboards. On the back there is also a connector for a future MX300 upgrade called the MX-Link which adds additional speaker outputs and True Digital output (not that USB bull). Diamond hasn't announced all of the technical specs on this, but it will be released sometime in Q1 '99.
The MX300 uses the Aureal Vortex 2 PCI controller (AU8830) with 320 voices. Going from an older soundcard (such as a Soundblaster 16) to the MX300 is a phenomenal jump for MIDI's. I always hated MIDI's because they sounded like a musical box but now they sound very good. The MX300 has sampling rates up to 48kHz (3D sound will only play in up to 44kHz you should note).
The MX300 has awesome API support. Any game that you throw at it within the next year or two won't have a problem supporting the MX300 at all. Currently it ships with support for:
DirectSound
DirectSound 3D
Aureal A3D
Aureal A3D 2.0