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Like the SoundBlasterLive, this card has its fans and its critics.

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Categorizing this under "waste of your time" is a bit harsh. This is a fine card as long as you do not need bit-perfect 44khz iec958 output. For those looking for output to minidisc it's a great deal.

Thanks to volumes of generous assistance from Trident, this is also one of the best supported cards under ALSA.

Soundblaster AWE-64 Gold has iec958 flaws too, and other more serious problems, and it's filed under GoodConsumerCards...

-Dan (goemon at anime dot net)

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Hoontech 4Dwave, a.k.a. Trident 4DWave requires not one but THREE expansion brackets to get digital I/O. There is an
       ALSA driver.

First of all, it's apparently one of the few MIDISoundcards with good reliable timing.

Bryan Levin warns: "in fact, its really just a soundblaster with a trident chip and their spdif out is NO BETTER than the sblive
       value2. ie, it resamples and is NOT a literal unmodified wave ;-( 
       I bought one assuming it was a cheap spdif card, yet when I feed 44.1 into it, I get 48k out; even on the spdif port ;-("

As for those expansion brackets: Anonymous Tim forwarded me these messages from good old Jaroslav Kysela on the
       ALSA mailing list:

> The 4dwave card requires an additional bracket, the 
          > NX DB I. However, this bracket only allows for digital output (not 
          > input). To get digital input with the ST Digital NX you need to spend 
          > approximately $125 (US) (http://www.audiencedp.com) for the NX DB I, 
          > NX DB II and NX DB III brackets.

Yes, it's true.

See also http://www.hoontech.com/product/soundcard/STdigitalNX.htm

...This combination seems to disable digital input and output to the AC'97 codec and routes these signals to
          ST-DB III through NX-DB II.

You get:

- automatic input conversion (max 96kHz, 24-bit to 48kHz, 16-bit) 
          - output is probably always at 48kHz, 16-bit 
          - external digital input, digital input from CD (TTL signal) and digital output from your soundcard are mixed
          together 
          - optional 6dB attenuation

I can only confirm that conversion algorithm is lossless or nearly to lossless (I can't hear any distortion when I
          connect through optical cable my external CD deck and through coaxial cable my digital receiver).

Note: If you want also use analog inputs or outputs, you must buy second soundcard. With above components,
          the soundcard uses only digital I/O paths.

Hoontech (Trident) 4Dwave NX now has ALSA support for multi-channel output, according to Andy Lo A Foe. Also, I found
       this note from Paul Barton-Davis on the Csound mailing list:

"...They cost $39+shipping from Korea for a card with 4 channel output (though there are some oddities about
          using the rear 2 channels (*)) plus S/PDIF digital I/O (Note from editor: See the above section on digital cards!
          You need expansion brackets to do this with the 4Dwave, and it disables the analog audio path too!) 
          ... There is a little bit of spectral peaking and dipping here and there, but its a very nice card... 
          (*) the specs for the trident chip indicate that the rear channel output gets routed through a reverb unit. they don't
          indicate how to bypass the reverb unit. however, i imagine that under windows, this is probably solved already.
          we're still trying to figure it out over on the alsa-devel mailing list... 
          ps. trident wrote and donated a driver for their chipset to ALSA. if you use Linux, show trident that you appreciate
          this kind of thing."