Turtle Beach Montego II Quadzilla by Tim "Flyboy" Henderson
	The CPU utilization of the Montego II when using DirectSound (Winamp, Media Player, etc.) is on par with the SoundBlaster Live! when 8 or 16 channels are used but lags behind on 32 channels. With the original driver release this was quite pronounced, but the difference has closed with later drivers and the reality is that there aren't any games using more than sixteen sound streams yet. Driver Revisions Turtle Beach takes Aureal's reference drivers and writes their own implementation. Their engineers are good, because CPU utilization dropped with Turtle Beach's first revision of the reference drivers. Since that time Aureal released new beta drivers, and CPU utilization dropped again, undercutting even the Turtle Beach implementation. But with the June release of new drivers for the Montego II (v. 2.08), the numbers came up pretty close. Under 2d Audio Winbench the Montego II showed a 1.14% CPU utilization with 8 voices at 44.1 KHz. Sixteen voices brought the score close to 2.5%, still extremely low. 3d Audio Winbench registered 3.45% with 8 voices, and 5.33% with sixteen voices. How do these figures compare to the SB Live? The SB Live figures are about half the Montego II scores using 2d, and around 50% better under DirectSound3d, but most of this difference is found in the more mature drivers. When the SB Live was newly released CPU utilization was more than double the current figures, and we can expect to see the Montego II close with the SB Live in the next few driver revisions. 2d Sound Quality The last generation of sound cards were a step beyond the AWE 64 universe, but still produced some noise and static. No so with the new generation; crystal clarity is the norm. Comparing the sound quality of the Montego II to another Vortex2 based board like the Diamond MX300 was fruitless. I couldn't hear a difference. It is worth noting, however, that the Montego II uses an 18 bit DAC, where many Vortex II boards utilize a standard 16 bit DA converter. The old EAX vs A3d debate is bound to rear its head about now. Frankly, the implementation seems more important than the mechanics. The final considerations are these: Aureal plans to release a software solution to EAX, but it's an unknown whether Creative will present a similar solution to A3d. On the other hand, a software solution will eat up CPU cycles. Click to continue		4 Channel Sound Sound positioning on the Quadzilla is nothing short of excellent. The same can be said of the Sound Blaster Live! with Liveware 2.0, but Liveware 2.0 provides HRTF algorithms on all four channels where the current Vortex2 drivers only provide HRTF audio on the front channels. What does this mean in practice? Not that much, it seems to depend more on the listener. In fact, in head-to-head comparisons between the A3D API of the Vortex II based Montego II and the EAX based SoundBlaster Live! I found the Vortex II to be more realistic even without the additional reflection/occlusion features found in A3D 2.0. I really noticed this from the rear channels, odd since the current drivers don't support HRTF. When listening to sounds coming from behind me on the SB Live! it sounded like the source was centered. But with the Montego II sounds that were supposed to be behind me were actually originating from the rear. Do headphones really make a difference? You need to appreciate that speakers face many challenges not faced by a closed space. To take advantage of 3D sound it's critical that you are positioned at the center of the four channel speaker setup. Furthermore, the front and rear speakers must be in perfect balanced. But with headphones these problems are all eliminated. We only ever have two ears, not four, so the ideal situation is encountered with headphones. The Joystick Port Until we are all running USB gear, the game port remains important. Last year game ports on sound boards went digital, and there were some teething problems encountered, especially with certain digital sticks like the Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback series. And the ports themselves were not perfect, continuing to drift and jitter, although they did reduce CPU utilization somewhat. This year the ports have evolved again, and the Montego II seems to be the best of the bunch. In fact, the only other gameport I have seen that had this kind of stability was the dedicated port on the PDPI Lightning IV. Calibration on the Montego II is rock solid. I asked Turtle Beach about this, and all they would tell me is that the digital port has been "enhanced." Go to Page Three: SUMMARY
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