Re: IIGS Stereo Card?

[Mitchell Spector <mitch2gs@hotmail.com>]

 "Sean Fahey" <a2fan@hotmail.com> wrote:

>"Bill Garber" <willy46pa@comcast.net> wrote in message
>SL6dnVZUoPdv9NfeRVn-rg@comcast.com">news:SL6dnVZUoPdv9NfeRVn-rg@comcast.com...
>
>> I'll check the manual with the SoundMeister to be sure, but
>> I don't think I had to set it for 'YOUR CARD'. I don't even
>> believe it has on-board ROM. I'd love to copy the AE Audio
>> Animator, but to get one, that's the hard part.  :o)
>
>I don't think cloning the AA is your best option - it wasn't as great as
>it's hype made it out to be. First, there being a couple different versions
>of the card. Some were prone to failure -- toward the end of the AA's
>production run, AE began swapping Sonic Blasters with AA's still under
>warranty. The mixing box was hit or miss - early ones worked well but didn't
>last because of shoddy construction, later ones were built very well, but
>didn't work well - AE had to inject grease into the pots to keep noise out
>of the lines. Early cards with certain IC's on them cause noise on the bus -
>somewhere I have the list of what to look for. Buried probably.

    I'm curious which revision I have. There appears to be a date code hand
written on my mixer and card ("890"), the card's factory date is "5189" and
marked Revision-C. There's a GAL with an "AA1B.N" sticker on it and 
most of the chips are from mid to late 1989.

    The only major issue with my Audio Animator (and apparently a large 
batch that were produced) is the left/right stereo channels are reversed. 
The volume sliders on the mixer noticeably crackle, especially if they've not
be used in sometime; does that have something to do with the greased pots?

>The SoundMeister was probably the top of the heap when it comes to GS stereo
>cards. It might be easier to ask Tony Diaz if it's ok to clone it - it's his
>design and he knows it inside out. If he's amicable, maybe he'd give you the
>schematics. I don't know if he'd ever consider another production run
>himself.

    My understanding was the Applied Visions Futuresound was the top-rated
card for digitizing and stereo output quality. The Audio Animator was a close
second (or equal match), especially since it used its own ADC in an external
shielded box rather than the Ensoniq's built-in ADC. The AA external mixer
with MIDI IN/OUT made it my favorite.

    The SoundMeister was originally from Econ Technologies, I think Duilio
Proni may have been its designer. Most people have probably forgotten
that the SoundMeister was designed as a _basic_ entry-level sound card
while the SoundMeister Pro was the high-end. The Pro had some nice
features but never made it past a few prototypes (I think Tony Diaz has
one). From past consensus, the SoundMeister was just an average card,
it was certainly far from being "top of the heap". It wasn't necessarily
poor, just nothing out of the ordinary.

    Speaking of the SoundMeister, does anyone have a spare back port 
audio connector (with audio in/out)? Mine was damaged, so I sent it off 
to see if it could be repaired and never got it back, rendering my card 
useless.

Mitchell Spector