Turtle Beach Montego DDL

[Rob Williams]

We all have the desire to have the cleanest sound on our computers, but like everything else, there are far too many sound cards to choose from. Turtle Beach has been known for their high quality audio products, so we are taking a look at their top of the line Montego sound card. It looks good, but how does it perform for your audio junkie?

Feel free to discuss the review here after reading!

 

[Unregistered]

What about gaming?

I see from your profile that you play Counterstrike. After installing my Montego DDL so I could use a REAL sound system (5.1 processor, amps, all HT stuff), FPS games take a huge hit in frame rate. I could only get Counterstrike playable again by dropping all the video and audio game settings. I have a nice video card (~$400 Nvidea), which previously breezed with this game (and Creative Audigy 2ZS soundcard).

Have you noticed the Montego DDL killing your framerate? What have you done to fix this? Is there any way I can get pure DDL encoding from a soundcard and not kill my CPU?

Thanks and cheers,
Chris
chriscmore@yahoo.com

 

[madmat]

It has made no difference to my frame rates at all, I run it at 1024x768 maxed details with 2xAA and have no touble whatsoever with my framerates going below 60 or so FPS.

You shouldn't have swapped the Montego for the Audigy 2ZS as the ZS has a hardware DSP that offloads the sound processing from the CPU and helps to keep you from getting bogged down.

You might take a look at your old Creative drivers, they'll sometimes cause problems after you've switched for a different card. Make sure that you've uninstalled them AND run a registery cleaner to get the drivers fully out of the registery.

 

[Unregistered]

Thanks for the pointers. I HAD to switch away from a Creative card, because I HAD to go 5.1 digitally. Creative's analog 5.1 outs would not suffice, and I can't listen to standard little powered computer speakers. The Montego (and the X-Mystique) are the only DDL equipped options I seem to have. BTW, sound quality of DDL 5.1 via the Montego is vastly superior (quality and quantity) to the 2.0 via the 2ZS, which doesn't support nearly enough quality or flexibility in configuration as a HT processor does.

I understood the backwards step in hardware acceleration as soon as I saw the Montego card, but was hoping for something like a ~200MHz hit on the processor, not killing it.

I did uninstall everything, but will take your advice on a cleaner, and am also very much in need of a RAM boost to ~1.5G.

Cheers,
Chris

 

[Unregistered]

Anyone know where I can buy one of these cards? Ive been looking for a few days, but cant find anywhere!!

 

[madmat]

You can get them from newegg for $79.99. Not a bad deal compared to the other cards sharing the same chipset out there.

 

[Fred E. Wahl]

Anyone tried J9 connector on TB Montego DDL?

Hi Montego DDL users,

I am hoping the J9 2 pin connector near the DIG IN optical SPDIF on the
Montego DDL card is a 'voltage' SPDIF DIG IN port. This connector is mechanically a fit to one end of a CABLES Unlimited 24" SPDIF digital audio sound cable. The J9 pins are labeled 'G' (?ground) and 'S' (?signal).

TB tech support will not provide this information since it is an
'undocumented connector'.

I hope to connect this to the "Digital SPDIF out" from my Plextor PX-740A
DVD/CD burner/player to be able to transfer a pure digital signal from the
Plextor out thru the Montego DIG OUT to my Sony Dig A/V Control Center
model STR-DG510. I will have to set SPDIF option to "DIG IN to OUT"
mode on the Montego. AC-3 files should go straight from the DVD to
the AV amp if this works.

Doing this may remove any frames hit by staying totally in Digital domain
without extra processing.

Any leads on this J9 connectors proper use?

Fred E. Wahl

 

[madmat]

I'd imagine it very well could be SPDIF input but in all honesty, with an OS above windows 98 (Yes, Win ME up) you can pull the digital signal through data cable so the added wiring is redundant. I hope this helps.

 

[Fred E. Wahl]

Madmat,
Thanks for the quick response! So you think the Plextor DVD/CD digital
data is being pulled thru the Plextor ATA100 ribbon cable?
I am running XP home with SP2. Without using J9 the DD AC-3 stream
seems to be making it to my AV amp. I didn't think the data was going
thru the 'CD analog in'. This would depend on card drivers or the OP sys?

Do you have a reference for this? Maybe a url I could visit and read.

Also would you know how we might find and contact the actual designer
of the Montego DDL card to see what he/she/they designed into it?
It still might be worth it for latency issues.

Fred

 

[madmat]

I know for a fact that it does. It's an option in Device Manager. It's been a while since I've done it but there's an option to "enable digital CD audio for this device" in the properties tab for the drive in question in device manager.

 

[Merlin]

We all have the desire to have the cleanest sound on our computers, but like everything else, there are far too many sound cards to choose from. Turtle Beach has been known for their high quality audio products, so we are taking a look at their top of the line Montego sound card. It looks good, but how does it perform for your audio junkie?

Feel free to discuss the review here after reading!

Seems to have lost the Link?

 

[Unregistered]

Hi Montego DDL users,

I am hoping the J9 2 pin connector near the DIG IN optical SPDIF on the
Montego DDL card is a 'voltage' SPDIF DIG IN port. This connector is mechanically a fit to one end of a CABLES Unlimited 24" SPDIF digital audio sound cable. The J9 pins are labeled 'G' (?ground) and 'S' (?signal).

TB tech support will not provide this information since it is an
'undocumented connector'.

I hope to connect this to the "Digital SPDIF out" from my Plextor PX-740A
DVD/CD burner/player to be able to transfer a pure digital signal from the
Plextor out thru the Montego DIG OUT to my Sony Dig A/V Control Center
model STR-DG510. I will have to set SPDIF option to "DIG IN to OUT"
mode on the Montego. AC-3 files should go straight from the DVD to
the AV amp if this works.

Doing this may remove any frames hit by staying totally in Digital domain
without extra processing.

Any leads on this J9 connectors proper use?

Fred E. Wahl

Sorry to bump but " I will have to set SPDIF option to "DIG IN to OUT"
mode on the Montego. " does that mean the connector works both ways? Cuz I would like to run it to the SPDIF IN on my video card so that it can route the audio thru the hdmi port leaving me with less cables to run to my TV.