Power Colour Devil HDX 7.1 Sound Card

TwsT · 6 Oct 2015 at 11:56

Yes your eyes do not deceive you and and nor will your ears!!!!!

Powercolor are entering the Soundcard market with a reasonably priced competitor to the ROG phoebus.

PowerColor Devil HDX 7.1 Channel Soundcard @ £89.99 inc VAT

Introducing the PowerColor Devil HDX Soundcard, Using supreme quality components and excellent layout design to reach the top 124dB SNR, and offer crystal clear sound quality to audiophiles and gamers.

Key Features:-
- Up to 124dB vs 90dB (Average onboard audio)
- Wolfson WM8741 Hi-FI DAC
- Nichicon MUSE Audio Capacitors
- Separate power supply without causing interference
- Swappable op-amp sockets allows audiophiles to create own timbres and tonal combinations
- Built-in headphone amplifier supports up to 600 ohm headphone
- 7.1 channel daughter board provides true surround sound

Only £89.99 inc VAT.

ORDER NOW

rids57 · 6 Oct 2015 at 15:16

Looks to be ludicrously good for the money, it seems Asus and Creative have some competition at long last.

shankly1985 · 6 Oct 2015 at 15:35

Interesting indeed

Cookeh · 6 Oct 2015 at 15:52

Wolfson DACs are brilliant and the WM8741 is no slouch - nor is it an entry level chip, very surprised to see it here at such a price point.
Swappable OP-amps is interesting too...

Any review samples being sent around like with the U7s, TwsT? I have the WM8740 in my current DAC and the two have similar retails, would be interesting to compare them.

shankly1985 · 6 Oct 2015 at 15:57

Does this have any Dolby Live or DTS connect for its optical out? or will Optical out only support 2.0?

TwsT · 6 Oct 2015 at 16:30

Cookeh said:
Wolfson DACs are brilliant and the WM8741 is no slouch - nor is it an entry level chip, very surprised to see it here at such a price point.
Swappable OP-amps is interesting too...

Any review samples being sent around like with the U7s, TwsT? I have the WM8740 in my current DAC and the two have similar retails, would be interesting to compare them.

oddly enough I'm sending it to rids i'm sure i can send it out again afterwards

Marsman · 6 Oct 2015 at 16:33

rids57 said:
Looks to be ludicrously good for the money, it seems Asus and Creative have some competition at long last.

It would be awesomely good if the software support was decent. That would really show Creative and Asus up.

TwsT · 6 Oct 2015 at 16:36

shankly1985 said:
Does this have any Dolby Live or DTS connect for its optical out? or will Optical out only support 2.0?

and 7.1-channel optical SPDIF (TOSLINK) outputs according to tech power up however I can't confirm it. As marsman says it has no licensing so it's probably only 2.0

Marsman · 6 Oct 2015 at 16:37

shankly1985 said:
Does this have any Dolby Live or DTS connect for its optical out? or will Optical out only support 2.0?

Just 2.0. by the looks of it. No Dolby or DTS mentioned among the blurb on their site.

TwsT · 6 Oct 2015 at 16:39

Marsman said:
It would be awesomely good if the software support was decent. That would really show Creative and Asus up.

C-Media so the software will be pretty much identical to the phoebus software

it works well enough even though at first it's a bit confusing.

shankly1985 · 6 Oct 2015 at 16:45

TwsT said:
and 7.1-channel optical SPDIF (TOSLINK) outputs according to tech power up however I can't confirm it. As marsman says it has no licensing so it's probably only 2.0

Marsman said:
Just 2.0. by the looks of it. No Dolby or DTS mentioned among the blurb on their site.

That's a shame

its something that's a must for me and home sound system.

Marsman · 6 Oct 2015 at 17:16

The C-Media 8888 does not support DDL and DTSC from what I can see on C-Media's site. Cheaper processor and no licensing fees to Dolby and DTS, allows them to make a very affordable card really given the look and specs of it.

I suppose it's disappointing for some not being able to utilise 5.1 from the optical out, but not having that does mean you're not going to get those people who buy such a sound card only to use SPDIF out only.

I know there are people who use that to a maybe an AV receiver as an additional to using headphones from the sound card, or good stereo speakers. That's the best way to make use of the sound card.

For those people though who bought a Xonar Essence just to use the SPDIF output for 5.1, and only that. *facepalm*

shankly1985 · 6 Oct 2015 at 17:45

Marsman said:
The C-Media 8888 does not support DDL and DTSC from what I can see on C-Media's site. Cheaper processor and no licensing fees to Dolby and DTS, allows them to make a very affordable card really given the look and specs of it.

I suppose it's disappointing for some not being able to utilise 5.1 from the optical out, but not having that does mean you're not going to get those people who buy such a sound card only to use SPDIF out only.

I know there are people who use that to a maybe an AV receiver as an additional to using headphones from the sound card, or good stereo speakers. That's the best way to make use of the sound card.

For those people though who bought a Xonar Essence just to use the SPDIF output for 5.1, and only that. *facepalm*

I use soundblaster z for headphone amp and optical to AV receiver.. Headphones being my main use but I can't ignore other features of a sound card. Dolby and DTS have come such a important part of my home setup I would miss not having them.

TwsT · 6 Oct 2015 at 20:18

It's all about preference, I find the virtual surround features on all soundcards horrible now. Just got so used to stereo from the DAC.

Marsman · 7 Oct 2015 at 11:23

TwsT said:
It's all about preference, I find the virtual surround features on all soundcards horrible now. Just got so used to stereo from the DAC.

What you're talking about is virtual surround via headphones though. The OP is referring to DDL and/or DTSC in order to get 5.1 to an AV receiver.

I'm with you though on surround from headphones. So used to stereo now, I don't miss it at all.

TwsT · 7 Oct 2015 at 13:54

yeah I've not used surround speakers since my Cambridge audio 4.1 beige beasts

ElectroBlaster · 7 Oct 2015 at 21:44

Bit green on this but is there any support for Linux with Alsa?

rids57 · 7 Oct 2015 at 22:19

There only seem to be drivers for the various flavours of Windows so far, so it doesn't look like it.

Rroff · 8 Oct 2015 at 00:41

Nice to see some variation.

Looks suspiciously similar to the Asus design in an overall sense - while the Wolfson DAC is good not sure I'd choose it over the PCM179x series (be interesting to see how it fairs head to head with the STX in that regard). Decent choice of stock op amps though instead of as all to often happens the opa213x.

EDIT: Not much detail on the op amp setup - I'm assuming that with the choice of DAC there will be a differential to single ended conversion at some point in that chain U2? and U3 and U4 are likely the current/voltage gain stage.

If so then U2 you'd want a high precision, ultra low noise op amp and U3/4 high gain, high slew rate op amps.

Monkeynut · 8 Oct 2015 at 01:57

ElectroBlaster said:
Bit green on this but is there any support for Linux with Alsa?

The C-Media chipset should in theory be supported but I don't know how Linux will present the inputs/outputs.

**** Power Colour Devil HDX 7.1 Sound Card****

Power Colour Devil HDX 7.1 Sound Card