Auzen X-Fi Forte 7.1 Sound Card Review

Since the announcement of Auzentech’s very first sound card based on the Creative X-Fi audio processor, I could not find an answer to one question: why had Creative given birth to its own market competitor? I was really at a loss trying to find an explanation during the review of the Auzen X-Fi Prelude 7.1 because Creative itself did not offer a similar combination of price and sound quality, not even the very option of encoding into Dolby Digital format. The fact that this feature subsequently appeared in the Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium series (and became available for Creative’s earlier products as a paid add-on) makes me suspect the Auzen Prelude to have been a kind of a testing ground for polishing the technology off prior to implementing it in mass products under Creative’s own brand. But it is only new products from Auzentech that might clear up the issue.