jmke

The Audigy 4 Pro itself is PCI 2.3 compliant, and includes an external breakout box, which is connected to the PCI card via both a FireWire and proprietary connection. It includes 2 FireWire ports, a 1/4” Line-In, a 1/4” Line-In with Mic boost option and gain control, a 2x RCA Line-In, a 1/4” Headphone port, Master Volume control dial, CMSS Enable toggle, SPDIF Optical In/Out, MIDI In/Out, SPDIF Coax In/Out, and the proprietary Creative 4-pole Digital Out 1/8” port. The external box sports the CS4392 DAC for the headphone port, which is a 114dB 24/192 rated DAC, in addition to the TI/BB PCM1804 ADC (112dB SNR, -102dB THD) for recording.

The interface for the breakout box is the CA0151, with the supporting CS8420 chip, which was used for the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro. To quote Amy Stojsavljevic, PR Specialist from Creative, “The CS8420 chip is the interface chip to the external box. Basically, it is a digital resampler that is put in to make sure that the audio signals are in sync when going to and from the external hub. The problem that this solves, is that audio signals can get out of sync due to the length of the cable (which is a benefit for a breakout box), so this allows the cable to be longer WITHOUT the audio being out of sync. This is not different from our implementation in the Audigy 2 ZS.” There was some speculation as to its purpose, so I'm glad we got that cleared up.

http://www.3dss.com/reviews/Audigy4Pro/audigy4pro.html

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