Turtle Beach Santa Cruz

In Brief

With its superb sound, six-speaker support, 1,000 MIDI voices, and ridiculously low price, the Santa Cruz is the clear choice for amateurs and serious hobbyists. Whatever sound board came with you computer, rip it out and install a Santa Cruz. You'll wonder why you waited so long.

Price

$79.95

Voyetra Turtle Beach
Yonkers, N.Y.

Competition

As the years have passed, many companies, including Ensoniq and Yamaha, have withdrawn from the sound card market, but a few remain. Check out Creative Technology, Hercules, Philips, and SIIG.

Features

• Cirrus Logic SoundFusion DSP

• 2, 4, 6-speaker support

• Direct headphone drive capability on all analog outputs

• Software controlled output muting circuitry

• >96 dB signal-to-noise ratio

• 18-bit analog-to-digital converters for recording

• 20-bit digital-to-analog converters for playback.

• Dual digital outputs

• CD digital input

• 10 band graphic equalizer with digital display

• More than 1000 MIDI synthesizer voices

• Array of digital/analog inputs and outputs to handle PC audio requirements

• High-resolution converters for reproduction of MP3, WAV, CD, DVD

Multimedia Reviews

Reference Guide has the reviews of all the top multimedia products:

Audio:

• Xitel PC-to-stereo-system link

• Amphony digital wireless headphones

• Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card

Imaging:

• Kodak DC3600 digital camera

• Pacific Imaging 35mm film scanner

Media:

• Plextor 40/12/40 USB 2.0 CD-RW Drive

• Y-E Data 6-in-1 memory card reader

multimedia gear

Turtle Beach Santa Cruz Sound Card

Rating:

By Joel Shore

Think your PC or Macintosh has great sound? If yours came with the vendor's standard offering, think again. Wait a minute, you ain't heard nothin' yet.

Turtle Beach has been proving that

Got speakers? The Santa Cruz is astonishingly versatile when it comes to connecting speakers. Configurations with 2, 4, and 6 speakers are supported. Of course, headphones can be plugged in as well.

Two speaker mode. To get standard stereo output, connect a pair of speakers to the Front Out (green jack; see photo). Many computer stereo speaker sets also include a powered subwoofer (though it's not a separate channel), so you can actually drive three speakers with this configuration.
Four speaker mode. Setting the speaker mode to the "4 Speaker" configuration lets you connect four speakers (plus subwoofer). This mode is useful for listening to normal and enhanced stereo, quadraphonic panning of stereo input signals, and the 4-channel audio that's becoming increasingly common for 3-D game software. The two speaker pairs are plugged into the Front Out (green) and Rear Out (black) jacks.
Six speaker mode. Setting the Speaker Mode to the "6 Speaker" configuration is useful for listening to normal stereo, enhanced stereo (using effects), quad playback of stereo material, 4-channel audio for 3-D games, 4-channel audio with Virtual subwoofer and center channels and playback of decoded AC-3 5.1 from DVD (requires a compatible software DVD decoder). The front and rear speaker pairs are connected as in the four-speaker mode, noted above. In addition, the VersaJack (yellow) is set to "Analog Out" to drive a powered center channel and subwoofer speakers. Unlike the two- and four-speaker modes, in six-speaker mode, the subwoofer is fed by a separate channel.

is product is currently slated to ship in late 2002. The company is currently taking reservations. You’ll have to decide for yourself whether it’s worth the steep price. And, of course, there’s no guarantee that it can prevent tragedy. But the Wherify is a landmark product that proves that you can buy peace of mind. And that’s a pretty good start.<

Yeas & Nays

Yea:

4DVD playback with full six-speaker support

41,000+ MIDI voices

4Versatile output

4It’s a wristwatch, too

Nay:

4Some user reports of driver conflict; we had no problem

4Has is really come to this?

Remember MIDI

MP3 is the current rage, but if you want to create your own music, you'll want to work with MIDI files.

MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) does not record sound (like MP3, WAV, or WMF files do). Instead, it records a set of instructions. That means you can tell your computer to play your cool melody on a saxophone, and then change it to a guitar, flute, or anything else.

The software you use to record and edit MIDI is called a "sequencer." Connect a MIDI-compatible keyboard, and you'll be off and running.