Review Terratec DMX 6Fire USB Soundcard

Sound-Pro

Terratec promotes the DMX 6Fire as a professional audio system for USB 2.0. The extensive interfaces, such as phono input with a RIAA-equalizer and Gain control, XLR microphone socket, MIDI ports, 6 analog outputs and 4 inputs, and a digital input and output is made-up to appeal to semi-pros. The DMS 6Fire USB 5.1 surround sound, however, doesn't give gaming fans EAX or OpenAL support. How the card does in the test can be read in the following review

The DMX 6Fire is the official heir soundcard of the PCI plug-in card named DMX 6Fire 24/96. In comparison, the sound solution is now a full external speaker (previously only breakout) and via USB 2.0 port is also notebook-compatible. Furthermore, the new USB solution also now supports 24 Bit/192 KHz.

The external USB 2.0 speaker impresses due to a metal case with a good manufacturing and haptic. The interfaces are allocated on the front and back side and the built-in rubber dial prevents wobbling and has a pleasant haptic.

There are chips from Xilinx (Spartan XC2S100E programmable FPGA with 2700) cells, Cirrus Logic (CS42426-CQZ 6 channel audio IC with PLL 114 dB / 192 KHz) and Cypress (CY7068013A for the USB 2.0 port) found inside of the pocketbook sized USB speaker.

Aside from a reasonably modern PC with an USB 2.0 interface, the Terratec DMX 6Fire USB calls for especially good DPC latency values (like every external soundcard). This can be checked beforehand with the freeware DPC Latency Checker Tool (there should only be green bars, possibly a few yellow ones, displayed). Otherwise it may come to disagreeable crackling and disruptive sound output, like it does i.e. in the new MacBook Pro notebooks with Windows. However, there weren't any problems with Mac OS X. The external soundcard even ran smoothly on our older Fujitsu Siemens U9200.

The DMX 6Fire USB soundcard has almost everything that might be desired. The name originating from the six analog cinch outputs (for instance for the connection of a 5.1 system) are only the start. Directly beside them are 4 further analog cinch inputs (2x stereo). A special feature is the dedicated interface for a record player (2x cinch + ground). Furthermore, the back side has ports for digital devices with MIDI ports (input and output) and of course the power socket for the adapter and the USB 2.0 connection.

On the front there are the XLR / 6.3 mm cinch plug for connecting a microphone (48V supplied via a switch). Beside this there is a 6.3mm output for headphones and a 6.3mm input for an instrument (i.e. guitar). There is also the digital input and output via cinch or optical plug on the front.

The volume of the input, the headphone socket and the monitoring function can be adjusted with a dial. Two LEDs per connection provide the optical feedback. The blue LED shows if there is an and how powerful the adjacent signal is (by brightness modulation), the red LED indicates an overdrive.

The targeted group quickly becomes obvious with the connectivity at hand. Especially the numerous inputs should be interesting for hobby and semi-professional users. Gamers will rather take soundblaster products from Creative due to the lacking support of EAX or OpenAL.  Furthermore, an automatic coding of 5.1 sound to Dolby Digital Live or DTS is missing, as well. The soundcard can, however, transmit an existing signal to the digital outputs (i.e. DVDs).

Worthy of mentioning is also the monitor function, over which a signal can be looped through the speaker and the volume can be modified.

The outputting of 5.1 sound over the rear cinch connections worked perfectly in the test (tested with Window XP and Mac OS X 10.5). The 6 channels can be set in the Windows system control. For Mac OS X, it's necessary to use the Audio-Midi-Setup tool. Additionally, the Wave Play channels were standardly turned off in Mac OS X (can be managed with the Terratec mixer). The 5.1 output worked perfectly with the VLC player afterwards (with a DVD in the test). The DVD player from Mac OS only emitted stereo and we didn't find an option to alter this.

In case the stereo source of the 5.1 system should be used, the Terratec driver also bids the possibility to split the 2-channel signal to all 6 channels. Both front loudspeakers remain unaffected by this. The center sounds a bit fuller and the rear surround channels somewhat muffled. The driver only leads basses with a fixed set crossover frequency. Regrettably, this setting can't be adjusted comfortably and other presettings aren't available either.

In order to receive objective measurements we used the software Arta and the RightMark Audio Analyzer with Loop cables to test the soundcard.

We tested the rear analog output and input with a connection via a cheap cinch cable (input ½ to output ½). The input presented itself very good with a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 99 and 95 dB and a distortion factor of 0.004% and 0.0056%. This was measured with a loud sine wave (calibrated to -3 dB by Arta and the integrated routine in the Audio Analyzer).

In comparison to an integrated Realtek HD audio soundcard of the FSC U9200 subnotebook the 6Fire showed considerably better measured data in the measurements.

In addition to this, we also measured the connections on the front. The measuring results were somewhat poorer with Arta (the Audio Analyzer couldn't cope with the input of the XLR connection).