The Contents
The reference board we received from ESS looks traditional at first… except this card was equipped with one interesting feature: discrete 5.1 channel audio output!
![Canyon3D 5.1 Sound Preview [ The ESS Canyon3D @ 618 x 555 ] > View Full-Size in another window.](images/card-s.jpg) The ESS Canyon3D
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![Canyon3D 5.1 Sound Preview [ The Canyon's backside @ 824 x 214 ] > View Full-Size in another window.](images/backplate-s.jpg) The Canyon's backside
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External Connectors
| Stereo L/R Front Output |
| Stereo L/R Rear Output |
| C/S Output (Center/Subwoofer) |
| Microphone/Line In |
| Coaxial SPDIF out |
| MIDI/Digital Gameport |
![Canyon3D 5.1 Sound Preview [ The settings window @ 364 x 452 ] > View Full-Size in another window.](images/settings-s.jpg) The settings window
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Internal Connectors
CD-Audio (4-pin Creative-style)
Auxilliary (4-pin Creative-style)
Unfortunately, due to the 5.1 discrete output, a separate "Line In" and Microphone input was not provided. Instead, you have to choose between the two and set your jumpers correctly. This may be a significant problem for those with a secondary sound card or a TV tuner card. One thing that was disappointing is the inability to select between these settings in software although it should be noted that we were using incomplete drivers.
The Specifications:
| 32 Hardware DirectSound 3D Streams |
| Burr-Brown DAC |
| 2, 4, 4.1 and 5.1 speaker configurations |
| Sensaura MultiDrive HRTF |
| 64 Voice Wavetable Synthesis with up to 32MB of samples in RAM (2MB/4MB patches incl.) |
| S/P-DIF Output |
| SB Link / PC-PCI support for DOS Legacy support |
| A3D 1.0 Emulation |
| EAX |