HT | OMEGA eClaro 7.1 Channels 24-bit 192KHz PCI Express x1 Interface Sound Card

Pros: Best sounding audio card ever. Beats the $600 or $700 cards hands down. Period. I've been an audio professional since 1978. This baby is incredible. Just buy one, and try it. You will be amazed. My ears can hear distortion all it takes is about 3 to 5 minutes, and it's turn that crud off! With a quality sound system this baby is clean! The capacitors are big (a good thing) but it fits on my mother board, a little tight, but no problems. I had no trouble with the drivers and the card and software work well. I would never recommend something highly that I did not believe in. Try it this is great.

Cons: None, Wish I had stock in the company :)

Pros: Emits sound. Doesn't sound bad. I'm not an audiophile, so that's the extent of my assessment for quality.

Cons: I used this card under Win 7 x64 and OpenSUSE 12.3. Win 7 drivers and supporting software seemed not-well-integrated into the OS, but worked well enough. However, this card has absolutely no manufacturer support in linux,--by "support", I mean driver source code or any sort of wiki or open-source repository.

Pros: Easy setup - installation on my ASUS M5A99FX/Win7 system couldn't have been more hassle-free. Downloaded the latest drivers from the website, disabled the onboard ALC892 in Windows, shut down and installed the card. Booted up and ran the driver setup (which only took a few seconds). After a reboot it simply works perfect. No 20 minute B-S driver install like a Creative card. The entire process literally took all of 5 minutes.

Truthfully, the analog out on the ASUS board really isn't half bad - IMHO onboard always blew until the short-lived Soundstorm 2. However, I was instantly floored by the incredible difference of the eClaro. I listen to jazz, and I can't believe how natural the instruments sound. This is before tweaking anything...

*Most* of the capacitors look high quality, Elna, Sanyo, Panasonic, etc. Overall it looks very well made. No problems with the bracket fitment or breakout cable. Looks cool through a side window.

Cons: None yet.

Other Thoughts: Someone below mentioned that the card only works in a x1 slot. Mine is blocked by my graphics card, so I popped it in one of the motherboard's 2 x4 limited slots, and it works fine.

Pros: - Great sound experience in all senses!

Cons: None - Software looks kinda old

Pros: High quality product. Outstanding customer service. I had a tech issue and emailed their help desk. Within minutes someone responded with screenshots of the product's manual. They also reviewed my other audio component manuals to help me set it up.

Cons: Optical cables only support 5.1 discrete channels. You have to rely on your receiver to upmix the last two channles. Settings become very tricky in that you are essentially upmixing an upmix, which impacts the sound quality. I would absolutely reccomend this card to someone who wants a minimalist headphone amp. However, I don't see any advantages over a motherboard if you're using this for a multi-channel digital setup.

Other Thoughts: Really sad to take it back. Good company and a well made product. Just doesnt do what I need.

Pros: fits nice, sound comes out of it.

Cons: It took some time to adjust it for good sound, CD would not work, had to down load the drivers from there web sight. not much better then my old card. no telphone support.

Other Thoughts: If I new it would sound like this I would not have got it, not much of a upgrade.

Pros: Everything.

Have had this card for a while, would buy again. My 2nd sound card from HT Omega. They have not disappointed yet.

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: Buy it.

Pros: I am using these with a pair of Sennheiser HD650's.
Since the card is a DAC, my FiiO E17 is only in amp mode.
One solid recommendation.
Tears. Goose bumps. Everything I could ever imagine.

Cons: You not buying it.

Other Thoughts: Get it. Make sure you go through the software configurations and get everything peachy and tuned to your specific needs.

Pros: Got sound out of it

Cons: Drivers for windows 8 were too buggy to use. some functions wouldn't even work.

Pros: Sound Quality
Versatility
Drivers/Software

Cons: Installation of Drivers/Software
No headphone Amp

Other Thoughts: Both the manufacturer and other reviewers suggest uninstalling any other sound drivers before installation of this card...DO IT!

The fist thing I did with my new rig was disable onboard audio. This was before the OS or sound card were installed. No drivers were ever installed for the onboard audio. However...my Nvidia card put in some sound drivers. No big deal, I thought, GPU sound drivers are nothing like onboard drivers, I thought...NO! Do no let ANYTHING install ANY sound drivers, whatsoever!

I spent the better part of 2 hours dealing with bizarre installation issues. Drivers would install and then end by telling me to plug in my HT Omega device...which was. I would then have to force quit the installer and audio was non functional. Reboot, have perfect audio, sans software. Try to manually install software via online download or disc...impossible. Other times it would tell me to plug in my device and not do anything. Super flaky.

I finally just uninstalled my Nvidia sound drivers to see if it would help...BOOM! Perfect installation of drivers and software.

The software is so bare bones I probably did not even need it - which is great! You get good hardware, don't muck with it via software, let it do its thing. On that note, sound is incredible. It was noticeably better than my Creative X-fi Titanium some lame gamer sound card (their flagship card before the current Recon) even with low bit rate content.

Don't expect this card to drive any high power headphones. I knew it didn't have a dedicated amp but it's advertised in such a way that makes it sound like the jack can drive some decent cans and from what reading I did, it sounded legit. Wrong. This card couldn't hack my 300 Ohm Sennheiser 650s; couldn't drive the bass properly. I wasn't totally convinced that this card would handle the headphones, but it was a let down all the same.

Side note: I have my card in a PCI-E x4 slot. Works fine. Bracket came warped a bit so that the card did not make good contact in the slot when tightened down. Just bent it slightly past straight in the other direction to ensure all the pins make good contact in the slot.