Introduction

Today for review we will be looking at the new HT Omega Striker 7.1 sound card. HT Omega first showed its new Striker 7.1 sound card via C-Media's booth at this year's Computex Tradeshow in Taipei. The Striker 7.1 appears to be HT Omega's first product in the sound card market.

Until I was offered this review I had never heard of HT Omega so I did some research online and I discovered that HT Omega was a US based company operating out of California and their engineers have been designing soundcards for the past five years. Their website says they have their own dedicated research and development division and they specialize in professional audio components. The Striker 7.1 sound card is their initial offering into the consumer PC audio market and it is based on Dolby Digital and DTS Technologies.

Unfortunately their website was less than helpful when I was looking for detailed company information or even where I could buy their products. Since they appear to be a new company in the consumer market I will let this pass but I really hope that when their products hit the retail market they make some serious updates to their site's content.

Specs

- C-Media CMI8770/PCI-8ch PCI Chipset (8CH audio chipset with Dolby Digital Live Real-Time Content Encoder and DTS CONNECT technology enabled PCI audio chipset)
- High performance OPAMPs for Output channels and MIC Input with enhanced microphone input level circuit design
- Front Panel Audio support: 10pin connecter for Front Panel Audio of PC case. It supports link detection automatically. With the front panel audio enabled, users can connect a second microphone without any reduction of input signal levels. (U.S. Patent Pending)
- Onboard Optical transmitter for up to 24-bit/96kHz Optical Digital Output, Gold Plated RCA connecter for Coaxial Digital Output
- Two onboard S/PDIF Input connecters: Coaxial or CD_S/PDIF Input (S/PDIF-IN #1) and onboard Optical Input (S/PDIF-IN #2) (optional cables not included)
- Coaxial or Optical S/PDIF Input for recording, monitoring, bypassing digital audio from external sources at 16-bit/44.1kHz, 16-bit/48kHz, 24-bit/96kHz sample rate
- C-Media Xear 3D 7.1 Virtual Speaker SHIFTER technology
- Sensaura CRL3D HRTF 3D positional sound enhancement with MultiDrive, EnvironmentFX, ZoomFX, MacroFX, etc.
- A3D 1.0, EAX1.0, 2.0 (powered by Sensaura), HRTF-based 3D Positional Audio (C3DX ), DirectSound3D Software
- Unique Karaoke functionality: Mic Echo, Key-shifting, Vocal Cancellation
- 10-band Equalizer with 12 preset modes; 27 global environment effects
- Supports 7.1Ch playback for Windows XP, Windows 2000 (Microsoft DirectX 9.0 or higher is required)
- 3m optical digital cable included
- Drivers for Windows 2000, Windows XP and XP64

The Striker 7.1 was defiantly designed for the home user with Home Theatre PCs in mind. Linux drivers would be nice but since this is an upstart company I understand not supporting Linux just yet.

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