Sonifex Auricon 4.4 PCIe Analogue Sound Card, 40 Ohms Balanced Impedance

The Sonifex Auricon 4.4 PCIe Analogue Sound Card is a professional quality 4 stereo input and 4 stereo output analogue PCIe audio card. The inputs and outputs can be reconfigured as separate mono channels, giving eight inputs and outputs. It is supplied with a Windows WDM driver to provide full sound card functionality under Windows XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008, Windows 7, Server 2008R2, Windows 8 and Server 2012.

The card uses 24-bit 192kHz sigma-delta converters which pass data to and from the PC via a single lane PCI Express interface. An onboard FPGA provides audio buffering, level adjustment and mixing functions. Hardware sampling rates of 48kHz, 96kHz and 192kHz are available, with the Windows sampling rate converter transparently providing support for other rates. The card supports extended bit depths to 32 bit and the software sampling rate and bit depth (32, 24, 16 or 8 bits PCM) can be set independently for each input and output channel. Windows Wave, DirectSound and DirectShow API's are supported, as are a variety of audio compression modes via the Windows Audio Compression Manager or other software compression systems. On Windows Vista/Server 2008 and later systems, the Core Audio API is also fully supported.

There are four configuration settings for the Auricon 4.4, these being Mode (stereo/mono), H/W Sampling Rate, Input Coupling and Nominal Line Level. The mode may be configured as either stereo or mono. In mono mode the number of input and output channels that Windows sees is doubled. The nominal line level can be set to +8dBu, +4dBu or 0dBu. In each case the clipping level is 16dB above the nominal level. The input coupling can be set to either DC or AC (the default is AC). The playback topology consists of a master output level, mute control and peak meter and input monitor level and mute controls for each of the line inputs. The record topology consists of a master input level, mute control and peak meter and level controls and mutes for the physical input and digital loopback. The digital loopback allows the output of the card to be digitally mixed back into the input. The range on the input and output master controls is -96dB to +6dB, while the individual line controls range from -96dB to 0dB. Multiple cards may be installed in a single PC.