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IMG's own audiophile Greg Gant has looked closer at the Sonica Theater, an USB audio output device from M-Audio. This little box adds the possibility for surround sound on Macs that haven't got the possibility to install the M-Audio Revolution 7.1 PCI card.

From the review:

For the most part the Sonica Theater functions exactly like the Revolution 7.1. Surround sound is obtained through one of two routes: digital or analog. Before I dive into pros and cons of each, it is first important to understand Circle Surround II. The Theater has the ability to make any stereo signal (game, music or movie) into surround sound. It uses SRS Lab’s Circle Surround (CSII) to interpret the stereo source into surround sound. CSII is not without its faults, however. It cannot decode Dolby Digital or DTS into discrete multi-channel audio. CSII yields results that are not nearly as accurate or clean as if the Dolby Digital or DTS soundtrack were played on a surround sound setup. Also CSII cannot be used with the digital output

M-Audio

Sonica Theater

IMG Review: Sonica Theater

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