Terratec is a small computer audio specialist based in Germany. Its product range has long been renowned among project music studio owners and, recently, its competitively priced multi-channel audio sound cards and I/O boxes have found favour with the same audience.

In the consumer field, however, Terratec has been less successful, especially outside its native Germany. But this could change with the introduction of the superb DMX 6fire 24/96. On paper it looks a similar proposition to Creative's Soundblaster Audigy Platinum: both are 24bit/96KHz 5.1 cards with a breakout I/O box mounted in a spare 5.25in drive bay. But the 6fire has a few extra tricks up its sleeve, especially where musicians are concerned, despite being based on older technology.

The 6fire is based on ICEnsemble's tried and trusted Envy24 chipset, as used in several project studio cards. This superb chipset is capable of mixing 20 24bit audio channels with 36bit headroom internally, so it immediately stands head and shoulders above Audigy which, despite being labelled as a 24/96 card, mixes 16bit/48KHz streams with 24bit headroom internally.

This isn't necessarily that significant in reality unless you're intending to mix a 24bit digital S/PDIF input with internal 24bit digital audio, which a project studio owner might well find useful. Unlike the Audigy, the S/PDIF inputs can also be synchronised to the incoming clock signal, allowing both internal and external digital audio to be mixed without glitching or resampling.

Like the Audigy Platinum, the 6fire has a fully specified breakout box with a range of convenient connections: line level stereo input, stereo line out and, unusually, a proper phono input complete with pre-amplifier.

This is a fabulous plus point if you intend to capture your old records to CD. There's also a microphone input with adjustable gain and a peak LED, twin coaxial and optical S/PDIF inputs and outputs, plus Midi sockets. This is a better feature set than the Audigy, except for the omission of Firewire connectivity.

The six-channel 5.1 outputs are found on the card's spine, with the usual stereo front, stereo surround and centre/sub mini-jack sockets. Terratec has laudably seen fit to bundle Cyberlink's PowerDVD 3.0 with the card, which supports software decoding of Dolby Digital soundtracks to both four- and six-speaker systems.

It was during testing of DVD playback that we stumbled across the Envy24 chipset's problem with Adaptec 2490UW SCSI cards - they don't mix! However, once the SCSI card was removed, six-channel audio playback from DVD worked fine.

Although the 5.1 sound quality was excellent, the 6fire drivers lack the ability to divert low frequencies from the centre, front and surround channels to the subwoofer channel. This is possible with Audigy, and gives better results when using speaker systems with small satellites.

For gamers, the card is less attractive than the Audigy, given that Creative has once again upped the ante with its new EAX Advanced HD technologies.

However, the drivers support Sensaura's 3D audio APIs and EAX 2.0, which is more than adequate for current games.

The software package is excellent. Not only is there a version of Emagic's Logicfun but CD writing software Feurio, Musicmatch Jukebox, Sound Laundry denoiser and declicker (for vinyl restoration), Steinberg Wavelab Lite and full PowerDVD 3.0 (notably absent from the Audigy package).

Terratec's DMX shows a clean pair of heels to the Audigy for home studio musicians while offering full six-channel DVD playback and adequate gaming performance.

If you have an older Terratec EWS64XXL digital breakout box, including the MicrowavePC synthesiser add-on, you will be able to use this with a future driver revision. There's also a full daughter board connection if you've a classic wavetable board such as Yamaha's DB50XG lying around. The 6fire is highly recommended for musos, and it's cheaper than the Platinum.

Contact: Eurotech 0870 458 0011 www.terratec.net