TheInquirer takes a look at the Terratec Aureon 7.1 sound card. Here's an excerpt:

The Aureon 7.1 PCI is a new card, not to be confused with the Aureon 7.1 Space, Universe or Firewire. Its main claim to fame is that it has real-time Dolby Digital encoding. But even there the name is misleading. While the card is capable of 7.1 sound, that's only if you hook up four cables to it. There's no Dolby Digital EX 7.1 sound, only traditional Dolby Digital 5.1 when you use the optical out.

The most important thing about any sound card is, of course, the sound. Plugging in the Terratec and installing the software, the first thing to try were some CDs. Air's Talkie Walkie, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and Bizet's Carmen all sounded wonderful on direct digital from the discs.

This was something of a surprise. The test PC had been linked to the amplifier using an S/PDIF connection from an on-the-motherboard sound chip. It should have sounded exactly the same but the Terratec was far more transparent and open. Chalk up the one and only good point. From there everything was downhill.