The sound card market is a very strange one these days. When Creative released the Sound Blaster series computer sound really took off and there were quite a few competitors in the market at that time. The big chip firms were Ensoniq, Creative, Cirrus Logic, Aureal and others. Through the years though, due to market pressures, buyouts, and legal action we now have only three major manufacturers of standalone sound chips. I am not simply talking audio codecs and the integrated sound functionality on the chipset level, but true standalone sound chips that work independently of the CPU..



Link: PenstarSystem