Aztech

Aztech Labs started in 1986 in Singapore, as a manufacturer of disk drives and modems. They arrived slightly late to the home computer audio market, but became very successful in this area, primarily because they formed strong partnerships with the big box PC-compatible OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) and peripheral manufacturers such as Packard Bell, Reveal, Trust & HP.

A 1996 report by DataQuest Inc. placed Aztech as the world's second largest supplier of discrete sound cards with 37% of world market share.  Aztech was also the world's third largest modem supplier (Dataquest '97).

The company are still in business but focus these days on wireless technology for businesses and IP cameras.

When the multimedia boom hit in the 90s, Aztech were quick to launch a series of 'Multimedia Upgrade Kits' (MUKs) that comprised one of their sound cards, a CD-ROM drive, two desktop speakers, and usually a CD-based game title. Such kits include the Asteroid and Voyager, both released in 1994. Asteroid was marketed as the basic kit while Voyager was aimed at the more experienced gamer. Both contained the exact same hardware (a Nova 16 sound card and Aztech Labs' Zeta CD-ROM drive) but Voyager included Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Comanche: Maximum Overkill, Wired for Sound Pro, The Software Toolworks Multimedia Encyclopedia, Macromedia Action! 2.5, Learn to Use Windows and Professor Multimedia. Asteroid came with only the latter three plus Day of the Tentacle.

While the Aztech range of sound cards doesn't quite rival Creative Labs in terms of the sheer volume of model numbers, they probably run in 2nd place with in excess of 35 different sound cards produced between 1992 and 1998.

Aztech sound cards by generation (read further down for generation changes):

Pre & 1st Generation	2nd Generation	3rd Generation	4th Generation
BX (1992) NX (1992) BXII (1992) NXII / NXII Extra (1993) NX Pro / Extra (1993) NX Pro 16 / Extra (1993) WavePower (1993) Basic 16/Pro 16 (1994)	Nova 16 / Extra (1994) Pro 16 II (1995) Orion 16 (1995)	Waverider 32+ (1995) Washington 16 (1995) Multimedia Pro 16 (1995) Multimedia Pro 16 IIB-3D (1996) Multimedia Audio Telephony 2000 (1996) Multimedia Audio Telephony 3200/3260 (1996) Pro 16 II-3D PnP (1996) Nova 16 Extra II-3D (1996) Multimedia Pro 16 ABI/ABO (1996) Waverider Pro 32-3D (1996)	Waverider Pro 32-3D PnP (1997) Galaxy Pro 16 III 3D PnP (1997) Waverider Platinum-3D PnP (1997) Multimedia Pro-16V (1997) Multimedia Pro-16 IIIS+ PnP (1997) Multimedia SC128-3D (1998)

Creative Labs issued a lawsuit against Aztech Systems Pte Ltd in 1996, stating that Aztech had infringed on their copyright in various firmware and software they had created for the Intel 8051. Both the firmware in this chip and their CT-VOICE.DRV and TEST-SBC.EXE files were allegedly copied in full or in part during the creation of Aztech's BX, NX and NX Pro sound cards. Aztech denied the infringement (despite stating they had a right to debugging the Creative card they had purchased to understand its mode of operation), and won the case in the High Court. It went to appeal and was overturned in favour of Creative on the grounds that it was a patent case, not a copyright case, and that Aztech did not have the right to use and sell the protected work.

2nd- through 4th-generation cards all supported Sound Blaster Pro 2.0. None of their cards supported Sound Blaster 16.

The best Aztech card that supports the broadest audio formats is the Sound Galaxy Pro 16 (I38-MMSD810). This supports Covox Speech Thing, Disney Sound Source,Ad Lib, Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 and Windows Sound System. The only thing it doesn't have is wavetable header support under MS-DOS.

1st Generation

The first generation of Aztech sound cards was based around the Aztech AZTSSPT0592-U01 or AZTSB0792-U07 chipset. All of the 1st-generation cards support Adlib and Sound Blaster 2.0, and aside from the BX cards also support Disney Sound Source & Covox Speech Thing. Some of the later ones from 1993 onwards added Sound Blaster Pro 2 and Windows Sound System support. *None* of the 1st generation cards got an MPU-401 UART-compatible MIDI interface - instead theirs was compatible with the Creative Sound Blaster MIDI interface.

2nd generation

All 2nd-generation cards have the AZT-1605 chipset. Whilst these have the excellent Yamaha YMF-262 OPL3 chip for stereo FM synthesis, they only support Ad Lib, Windows Sound System, and Sound Blaster 2.0 (mono) on their DAC. They do not support Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 digital output under DOS. The 2nd generation also dropped support for Covox Speech Thing and Disney Sound Source. All of this generation got an MPU-401 UART-compatible MIDI interface.

3rd generation

All 3rd-generation cards have the AZT-2316 chipset. These all support Adlib, Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 and Windows Sound System. They are configured through a combination of jumpers on the board and software settings via the CONFIG.EXE utility in the driver software. Settings from this utility are saved to the card's EEPROM, so it will retain its settings next time you reboot assuming the jumper marked JMPCFG is set to EEPROM on the card.

All 3rd-gen cards have an MPU-401 UART-compatible MIDI interface. One advantage of these is that the first two generations were supposedly timing-sensitive, so if you're running a 1st or 2nd generation card in anything faster than a 486 you may experience issues - these problems are gone in the 3rd generation of cards.

The AZT-2316 lacks a low-pass filter, which makes the output sound more trebley when compared to the Sound Blaster Pro.

4th Generation

The 4th-generation cards are based around the AZT-2320 chipset. These still come in both PnP and non-PnP variants. For DOS gaming, the PnP ones are naturally more difficult to configure (you usually need to load the DWCFGMG.SYS driver at startup - this is the Intel PnP configuration manager - and then run DIAGNOSE.EXE), so probably best to avoid these cards for that purpose. The 4th generation really doesn't provide any benefit over the 3rd-gen cards either, and since most 4th-gen cards are PnP, I would advise sticking to 3rd-gen non-PnP cards.

A summary of all the Aztech sound cards for DOS. Click for a larger version

Issues with poor digital sound quality

Poor digital sound quality in DOS is actually due to a setting in the soundcard's Mixer control utility. This can affect 1st-gen right up to 4th-gen cards. All you have to do is to load the Mixer control TSR (normally found under the relevant soundcard's subdirectoy called "utility") and look for a setting where you can toggle between MONO or STEREO (the older soundcards' Mixer control had drop down menus, whereas the newer ones had a more simplified Mixer control). Select MONO (not STEREO), save and exit. You can unload the Mixer TSR afterwards. If you playback your games' digital sounds now, the sound quality will not sound as distorted/muffled. Bear in mind that this won't affect the actual digital sound output - a stereo sound source will still produce stereo sound provided you select the correct option in the game (SB Pro or SB Pro 2).

Wavetable Support

Some cards support wavetable daughterboard cards via a Wave Blaster header. Some support Aztech's own wavetable daughterboard called WaveTide - these require both a Wave Blaster header and an EXPCON (expansion connector) header to be present on the card.

Here are some Aztech drivers and other software that aren't necessarily model-specific:

Aztech Business Audio Drivers for Win3.1
Aztech Sound Galaxy Drivers for Win3.1
Aztech IDE CD-ROM driver
Aztech Multimedia Kit add-on programs
Aztech WaveTide MIDI Synthesizer software
Sound Galaxy Developer Kit Version 1.06