On Wednesday, Turtle Beach announced that the next-generation Montego A3DXstream PCI-based sound card is expected to ship this April.

　　One of the best new features to come to the Turtle Beach line is Aureal Semiconductor's A3D Interactive technology for three-dimensional sound positioning while only using two speakers or a set of headphones. It will be the first card to use Aureal's new VortexAU8820 digital audio processor chip. The A3D technology is supported in many games from some of the big names in gaming: LucasArts, Interplay, GT Interactive, Broderbund, Electronic Arts, Sierra On-Line, Ubi Soft, and Activision.

　　"The Montego A3DXstream, with its phenomenal 64-voice sound palette, A3D positional audio, and blazingly fast PCI-bus structure, will allow customers to experience the latest in multimedia audio technology," said Carmine J. Bonanno, president and CEO of Voyetra Technologies Inc. "In fact, Dell(R) Computer - one of the world's top PC manufacturers - will offer an OEM version on its Dell Dimension XPS D300MHz and D333MHz systems.

　　Unlike many of the current cards, the Montego uses a faster PCI bus to speed up sound processing instead of the current slower ISA connection. This is Turtle Beach's second PCI-based product release. The company's current product, the Daytona PCI, is also PCI-based.

　　The card is also compatible with current and upcoming standards including DirectSound, DirectSound 3D, AC'97, PC'97, and PC'98. One advantage that it has over the competition is that it also supports legacy DOS games. Many of the new PCI cards will run Windows-only games, and a pass-through connection to an ISA card is needed to provide sound for games that aren't compatible with the newer Microsoft sound APIs.

　　On the geek side for all you audiophiles, the Montego sings with 4MB of rich-quality 64-voice wavetable sound delivered through 18-bit D/A converters and has a 92 dB signal-to-noise ratio. It also runs full-duplex recording and playback through hardware and will accept wavetable and S/PDIF expansion cards in case you want more professional-oriented features.