Closer Examination:
Here you can see the X-Plosion 7.1 DTS Connect sound card. I was surprised at how little wasted space there is on this card. If anything else needed to be added, it would require the card size be increased, or for a daughter card be utilized.
 
Looking at the backplate we see all of the connectors for speakers, microphones, and headphones.
Starting on the left of the card we have a line in, and a microphone input. Then we have the speaker connections: front, side, back, center/sub-woofer. Two additional digital connections are also provided in the form of a coaxial and an optical output. All of the connectors are gold plated to provide an optimum connection / sound quality.
Here you can see a close-up of the onboard connectors. Starting at the top of the card we have a 4-pin auxiliary input with the 4-pin CD input next to it. Moving down the side of the card we have a standard 16-pin MIDI input and a 12-pin SPDIF input from an optional digital input module. Next to that we have a white 4-pin connector for SPDIF IO for 3rd party digital I/O boards. The last connector is the 2-pin CD SPDIF used to connect a digital cable to your optical drive.
In the image above you can also see the sound processor chip, the C-Media CMI870/PCI-8ch. This is the first sound card to include both Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect. This new technology can take any audio and convert it to a Dolby Digital or DTS signal for an external sound system. Dolby Digital Live is not necessarily new, it has been used before, and is also a feature of Intel's HD audio specification.
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