Introduction

Is there room in the gaming sound card market for a new entry, given the all-out war that Diamond and Creative are currently involved in? Between the huge marketing budgets and mindshare of the well-known Monster Sound series from Diamond and the legendary Sound Blaster series from Creative, you'd be hard pressed to realize that any other sound cards are even on the market! This is the dilemma that Yamaha and Sensaura face with their new Waveforce sound card series.

To their credit, Yamaha has an excellent reputation among musicians, and a large part of what the company does is devoted to audio of all types. The broad scope of sound and music products that Yamaha offers, from consumer to professional, is impressive. Take a quick look for yourself at http://www.yamaha.com -- these guys are serious about sound, even if they do dabble in motorcycles and jet-skis now and then.

As far as computers are concerned, the primary claim to fame that Yamaha has in the sound market is their well-regarded XG MIDI standard and the 4mb XG MIDI daughtercards that were all the rage a few years ago. (As a matter of fact, I happen to own two). However, the question remains: what can Yamaha bring to the crowded PCI sound card market?