Rating: 
Summary: Campare with Sound Blaster live
Review: In comparison the two sound very similar. However the functionality of the guillemot is far superior to Sound Blaster Live platinum and the price???? Well you be the judge of that. A definite value for the gamer and for entertainment. Using mine to run my own "digital recorder and game system" Sounds great hooked up to a dolby digital reciever.
Rating: 
Summary: Piece of junk!
Review: Ok, first of all, the installation was a pain. Windows 2000 automatically installed "Crystal Soundfusion" drivers on reboot, and it was a pain to get rid of them (involving me having to manually erase INF files and such). Once the card finally was installed, the volume coming out of the unit was very very low, and turning it up caused distortion, even though the volume was low. Apparently the audio-outs are NOT amplified in the slightest.SP/DIF was a joke as well. I could not get PowerDVD to output to SP/DIF in Windows 2000. Even had the card set to it, yet no audio to my reciever. What did work was setting my audio output to go through the SP/DIF, although you can't control volumes (so the stereo signal goes through all 6 speakers at once--not good at all). In games, the EAX/A3D emulation is horrible. It sounds like the rear channels are playing more sounds than the front (and the front is "muffled" sounding).. I thought maybe I had connected the speaker leads incorrectly, but double-checking I saw they were correct. Go figure. Tribes 2, Soldier of Fortune, and Quake3 Arena all showed this problem. Uninstalling the card was a pain as well. After I had used their own uninstallation utility for removing the software, I put my SB Live! back in, and restarted... well, the SB Live! worked fine, but the stupid "GameTheatreXP" icon was still in my system tray, and in my control panel. I had to manually erase these files from my SYSTEM32 directory in order to get rid of them. Overall, this card promises more than it can deliver. It's pretty much a big piece of junk! I'm sticking with my SB Live!, thank you very much.
Rating: 
Summary: Changed Review - upped rating
Review: Originally I had problems with the installation, I actually returned the item to store. But I reordered when it was on sale at Amazon.com I got it installed on Win2K by using the second to latest set of drivers. And customer support is EXCELLENT! They were of great help and answered the phone on 2nd ring (how often does that happen!) I have had great luck with the card - I use it solely for music though, not gaming. I used the MIDI and all the other inputs without issues. Anyone who bought the product will get a kick of the picture posted here of the cable, if you do choose to purchase this product you will see the cable is as thick as a garden hose - not thin like in picture!
Rating: 
Summary: Lots of features, never could get it installed
Review: The card has wonderful specs, great panel design, but it has virtually no documentation and no help for installation. I am not a computer newbie either, I could never get this card installed and had to return it. Once all installed with no conflicts the sound was faint. To be fair I never dealt with their support line. I gave it two stars because if you can get it installed the features are very good for the price, but the hastle is not worth it. Bear in mind the comment about USB Hubs - they are not powered and a lot of things won't be recognized. Anyone who bought the product will get a kick of the picture posted here of the cable, if you do choose to purchase this product you will see the cable is as thick as a garden hose - not thin like in picture!
Rating:
Summary: very discusted by the support and compatibility
Review: The GTXP is definately designed and built with high quality, but thats where it ends. I loaded this into a dual P3 system under Win2k. The sound was awesome when first started with MP3's but under any game, the front speakers were the only ones running. Drop out of game, and the software for this had changed it from 5.1 to 2 speakers. did this every time. I got the latest drivers, and even worse results. I thought trying it in two different single cpu systems running ME and Win 98 would rectify the problems but no, same thing with high end games. I then went to Hercules website and checked the forums there. If you are thinking of buying this card, I recommend you do that first. There is nothing but problems with the majority of these units and Hercules has stated on the site that they do not intend to create any more drivers for this card, it's in the hands of Crystal (Cirrus Logic, who makes the chipset) So, it was packed up and shipped back today, my Live is back in. Next card to try will be the Phillips models. :(
Rating:
Summary: Sound Quality is Great! Ports Galore!
Review: The sound quality on this sound card is incredible. It uses the same technology that drives the TB Santa Cruz. The 3D positioning is one of the best and that helps your gaming experience reach a new level. DVD's may not play as great with the Game Theater XP as it is with the Philips Acoustic Edge, but the games play much better due to the superior sound positioning. The Game Theater XP has hardware MP3 decoding so it doesn't use a lot of the CPU which comes in handy if you have a slow processor. The thing that really stands out in this card are the ports. This card connects to a box that's about the size of a thick hub. It has coaxial ports, optical ports, a game port, USB ports, and many more! You can easily connect a 5.1 or even a 7.1 sound speaker setup and it works perfectly! I recommend this card and is one of the best!
Rating:
Summary: Sound Quality is Great! Ports Galore!
Review: The sound quality on this sound card is incredible. It uses the same technology that drives the TB Santa Cruz. The 3D positioning is one of the best and that helps your gaming experience reach a new level. DVD's may not play as great with the Game Theater XP as it is with the Philips Acoustic Edge, but the games play much better due to the superior sound positioning. The Game Theater XP has hardware MP3 decoding so it doesn't use a lot of the CPU which comes in handy if you have a slow processor. The thing that really stands out in this card are the ports. This card connects to a box that's about the size of a thick hub. It has coaxial ports, optical ports, a game port, USB ports, and many more! You can easily connect a 5.1 or even a 7.1 sound speaker setup and it works perfectly! I recommend this card and is one of the best!
Rating:
Summary: The Beast of Sound Cards! RRrrrrRRR
Review: This is the best sound card I have ever seen! The sound quality is PERFECT! It was a simple install, unless u used WINME and didn't read the hecules web page, then you might have run into some problems. But after visiting there page and getting some info, I was able to install it. Also may I add you can install manuals (download from Hercules.com) I gave it 5 starts because it's very versital, the optical ports are a great help - for the near future. This is a cheaper then LIVE! sound card and produces a MUCH better sound quailty.
Rating:
Summary: You Can't Beat the Game Theater XP!
Review: This sound card is by far the best on the market. I hesitate to even call this product a "sound card" because it is sooo much more! 4 usb ports, digital inputs(optical too!), serial port, and much more are included on the external unit in this package. A 4 port hub costs $50 alone and this has it built in. If you are looking for an audio solution for your computer, look no further, the Game Theater XP by Guillemot is the best there is.
Rating:
Summary: SoundBlaster is dead, long live the new king
Review: Very nice soundcard. Installation was a snap (as long as you follow the instruction manual. This isn't a simple sound card like the SB's) in windows 98/me. A little more trickier for 2000, but then again, you are getting much much more hardware than the Lives so more to set up. Once installed this thing runs circles around my Live Platinum. For those using dual processors, this is your answer. SB Lives have issues with dual CPUs, the XP loves it. The quality is top notch. As an owner of a computer store, this will be gracing my shelves very soon as a must have for high end gaming/multimedia systems.
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