In this article we will review semi-professional external sound card ESI UGM96. It was released in 2008 year, but in this electronics segment devices become obsolete not so fast, as in other areas. It has 2 unbalanced stereo outputs and 2 unbalanced mono Hi-Z inputs. There is ability to switch one input into microphone input with preamp mode; and there is ability to switch one output into linear mode, so that signal is not processed by sound card’s amplifier. It supports playback modes up to 96 kHz and 24 bits and the same recording modes. There are drivers released for sound card for Windows 10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP ( with ASIO support ) and Mac OS X 10.4 and newer ( with Core Audio support ) operating systems; support of these professional audio playback and recording interfaces allows to do this with very low latency, which is extremely important in professional work with audio. Sound card is fully powered by one USB port. Card has 2 stereo outputs, but does not work in 4 channel mode : both outputs transmit the same signal; it does not support hardware acceleration of 3D sound in games and virtual reality applications ( but software implementation of these functions works without problems with this sound card in all applications ). Sound card sizes are 7 x 8 cm. Based on my experience of work with ESI UGM96, I can say, that this is great sound card : quality of music and sounds in films and games is great; quality of audio recordings with good microphone is also great, and card is supported by all moderns DAWs : FL Studio, REAPER and other. Package contains : ESI UGM96 sound card itself, USB cable, CD-ROM disks with drivers and additional software and user’s guide. There is need to note, that this sound card has one of the lowest prices among external semi-professional sound cards.
