For those of you clinging tightly onto your soundstorm equipped SocketA boards and refusing to upgrade merely because of that delightful dolby-encoding goodness, you're about to discover something that'll give you EVERY reason to finally throw away that old(er) tech for some new goodies.

But before I go any further, i'm not sure if some of you realise that "HiTec Digital Audio" have relased a standalone PCI soundcard not all that long ago dubbed the "X-Mystique 7.1 Gold", which to the best of my knowledge is the first (and only) seperate sound solution currently on the market with dolby live encoding in hardware (not unlike NVIDIA's soundstorm offering). If this has sparked plenty of interest alone, then you can get the full scoop on the card's capabilities within a recent review found over at NVNews. This standalone solution would've allowed you guys to make the move up to a newer LGA775 or Athlon64 platform without kissing your precious dolby live goodbye.

HOWEVER! In saying all of that, i'd still be holding off a bit longer after hearing what DTS have in store for us all. Dished out in the form of a press release just recently, "DTS Connect" is where the focus should be now I think.

A DTS Connect-enabled PC provides two audio benefits to the consumer: DTS Interactiveä and Neo:PCä, for both multi-channel and stereo content. Taking full advantage of the maximum data throughput of the digital interface, DTS Interactive provides a single cable connection via S/PDIF digital audio output to a DTS-enabled surround sound system by encoding all audio into a DTS-compatible bitstream at 1.5Mbps. Neo:PC, based upon DTS' Neo:6 matrix surround technology, transforms any stereo content such as MP3, WMA or CD audio, into a 7.1-channel surround sound experience.