Pros: As it pertains to sound quality; everything

Cons: Add in card for the other 5 channels does not have nuts to secure jacks like the left and right channel on the main card; be careful.

Overall Review: I have owned this card for over a year now and I have acquired better equipment such as an Onkyo 5009 receiver, Polk RTi A9 fronts, CSi A6 center, Infinity Entra Bass, Oppo 95 disc player. My original equipment was good, this is better. I have run comparisons between the sound card and the oppo 95. The oppo's analog with SACD is great but you cant play SACD on a computer. Blue Ray DTS HD and Dolby HD are incredible on the Oppo. Mp3 through the sound card is superior to the Oppo. Blue ray sound through the sound card is extremely good but the Oppo has an edge. In the final analysis, a 250 dollar runs head to head with a 1000 dollar disc player! In the case of CD and Mp3, the sound card is superior! One must understand that different platforms have their own strengths as weaknesses. If you have to pick, I'd go with the sound card as it offers more versatility and better value for what it does. The card does a very good job with every format have tried so far. In the last week I added Windows 8. The card seems to like that OS better than Win7. I am trying to not like Windows 8 but I simply cant. I am dual booting between 7 and 8 and there is a difference. HT Omega's customer service is second to none. I had the drivers before I had the OS; Jason is knowledgeable and very quick to respond.

Pros: easy download, has online chat.

Cons: Plays blue-ray in upper left quadrant of the screen. On line chat offers no solution, e-mail results in an endless loop of information requests and finally silence.

Overall Review: the software that came with the liteon ihb 212 which has been reported to not work does very nicely, dont waist time with nero. Cyberlink integrates with media center, nero (if it worked) does not.

Pros: I've had this card for more than a year, I have replaced my AVR (Onkyo 708) with an Onkyo 5009. I purchased Polk RTi A9 fronts with a CSi A6 center and an Infinity Entra Sub. I aslo now have an Oppo 95 (up from a Samsung C6500 BDP)). The Bose 701's are now being used as rears. This sound card seems to have improved as I upgrade. Guess where the bottle necks were. This and Windows Media Center do as good a job with downloaded CD's or MP3's (256Kbs) as does the Oppo 95 or the 5009. Blu Ray audio such as DTS Master or Dolby HD do sound better on the Oppo 95 than the Halo card, however, the sound is very decent.

Cons: There is nothing bad about this card

Overall Review: A diamond can only shine as brightly as the light its reflecting. Don't judge this card based on the sound it produces on a lesser quality system.

Pros: first of all let me say that this card fits in a coolermaster CM690 II case without any modification. I made a cardboard cuttout of the card (5x12) and the card wouldn't clear the upped HDD cage. THe simple solution was to remove the uppescage. The card is measured from the tip of the DVI to the tip of the card, the result is that an eighth of an inch of the oveall length came off the measurment and it fits, tight but no problem. This card replaced a Zotac gtx 9800 1 gig. Oh ya, big difference. Overclocking is simple, fan controll is simple, full size HDMI is convenient,and the card just looks real nice. I watch blueray movies on a 55 inch screen and this card along with an ihb212 player and Nero software. THis setup runs better than the samsung player I have. Im 48 and gaming isnt exactly what im into, I had my fill of shooting in the army, ya know real guns and you didnt get to just play again if you got hit. A flight simulater is looking pretty neat though.

Cons: The included driver disc is useless, the bottom and right side of the window is missing so ya can't hit the go button. Download from the website is simple. The Apps for the PCM is also missing some screen but it functions. The design garage wouldnt load and the sonic slead froze up each time I tried to use it.

Overall Review: Ive heard alot of complaints about the card runnung hot, well not in my case but U do have a lot of fans and I maintain a slightly positive pressure envirnment so it stays clean in the case. Alot of the problem I read about are likely a matter of PSU and RAM. Im runnung 850 watts and 16 gigs of ram with 3.6 gig processer. No problems so far.

Pros: After some imitial issues with getting the computer to recognize the presence of the card, the performance has been quite good. Some form of contamination, wich was not apparent on inspection, caused the card not to make good contact with slot. AN e-mail to the company which was quickly responded to suggested that I use a pensil eraser to clean the contacts on the card. The card was reinserted and then it was immediately recognized. Performance has been qood but not as dramatic as some have stated. The onboard sound is very good (GA FX890 UD5), but there is some difference and the dolby processing is better defined. I am running the caed to a Onkyo TX NR708. The most noticable difference is there is no interruption of the signal as I use the computer for other tasks in conjuction with the media center plaing. That alone is worth it.

Cons: None as of yet.

Overall Review: I would imagine that care should be taken to avoid contamination of contacts on any devise installed on a computer, this was a good object lesson. As previously, there is not a dramatic difference as the quality of onboard is quite good but there is an improvement above a just noticable difference difference. I should also mention that I am a fan of Bose speakers produced before 2003. Sound is infact usually a reflected peception. At one time in my life I survived on the ability to locate and differentiate sound and source very quickly. Properly positioned and tuned Bose speakers are very good.