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Razer announces new audio products

by: John -
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The folks at Razer, best known for their really cool mice, has announced two new audio products. The first is a sound card titled Barracuda AC-1. The card features 7.1 channel output and 24 bit audio technology. The other new piece of tech from them are the Barracuda HP-1 Gaming Headphones. The headphones feature eight discrete audio drivers and has a built-in microphone. It's kinda amusing to see Creative who's speciality is sound cards try their hand at peripherals and Razer who is best known for mice trying their hand at audio.

Razer Barracudaâ„¢ Integrated Audio System (IAS)

Razer™ launches the Razer Barracuda™ Integrated Audio System at CeBIT ‘06—Hannover, Germany

Hannover (Germany), CeBIT 9 March 2006— Razer™, the world’s leading brand in professional computer gaming peripherals is proud to launch the Razer Barracuda™ Integrated Audio System (IAS) comprising of the Razer Barracuda AC-1 Gaming Audio Card and Razer Barracuda HP-1 Gaming Headphones at CeBIT in Germany.

Designed and engineered from ground up by the Razer engineering team, the Razer Barracuda AC-1 and HP-1 are integrated as a single, pure gaming audio system — the Razer Barracuda IAS is the world’s first integrated audio system built specifically for gaming.

Powered by Razer Fidelity™, the Razer Barracuda IAS delivers optimized audio signals directly from the computer game to the gamer, creating the most realistic gaming environment possible. The Razer Barracuda IAS also features proprietary Razer audio technologies including the patent pending Razer Enhanced Sonic Perception™ (ESP) architecture and Razer’s 3D (720°) Positional Gaming Audio Engine.

Razerâ„¢ believes that audio solutions today fall short of demanding gaming requirements as most existing soundcards and headphones are built for music playback and then repackaged as a gaming soundcard or headphone. Pre-requisites for gamers such as accurate positional audio and expanded dynamic soundstages are poorly integrated into the current audio solutions, often as an afterthought.  Audio card software drivers are repeatedly built over legacy code that was designed for music playback, resulting in bloatware that slows down computer systems and compromises overall audio quality during fast paced gaming sessions.

Enlisting the help of top audio experts, designers, engineers, audiophiles and pro-gamers, Razerâ„¢ re-engineered audio hardware chipsets to remove unnecessary hardware components, optimized and upgraded the essential audio components as well as streamlined drivers to specifically focus on gaming applications.

Over thirty top pro-gamers worldwide were tasked to stress test and critique the Razer Barracuda IAS in the course of its development. Based on their various comments and contributions, voluminous lines of code were thrown out, circuit diagrams redesigned and components selected to provide top notch gaming audio performance.

Razer’s President, Robert “Razerguy” Krakoff says: “Audio cards that were built for listening to music have been repackaged as ‘gaming soundcards’ to take advantage of the burgeoning gaming market…Razer is the world’s first company to focus on designing and engineering an audio solution from ground up. We didn’t bother focusing on either the soundcard or the headphones but developed the Razer Barracuda IAS as a single audio system to create the world’s best gaming audio.”  

Razer Barracuda AC-1 Gaming Audio Card

The Razer Barracudaâ„¢ AC-1 Gaming Audio Card features a 7.1 channel output, 24 bit audio technology and unprecedented 117dB SNR (output).

The 117bB Signal to Noise Ratio (output) specification clearly outperforms all current soundcards in the market that only perform up to an average of 105dB. The Razer Barracuda AC-1 Gaming Audio Card is the world’s first gaming audio card that performs up to a 117dB SNR.

Gaming-specific positional audio, Powered by Razer Fidelity™, allows gamers to take advantage of an expanded dynamic soundstage for gaming tuned frequencies with Razer ESP™ (Enhanced Sonic Perception™). The in-built audio chip processes and optimizes audio signals from games to provide the ultimate positional gaming audio experience through the Razer 3D (720°) Positional Gaming Audio Engine™.

The Passive EMI shieldâ„¢ minimizes electromagnetic interference (EMI) by preventing unwanted interference from graphics cards and other electrical devices that may affect the gaming audio performance.

The Razer Barracuda AC-1 Gaming Audio Card also features optimized proprietary software drivers to provide for the prioritization of enhanced gaming audio signals while leaving as small a memory footprint as possible.

Razer HD-DAI™ (High Definition—Dedicated Audio Interface) further optimizes the Razer Barracuda IAS gaming audio experience by allowing for a proprietary connection for optimized signal transmission when used with the Razer Barracuda HP-1 Gaming Headphones.

Razer Barracuda HP-1 Gaming Headphones

The Razer Barracuda™ HP-1 Gaming Headphones uses 99% oxygen-free copper cable for gaming audio signal purity. The Razer Barracuda HP-1 Gaming Headphones also provides for eight discrete audio drivers for optimal positional audio without compromising the gamer’s comfort when using the headset.

With some of the best components selected for the ultra-sensitive speaker drivers, the Razer Barracuda HP-1 Gaming Headphones delivers pinpoint positional accuracy essential for gaming.

The Razer Barracuda  HP-1’s built-in microphone is designed specifically for in-game communications—featuring a short shaft for enhanced comfort and audio pickup, the microphone also features advanced noise cancellation capabilities ideal for frenzied in-game correspondence.

Powered with Razer Fidelityâ„¢, the Razer Barracuda HP-1 may be used with all soundcards; however, using it with the Razer Barracuda AC-1 gaming soundcard is strongly recommended as it delivers the best gaming audio experience in the world today.