Review on 🎧 Vantec UGT-S220 7.1 Channel PCIe Sound Card by Nathan Skipper

For almost a year I have been using this sound card for my home theater which is connected to my Harman Kardon AVR 3600 surround sound receiver via the optical port. I bought it because I needed a low profile sound card with SPDIF output. It generally worked, but I've encoded a lot of movies as MKV files in DTS. Regardless of the player software, this card wants to revert to Dolby Digital when you pause the movie. So let's say you take a break to go to the bathroom, it switches from DTS to Dolby Digital and the speaker goes POP! And POP HISS when you stop moving. LOUD and BAD. If it's a Dolby Digital film, then everything is fine. I've tried everything. I mean everything that has come to my mind in my 23 years in IT. Then I started reading about a specific Directv POS receiver model that had this problem, regardless of receiver brand. This led me to believe that this was the source. I just ordered an Asus Xonar card which I believe has a Realtek chipset and the problem is gone. No more loud bangs. In fact, the receiver now stays in DTS until another program tells it to switch modes, then toggles silently. Now he is stable. When I took the Xonar out of the box and placed it next to this Vantec card, it was obvious. Vantec is half the size of Xonar. The Xonar is stronger, longer and has many more components. They have the same price.