Auzentech's new HDA X-Plosion sound card is a step up from their previous model, the X-Mystique. Both cards feature Dolby Digital Live capability, but the X-Plosion takes it one step further with DTS Connect 7.1. For those unfamiliar with the technologies, both DDL & DTS Connect essentially take any audio source (usually 2-channel) and convert it into a multi-channel (5.1 or 7.1) Dolby Digital or DTS bitstream. That data can then be sent over a single SPDIF cable (either coax or optical) to a surround sound system.
The technology isn't exactly new, NVIDIA's SoundStorm on the nForce 2 chipset would encode audio into 5.1 Dolby Digital format, and that's initially what got a lot of enthusiasts hooked. However, NVIDIA made a fatal mistake and decided not to adopt their SoundStorm technology with the future nForce 3 & 4 chipsets, though there are rumors it might make a comeback in the nForce 5.
