M-AUDIO Sonica Theater (MAC/WIN)

Nov 1, 2003 12:00 PM, By David Myles Huber

Overall EM Rating (1 through 5): 4

Successful surround-sound production requires not only a thorough understanding of mixing and encoding techniques, but also the right gear. It's particularly important to have a flexible and well-laid-out monitor-mixing environment. To that end, M-Audio's Sonica Theater ($119.95) offers a versatile and inexpensive solution for getting surround audio from your computer into your monitoring system.

M-Audio's Sonic Theater is a USB audio interface that allows for multiformat surround output as well as stereo input.

Marketed through M-Audio's Consumer division, Sonica Theater is a USB audio interface and software package for the Mac (OS 9 and OS X) or PC (Windows 98SE, 2000, ME, and XP). Although it's small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, it includes features that can turn your computer into a fully functional multiformat surround-sound monitoring environment. In addition, the unit gives you 24-bit, 96 kHz stereo audio input. (M-Audio also offers a more fully featured PCI version, the Revolution 7.1, for $119.95.)

Bells and Whistles

The front of the self-powered Sonica Theater has a solitary blue LED; the back panel is where the action is. There you'll find a USB port, an RCA S/PDIF digital output, an ⅛-inch stereo Line In for recording, and an array of ⅛-inch line-level stereo outputs for Front L/R, Surround L/R, Center/Subwoofer, and Surround-Center L/R. These outputs can be used to connect Sonica Theater to powered monitors or a surround receiver. Sonica Theater can output a variety of formats ranging from stereo all the way to 7.1 surround, with audio resolutions as high as 24 bit, 96 kHz.

Control and configuration of Sonica Theater is achieved by using the intuitive, software-based control panel that can be opened by clicking on the M-Audio icon in the Taskbar (Win), the Control Panel (Mac OS 9) or the Applications Folder (Mac OS X). At the top of this panel are five icons that let you quickly change stereo and surround monitor modes. Below these are a series of tab menus for tailoring the system to your specific environment.

First is a Speaker Setup tab that's used to adjust the output to match the size of your main stereo speakers. The Speaker Bass Management tab allows you to tailor the speaker-to-sub crossover points. Surround test tones can also be selected from this tab to set level balances.

The Output Mixer lets you adjust individual speaker levels, with full metering and solo-mute capabilities. The Surround Sound tab graphically shows your surround setup and includes options for monitoring in full SRS Circle Surround II. This handy LRCS (left-right-center-surround) decoder is similar to Dolby ProLogic in that it generates a pseudosurround mix from an ordinary stereo — or Dolby ProLogic — recording.

The Input/Other tab lets you change input levels and choose the sampling rate and bit depth. An Enable Monitoring feature can also be used to route the line-in source directly to the Front L/R speakers. (That comes in handy when using editors that don't allow direct monitoring through the software.) Finally, a Master Volume fader and a Mute button are always present at the bottom of the panel, no matter which tab is selected.

My Two Cents

After traveling around the country with my laptop and Sonica Theater for over six months, I can report that I've never had a lick of trouble from the M-Audio unit. Even the install was completely painless. In numerous studio and surround-sound settings, Sonica Theater has simply and consistently put out good-quality surround mixes from my portable.

Sonica Theater is an ideal choice for anyone who's interested in building a DAW-based surround-sound monitoring environment. Speaking as someone who has a surround-capable personal studio and two surround theater systems, this approach is more cost-effective and easier to operate than its hardware counterpart, especially if you're using active monitors.

On the entertainment side, it's nice to know that Sonica Theater can play Dolby Digital and DTS surround from any software DVD player that can decode surround on the fly. Finally, using its Circle Surround decoder, Sonica Theater can really open your ears to a whole new playback experience by extracting a convincing pseudosurround image from a surprising number of stereo recordings, even from those favorites that you've known for decades.

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M-Audio
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