Turtle Beach Tropez / Tropez 32 / Tropez Plus
An uncommon detour for Turtle Beach away from professional audio quality, the Tropez series of cards provided Sound Blaster, SB Pro and Windows Sound System (WSS) compatibility coupled with GM wavetable sampled sound.
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Released | Early 1995 (Tropez), 1996 (Tropez Plus) |
| Bus | 16-bit ISA | |
| Synthesizer | ICS WaveFront 2115/2116 + Yamaha YMF262 | |
| Chipset | Crystal CS4231 (Tropez, Tropez 32) or CS4232 (Plus) | |
| Standards | General MIDI (via wavetable) | |
| Ports | Mono Mic In, Stereo Line In, Stereo Speaker Out, MIDI port | |
| Memory | ROM: 1 MB (OEM cards only?), 2 MB or 4MB (Retail cards only) RAM: Up to 8.25 MB sample RAM (Tropez), or up to 12.25 MB (Tropez Plus) |
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| Part # | TBS-2000 (Tropez 32), TBS-2001 (Tropez Plus) | |
| FCC ID# | JMN-TBS-2000 (Tropez 32) | |
| Price | At launch: $249 (retail Tropez), $209 (street) Later reduced to $199 (Tropez) |
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| See Also |
The heart of the original Tropez was the Crystal Semiconductor CS4231 (also found on the MediaTrix AudioTrix Pro), which at the time was considered to be the most expensive mainstream sound chip available that provided SB and SB Pro compatibility and it had a great SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio).
The Tropez32 was the name given to the 1 MB ROM variant.
The Tropez sound card takes advantage of the ICS WaveFront's ability to replace the soundfont held in its onboard ROM with another of your choosing. To achieve this, Tropez has two RAM slots that accept SIPP memory. When you load a new soundfont into its RAM, the card detects this and uses that instead of the onboard ROM samples.
It used the soundfonts from VoiceCrystal (same as those used by the TB Rio, TB Maui and Aztech WaveRider 32).
The Tropez Plus differs from the Tropez in three key areas.
- It supports a larger soundfont RAM area (up to 12.25 MB)
- It comes with a built-in effects processor.
- The Crystal chip used is the newer CS4232 which was their first PnP chip.
Rich Heimlich (user Agrajag27 on Vogons.org, and a widely respected and professional sound card tester) had this to say about the base Tropez: "Currently the best single card solution available. Decent patch set, RAM-able, SB-Pro compatible, fully Windows Sound System compatible. Software needs work so beginners may have difficulty installing it.
It could also be a bit easier to work with on a daily basis."
You do need to install drivers for this to work. Digital audio quality is outstanding, 9 out of 10. Music quality is quite a bit worse.
Board Revisions
Just one board revision is known: 1.3 (Tropez)
Competition
In the Media
The top-rated Tropez produces excellent music; you'll have a hard time distinguishing between your PC and your stereo. And Doom II delivers pulse-pounding audio action that really draws you into the multimedia experience.
Along with great sound, Turtle Beach provides thoughtful touches to help ease installation: an excellent all-in-one manual with a large troubleshooting section, DOS and Windows test utilities, and an option for DOS-only or DOS and Windows installation.
Other extras include an Enhanced IDE CD-ROM interface; RAM expandability to 12MB; Windows recording, playback, and mixer utilities; and a Windows stereo rack program that plays audio CDs and .WAV or .MID files."
Electronic Entertainment, 1994-1995
Setting it Up
I don't have any information on configuring the Tropez.
Downloads
Operation Manual Get in touch if you can provide this! |
Original Driver Disk Get in touch if you can provide this! |
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