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IBM Music feature card

P

per

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Jan 21, 2008
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I just received the IBM Music feature card I bought, and I'm curently in the process of checking everything.

The card itself looks quite good. Just a little costmetically on the very left edge of the card (parts of the black stamped letters have minor "scratch" marks from the card holder), and the MIDI breakout box is sligthly yellowed.

There are also some software included:
  • Compose and PlayRec on original disk with original sleeve.
  • Exact copy of Compose and PlayRec, no sleeve, quite a lot of wear on disk surface.
  • Two disks labbeled "MFCED". It appears to be the complete FM-PAK/A from "Association of Shareware Professionals" (don't know if this is the shareware version or full version, I hope it's the full one).
  • A disk labbeled "Songwrite V Data backup", a backup of some tunes I guess. Sadly, the actual "Songwrite V" program wasn't included.
When I tried to run PlayRec or Compose, I got disk I/O errors. This is because the A drive in my XT allways fail approx. 7 out of 8 times when reading a sector between track 20 and track 30. The B drive is still out of alginment, so that's not an alternative.

I can use run MFCED programs, but I have no idea how to use them. The package included a diagnostics program, and it verified that all was fine with card 00, but that card 01 failed the first test (obivously). From this I guess that the card works, and perhaps I can actually use it after I have read through all the help files on the MFCED disks.

The disk images are a little too big to upload here, but I'll send them to anyone interested; just PM me with your email address.
 
I have decided to try to get sound out of the card, but I am wondering if my earphones will do. I know the optimal impedance is 125Ohm (written in the manual), but my earphones are only 32 ohm.

Do I run the risk of frying the amp if I use my earphones with the card?

The reason I ask is because I have actually fried an amp by using a too low impedance speaker (that was an extreme case, though).
 
I don't think you'll fry anything. Amplifiers are most efficient when the impedances are matched. Thus, you might not get as much volume as normal, but it shouldn't be a problem for the amp to drive those headphones.

Kyle
 
Yey, it works...
But it sounds rather whimpy due to the headphone impedance being far from optimal.

By the way; In the manual, it states that "EXTREME CAUTION must be used in selecting playback volume" of the external amplifier when the line-level outputs are used ("due to the high dynamic range and bass response of this card").
 
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