THE SOUND BLASTER AE-7

The Sound Blaster AE-7 is a rather compact card that features a nice gunmetal grey aluminum cover and measures just 145mm in length, 128mm in height and 20mm in thickness (identical size to the AE-5 Plus).

To have a better idea of its size i placed the AE-7 right next to the quite larger AE-9 and NU Audio Pro models.

These two stripes and the Sound Blaster logo are the only parts of the card that illuminates (white LEDs).

Creative has used a black PCB for the AE-7.

Moving at the front we find the 3.5mm microphone/line-in port, 3.5mm headphone out port, three 3.5mm 5.1 line out ports and the TOSLINK (SPDIF) optical out port.

The audio control module bundled with the AE-7 may be smaller compared to that of the AE-9 but it feels far sturdier.

As mentioned earlier not only does this module feature both 6.3mm and 3.5mm input/output connectors for microphones and headphones but it also comes ready with a volume control knob and a build-in microphone.

The module sits on a rubber pad that takes pretty much the entire base and keeps it in place.

Both 3.5mm connectors coming out from the ACM are gold plated.