Aureal Semiconductor

Aureal Semiconducter was a company known for the Vortex chipsets that were released with sound cards in the late 1990s. The Vortex was famous for its advanced 3D sound reproduction through headphones and desktop speakers in games. In addition to supporting DirectSound3D and EAX like its main competitor (Sound Blaster Live!), it also featured its own proprietary 3D audio technology, called A3D. A3D was generally considered to be superior at its time, but support from games was not as common compared to Creative's EAX. Vortex cards also support Sound Blaster emulation in DOS. Aureal went bankrupt in 2000.